Michael Parenti Quotes

Clouds of a different sort signal an environmental holocaust without precedent. Once again, world leaders waffle, hoping the danger will dissipate. Yet today the evidence is as clear as the sounds of glass shattering in Berlin.

If left unchecked, global change will create violent conflict, torrential storms, shrinking coastlines, and irreversible catastrophe.

What's at risk [in 100 years] if we do not take action, truly is the survival of civilization as we know it... Literally that is the case. We have seen global warming so far of just a little bit less than one degree Celsius and look at what's happened. Superstorm Sandy. Boulder Colorado. All these fires. Hurricane Irene one year before.

We are on the precipice of climate system tipping points beyond which there is no redemption.

I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while.

Now comes the threat of climate crisis - a threat that is real, rising, imminent, and universal. Once again, it is the 11th hour. The penalties for ignoring this challenge are immense and growing, and at some near point would be unsustainable and unrecoverable. For now we still have the power to choose our fate, and the remaining question is only this: Have we the will to act vigorously and in time, or will we remain imprisoned by a dangerous illusion?

I'm willing to engage or indulge real ideas, but if we don't do something [about global warming], we're all going to die! What's it going to take, a big f--ing disaster with all kinds of people dying? We need to change our priorities fast.

We're looking at catastrophic impacts in our lifetime, not only that every month now we're setting a new World Almanac record.

Is it 10 years, 20, 50 before we reach that tipping point where climate change becomes irreversible? Nobody can know. There's clearly a probability distribution. We need to ensure this planet, and we need to do it quickly.

Climate change is a global problem. The planet is warming because of the growing level of greenhouse gas emissions from human activity. If this trend continues, truly catastrophic consequences are likely to ensue from rising sea levels, to reduced water availability, to more heat waves and fires.

Tipping points are so dangerous because if you pass them, the climate is out of humanity's control: if an ice sheet disintegrates and starts to slide into the ocean there's nothing we can do about that.

A spiritual voice is urgently needed to underline the fact that global warming is already causing human anguish and mortality in our nation and abroad, and much more will occur in the future without rapid action.

As signs of climate instability increase, radical and rapid action is becoming ever more urgent.

The pace of global warming is accelerating and the scale of the impact is devastating. The time for action is limited - we are approaching a tipping point beyond which the opportunity to reverse the damage of CO2 emissions will disappear.

Global warming is the foreboding thunder in the distance. Ocean acidification is the lightning strike in our front yard, right here, right now.

Al Gore is not just whistling in the wind. Global warming is for real. Every scientist knows that now, and we are on our way to the destruction of every species on earth, if we don't pay attention and reverse our course.

Whether the process proves to be Kyoto or something else, let's acknowledge the urgency of global warming.

Ultimately, here is the choice we face: we can either make the solution to the climate crisis the central organizing principle of civilization–or the hostile conditions we are creating will grow rapidly worse, thickening the smothering blanket of global warming pollution surrounding our planet and destroy the viability of civilization as we know it.

We simply must do everything we can in our power to slow down global warming before it is too late... The science is clear. The global warming debate is over.

There is no Plan B becasue there is no Planet B.

This country has wasted too many years pretending it had the luxury of debating climate change.

We got a dying world around us.

Human extinction in our children's lifetime, it should be your top news item every single day, what's happening, you should be holding politicians to account.

The UN has given us until 2020 to change the course of humanity. If that doesn't happen human extinction in my children's lifetime is a possibility.

We're not just being dramatic talking about a human extinction - that's the pathway we're on. We have to look at the bigger picture. If your child had cancer and it was unlikely they were going to survive, you'd do everything in your power to fight it.