Bill McKibben Quotes

It takes more than a few generations to change a human nation. Those who are intent to bring (change) will do so.

With every throb of the climatic pulse which we have felt in Central Asia,, the centre of civilisation has moved this way and that. Each throb has sent pain and decay to the lands whose day was done, life and vigour to those whose day was yet to be.

The Earth cannot wait 60 years. I want a future for my children and my children's children. The clock is ticking.

Nevertheless, during the sixty years of the twentieth century many problems have come increasingly into the realm of acceptable public discussion.

Eventually the revolutionaries become the established culture, and then what will they do

How is it possible that in just the last ten years all of these things which were taboo throughout our culture, throughout the culture, things that were taboo are now not only normal but celebrated, and people who were not really supportive of them are called kooks and the new weirdos?

I’m glad mainstream culture is starting to catch up to where lesbian-feminism was 30 years ago.

Taste for things of the past evolves, doesn't it? What was a masterpiece a hundred years ago is no longer so today.

This world of ours is a new world, in which the unit of knowledge, the nature of human communities, the order of society, the order of ideas, the very notions of society and culture have changed, and will not return to what they have been in the past. What is new is new, not because it has never been there before, but because it has changed in quality.

Only in the last few years did the science crystallize, revealing the urgency - our planet really is in peril. If we do not change course soon, we will hand our children a situation that is out of their control.

Change occurs slowly. Very often a legal change might take place but the cultural shift required to really accept its spirit lingers in the wings for decades.

My main theme is the extension of the nervous system in the electric age, and thus, the complete break with five thousand years of mechanical technology. This I state over and over again. I do not say whether it is a good or bad thing. To do so would be meaningless and arrogant.

I think people look at revolution too much in terms of power. I think revolution has to be seen more anthropologically, in terms of transitions from one mode of life to another.

We are running out of time, we must have a planetary solution to a planetary crisis.

Twenty-five years ago people could be excused for not knowing much, or doing much, about climate change. Today we have no excuse. No more can it be dismissed as science fiction; we are already feeling the effects.

Artists... disappeared long ago as social forces. So did the church.

Pakistan is running away from talks which will be held only when we get reply. Time available is only tonight.

I believe we find ourselves in a period of radical transformation. Regardless of whether it is digitalization, the environment or terrorism. We can be successful in this new world. We have the necessary willingness. The French are inventive and innovative. But we need to finally pick ourselves up.

I think we have a very brief window of opportunity to deal with climate change. No longer than a decade at most.

And now it's your turn - the time to answer the greatest challenge of our existence on this planet is now.

The people of Iran have been battling against consecutive conflicts between tradition and modernity for over 100 years... some have tried and are trying to see the world through the eyes of their predecessors and to deal with the problems and difficulties of the existing world by virtue of the values of the ancients... many others...seek to go forth in step with world developments and not lag behind the caravan of civilization, development and progress.

If my goal is to change Colombia, which it is because I really think Columbia has to change in many, many ways - I think it has to be a very profound, nearly spiritual maturing process in the Colombian society because I think you have to first be aware of what's happening and it's not easy because many people don't want to see what's happening.

What we have lived through, the 20th century, has been like a great party. Adults now have had the best time humanity has ever had. Now the party is over and the Earth is reckoning up.

All times are changing times, but ours is one of massive, rapid moral and mental transformation. Archetypes turn into millstones, large simplicities get complicated, chaos becomes elegant, and what everybody knows is true turns out to be what some people used to think.

Sociologically, large groups of people don't generally have massive changes in their belief instantaneously.