Bill McKibben Quotes

It's imperative that we opt out of the fossil fuel endgame.

The second thing is, if you want to do something about global warming, you have to think much more long-term. There is something wrong with saying we should start using renewables now, while they are still incredibly expensive.

The growing evidence of climate change is forcing attention on carbon emissions and their reduction.

The U.S. has historically been the world's largest contributor to climate change.

Climate change is a complex problem with no central lever, and with unequal distribution of resources.

Every footstep we take, every action has a consequence. We breathe in weather, but we breathe out CO2. We're responsible for weather and for climate.

CO2 is the exhaling breath of our civilization, literally... Changing that pattern requires a scope, a scale, a speed of change that is beyond what we have done in the past.

In my personal belief, the big problem with climate change is getting people to understand the magnitude and scale that we're dealing with. If you buy a vehicle that gets 35 miles to the gallon, that means nothing; it's not enough. We need to make changes across society and in every piece of the energy pie.

When you have energy companies like Shell and British Petroleum, both of which are perhaps represented in this room, saying there is a problem with excess carbon dioxide emission, I think we ought to listen.

I believe that global warming is a myth. And so, therefore, I have no conscience problems at all and I'm going to buy a Suburban next time.

The effects of climate change are real and must be acted on.

When the President was asked about global warming at a public appearance yesterday, he responded by talking about America's addiction to oil. You make the connection.

Make no mistake: Tackling climate change is vital. But to see everything through the lens of short-term CO2 reductions, letting our obsession with carbon blind us to the bigger picture, is to court catastrophe.

Climate change is obviously happening and there is obviously a man-made contribution.

The reality is that de-carbonisation is not happening fast enough.

Many of the technologies we've invented are necessary to keep 6.5 billion people alive. We can't go back from that, so we need to decarbonize really rapidly.

The biggest drag on global growth in the coming decade will be the impact of energy on the environment.

Science is science, and there is no doubt that if we burned all the fossil fuels that are in the ground right now that the planet’s going to get too hot and the consequences could be dire.

Every day, we're learning about what's happened with global warming and what's happening all around the world, and our employees and our customers are really feeling that it's time to step up and make a difference.

And by the way, the United States is the biggest cause in global warming pollution. And we're doing the least about it. I find that personally embarrassing.

We actually all care about the environment, and most people believe in climate change and believe that mankind has something to do with that - how much is scientifically debatable, but there is some effect and we all have an interest in reducing carbon emissions, just having cleaner air, cleaner oceans. It's something we can get behind.

If you're serious about climate targets, you don't build and expand the oil sands and move from coal-fired electricity to inefficient fracked gas.

I want everyone else to become a global warming activist so it's not all on my shoulders.

We cannot afford to burn the vast majority of known fossil fuel reserves.

You can't just do one of the things, because it won't be enough to combat the climate change that we're already starting to experience. It will only get worse.