John Holdren Quotes

We could not wipe ourselves out with a nuclear war. I do not want so sound too positive. It would be a catastrophe, but it would not be a final one. We are not powerful enough for that. An asteroid could be that powerful. That is why we need to do our homework.

Life on Earth is at the ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as sudden global nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers we have not yet thought of.

Sometimes I still worry that the next day will be the last day of the Earth.

Before the boiling of blood and the searing of skin comes the secret catastrophe: Before Life on Earth becomes finally merely impossible, it will for a long time before have become completely unbearable.

The environmental crisis is a signal of this approaching catastrophe.

All the higher life forms scythed away, just like that. [ . . . ] Nothing but dust and fundamentalists.

The world was floods above and fire below

The world is literally about to blow up.

Do you think we're going to hit a tipping point and the world's going to end?

We are within measurable, or imaginable, distance of a real Armageddon. Happily there seems to be no reason why we should be anything more than spectators.

Future historians will find it ironic that we had so many debates about climate change when something else was about to smash us.

The probability of apocalypse soon cannot be realistically estimated, but it is surely too high for any sane person to contemplate with equanimity.

When you ask people what they think of Africa, they think of AIDS, genocide, disasters, famine.

The apocalypse is not around the corner.

History is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes

Near the gates and within two cities there will be scourges the like of which was never seen: famine within plague, people put out by steel, crying to the great immortal God for relief.

Perhaps one day the world will end, giving the last group to predict it the satisfaction of being right - but as many have been wrong so far, it does not seem wise to make public policy on the back of these fears.

We are heading towards catastrophe. I think the world is going to pieces. I am very pessimistic. Why? Because the world hasn't been punished yet, and the only punishment that could be adequate is the nuclear destruction of the world.

What's the worst that can happen? A tidal wave? Glaciers with guns?

She couldn't survey the wreck of the world with an air of casual unconcern.

If current tendencies persist, the outcome will be disastrous before too long. Large parts of the world will become barely habitable affecting hundreds of millions of people, along with other disasters that we can barely contemplate.

We know that to wage a nuclear war today, for example, would be a form of suicide; or that to pollute the air or the oceans in order to achieve some short-term benefit would be to destroy the very basis for our survival.

Famine, plague, death and war... that's a pretty good description of 1917-18. The war was meant to end quickly, but by 1917 it seemed to be set until the end of time. No wonder everyone dreamed of an apocalyptic intervention.

Do they see the lethal insanity of a race to the brink of oblivion, and then over the edge? Apparently not. If they did, surely they wouldn't be racing to begin with. Or is it a simple failure of imagination? One doesn't like to think such a rudimentary failing could bring about the end, yet...

If we don't cut carbon's money pipeline, we will pay for their gasoline with floods, droughts, fires, super storms, drowned cities, mass extinctions, wars, and collapsing civilizations.