GLOBAL WARMING QUOTES
quotations about global warming
I think that the Greenhouse situation is a lot like alcoholism. It isn't one moment or one single drink that does you in. Can there be a single "a-ha moment' when you realize that civilization has moved from social drinking (of oil and coal) into a substance-dependent, blackout situation? As an individual, when you're on that slippery slope, there probably is some moment of revolt when your sense of dignity is offended. You wake up in a pool of your own vomit for instance, or find your clothes ripped off by some total stranger. Time to put the cork in the bottle. Find something more life-affirming to do with your time. Unfortunately our society can't rally the way a person can. So instead, we're ending up with these grotesque affronts massive heat waves, dying coral reefs, huge floods and so on, popping out across the face of the planet like an alcoholic's veins. But we're in denial about the Greenhouse thing.
BRUCE STERLING
interview, Aug. 9, 2009
This may surprise you, because it surprised me when I found out, but the single biggest thing that an individual can do to combat climate change is to stop eating animals. Because of the huge, huge carbon footprint of animal agriculture. I was shocked to find out that animal agriculture directly or indirectly accounts for 14.5% of all greenhouse gas emissions, compared to all transportation -- every ship, car, truck, plane on the planet only accounts for 13%. Less than animal agriculture. So most people think that buying a Prius is the answer, and it's certainly not wrong, but it's not the biggest agent of climate change.
JAMES CAMERON
"Director James Cameron on Vegan Diet", Ecorazzi, April 12, 2014
Inaction on climate change won't just be costly in dollars--it will cost us our planet.
ILHAN OMAR
Twitter, January 11, 2020
For 25 years, countless people have stood in front of the United Nations ... asking our nations' leaders to stop the emissions. But clearly this has not worked, since the emissions just continue to rise. So I will not ask them anything. Instead, I will ask the people around the world to realize that our political leaders have failed us, because we are facing an existential threat and there is no time to continue down this road of madness.
GRETA THUNBERG
"Our Leaders Are Behaving Like Children", Democracy Now, December 11, 2018
People tend to focus on the here and now. The problem is that, once global warming is something that most people can feel in the course of their daily lives, it will be too late to prevent much larger, potentially catastrophic changes.
ELIZABETH KOLBERT
The New Yorker, Apr. 25, 2005
Two thousand scientists, in a hundred countries, engaged in the most elaborate, well organized scientific collaboration in the history of humankind, have produced long-since a consensus that we will face a string of terrible catastrophes unless we act to prepare ourselves and deal with the underlying causes of global warming.
AL GORE
speech at National Sierra Club Convention, Sept. 9, 2005
Global warming sounds so big that it's hard to imagine that you as an individual can do anything about it ("what I do is such a tiny drop in the bucket it doesn't matter anyway"). But that's where you're wrong: the reason Earth is in peril is because of individual actions--by me, by you, by the person sitting next to you, by the person you bump into on the street. The bad news is that when we put all those individual actions together, it becomes on huge number--big enough to change climate, big enough to change how Earth supports life. The good news--the very good news--is that, just as the problem is the sum of what each one of us is doing, so is fixing the problem.
ANTHONY D. BARNOSKY
Heatstroke: Nature in an Age of Global Warming
Global warming is too serious for the world any longer to ignore its danger or split into opposing factions on it.
TONY BLAIR
speech, Sept. 27, 2005
The good news is we know what to do. The good news is, we have everything we need now to respond to the challenge of global warming. We have all the technologies we need, more are being developed, and as they become available and become more affordable when produced in scale, they will make it easier to respond. But we should not wait, we cannot wait, we must not wait.
AL GORE
speech at National Sierra Club Convention, Sept. 9, 2005
Scientists ... out on a limb in the face of a peer group which holds a robust counter-view, have ultimately been proven correct on many occasions during the history of science. One can think of Galileo, and even Einstein. But the stakes are a little different with global warming. The future of civilization, perhaps even of life on Earth, did not potentially hinge on Galileo or Einstein being right.
JEREMY K. LEGGETT
The Carbon War
I'm agnostic as to the causes. All I know is there is water where there once was ice.
THAD ALLEN
Smithsonian Magazine, March 2010
The blunt truth about the politics of climate change is that no country will want to sacrifice its economy in order to meet this challenge.
TONY BLAIR
address to the the G8 climate change summit in London, November 1, 2005
We wield an enormous influence over the world through how we choose to vote and what we choose to buy. Again, it's the power of numbers. If voters hold their leaders responsible for doing something about global warming, it will get done. If most people refuse to buy products from companies that, for example, wrap products in more plastic than necessary, pretty soon the plastic wrapping will stop.
ANTHONY D. BARNOSKY
Heatstroke: Nature in an Age of Global Warming
There's no debate as to whether we should continue producing fossil fuels. There's no debate. We should not. Every single scientific consensus points to that.
ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ
attributed, Curious Earth, August 19, 2019
No single technology will stop global warming, but there is a silver bullet: a cap on carbon that will launch all these solutions into the mainstream.
FRED KRUPP
Earth: The Sequel
The story of humankind and our relationship to the earth may be seen as a continuing adventure or a tragedy shrouded in mystery. The choice is ours.
AL GORE
Earth in the Balance
All across the world, in every kind of environment and region known to man, increasingly dangerous weather patterns and devastating storms are abruptly putting an end to the long-running debate over whether or not climate change is real. Not only is it real, it's here, and its effects are giving rise to a frighteningly new global phenomenon: the man-made natural disaster.
BARACK OBAMA
speech, Apr. 3, 2006
Preservation of our environment is not a liberal or conservative challenge, it's common sense.
RONALD REAGAN
State of the Union address, Jan. 25, 1984
The insistence on complete certainty about the full details of global warming--the most serious threat we have ever faced--is actually an effort to avoid facing the awful, uncomfortable truth: that we must act boldly, decisively, comprehensively, and quickly, even before we know every last detail about the crisis. Those who continue to argue that the appropriate response is merely additional research are simply seeking to camouflage timidity or protect their vested interest in the status quo.
AL GORE
Earth in the Balance
We stand now where two roads diverge. But like the roads in Robert Frost's familiar poem, they are not equally fair. The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork of the road--the one less traveled by--offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of the earth.
RACHEL CARSON
Silent Spring