Climate action

"Most people are engaged in building up their community as a defense."

"Right now we are facing a man-made disaster of global scale, our greatest threat in thousands of years: climate change. If we don’t take action, the collapse of our civilisations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon."

"When we look at the rising ocean temperatures, rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and so on, we know that they are climbing far more steeply than can be accounted for by the natural oscillation of the weather … What people (must) do is to change their behavior and their attitudes … for our upcoming generation we have to do something, and we have to demand for government support."

"Just knowing what’s right, or healthy, or environmentally friendly isn’t really a sufficient model for changing behaviors."

"The fact that your neighbor can look at your solar panels and ask you questions has more impact than just listening to experts on TV."

"Climate messages are most impactful when they resonate with and affirm a person’s underlying values and identities."

"There’s a psychological phenomenon called ‘reactance,’ that means when people believe that their choices are being limited or they’re going to have to engage in costly behaviors, they’re likely to push back against that and the message can backfire."

"In an integrated system, all of the products of an interaction can cycle locally. Food scraps from the table can feed the chickens. Chicken waste can feed the worms. Worms can feed the chickens. Worm castings can provide the nutrients for vegetables. Vegetable trimmings can feed the chickens. The chickens, eggs and vegetables can feed the people producing the table scraps."

"Freed from the ‘tyranny of the two-by-four and four-by-eight,’...we can build a house out of anything."

"It seems highly likely to me that climate change poses a major problem for the planet. I say “highly likely” rather than “certain” because I have no scientific aptitude and remember well the dire predictions of most “experts” about Y2K. It would be foolish, however, for me or anyone to demand 100% proof of huge forthcoming damage to the world if that outcome seemed at all possible and if prompt action had even a small chance of thwarting the danger."

"There’s a lot of knowledge built up in experience, and there’s a lot of energy that’s stored in young people....When you put those two together, you have … an excellent recipe for potential success"

"Global warming causing climate change may be the ultimate issue that unites us all."

"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."

"People always use palm oil, it’s everywhere, but because of shareholder advocacy and proxy voting, investors were able to make sure there was less deforestation in Southeast Asia."

"It’s important to both educate and empower children. Educate them, because they need to know what’s going on. This is their world and they need to be prepared for it."

"In any given neighborhood, there is a huge collection of things that are owned by individuals but could become shared resources. In a single community of fifty homes, there might be close to fifty complete sets of home tools, car seats for newborns and toddlers, toys for every stage of child development, cookbooks, plumbing snakes, clothing of every size and color, furniture, old monitors, camping gear, and so on."

"...most people find it easier to think about their own health than that of the planet, so emphasising the health benefits of low-carbon activities like cycling instead of driving, or insulating draughty homes, might be a better way to go."

"Avoiding wastefulness in energy use, improving health outcomes, conserving green spaces and forests, creating a sense of pride in rebuilding the Great British energy system, and fostering a sense of responsibility to future generations are ways of talking about climate change that are more likely to resonate than guilt-laden messages about self-sacrifice."

"Fashion companies should be encouraging their customers to engage themselves in the circular economy, a process that would entail taking one’s old garments back to the retailer to be recycled into new garments."

"Scientists say solar panels lower peak demand on stressed traditional grids and have reduced the amount of infrastructure dollars that energy utilities must invest. By hooking your solar panels to the grid, you’re sneakily a hands-on investor in your local utilities."

"We dismantled a building on the ETH campus, the material of which was to be disposed of afterwards. It was the students who urged to keep the components. Without their pressure, this would not have been possible. The young generation holds us accountable for our actions."

"...as we start to realize that the world that we live in isn’t sustainable, and that corporations will stop making money if we lose the planet, then that funding is going to start showing up."

"Not only do we get to reduce our waste, but we also find ways to be creative, active, and involved."

"Overall, the (new) paper is one more twig in the bundle of concerns that low-lying coastal cities, and especially Pacific islands, are highly vulnerable to this problem of sea-level rise, [sic] these Pacific islands have contributed almost nothing to the problem of global warming."

"I know myself to be more helpful when I have addressed my own needs: needs for good food and good company, for hope, for long afternoons in the sunshine… I know that hope is not a happy accident. Hope is a right we must protect."

"Choosing to eat fewer animal products is probably the most important action an individual can take to reverse global warming—it has a known and significant effect on the environment, and, done collectively, would push the culture and the marketplace with more force than any march."

"What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make."

"We have enough clothing on the planet right now to clothe the next six generations of the human race: we have to find ways of using what we’ve got."

"Driving an electric car a mile costs you 2 or 3 cents; driving a gas car a mile costs you 20 cents. Having a hot shower with an electric heat pump costs you 20 cents; having a hot shower with gas costs you 60 cents."

"Those jobs would have a multiplying effect, as the woman who gets a good job as a solar installer is going to spend money in her local community."

"Australia ran a certification and training program for building a workforce that also certified the installers as inspectors. This made the process of purchasing and installing solar in Australia simple and doable in a matter of days."

"Our way of walking on the Earth has a great influence on animals and plants. We have killed so many animals and plants and destroyed their environments. Many are now extinct. In turn, our environment is now harming us. We are like sleepwalkers, not knowing what we are doing or where we are heading. Whether we can wake up or not depends on whether we can walk mindfully on our Mother Earth. The future of all life, including our own, depends on our mindful steps."

"Eager student volunteers from Frederick Douglass [Academy High School]...helped with mowing, preparing the soil, and [built] the initial 30 garden beds—which grew to 58 the second year."

"Those who know someone who has stopped flying because of climate change are more likely to curtail their own flying—and the effect is increased if it’s a high-profile person that’s stopped flying."

"I begin with the values that I share with whomever I am talking to....something as simple as wondering where our water will be coming from in 20 years; worrying about the local economy; caring for our children; or our desire to live out the faith that is central to who we are."

"...before shopping for fancy zero-waste reusable items you’ve seen on Instagram, look around the house to see what items you can repurpose or upcycle to help you reduce your waste."

"Members of Congress are more open to listening to POW athletes because we’re on the front lines of climate change."

"Libraries of Things are rolling together all the things people only infrequently need and bringing them together in one place, so they have something for everyone. Pay one membership or subscription fee, and you can borrow everything from camping gear to a popcorn maker."

"...we’ve got to get the building trades organizations, the construction trades, and the oil workers. These are the people who need to be brought on board in terms of climate."

"If we want labor to be effective in terms of fighting global warming, we’ve got to have laws that are gonna strengthen labor unions."

"We need energy and activism on the part of the working people to put pressure on Congress and on those legislators who are not cooperating."

"Since I aligned my actions with my values, I have witnessed more of my loved ones giving up flights and opting out of fast lifestyles as well."

"Dining from your garden costs you less, saves energy, and helps us all breathe a little easier."

"Each of the last three decades has been successively warmer at the Earth’s surface than any preceding decade since 1850."

"I do think that climate change is occurring, that it is man-caused. One of the proposals that I think is a very libertarian proposal, and I'm just open to this, is taxing carbon emission that may have the result of being self-regulating. ... The market will take care of it. I mean, when you look at it from the standpoint of better results, and actually less money to achieve those results, that's what is being professed by a carbon tax."

"The reality is, no politician has ever lost an election due to their stance on climate. It's why we do not see real, meaningful climate action."

"In Cambodia, 40 women are growing and selling crickets as an alternative food source, earning $2,600 for the first tonne of cricket farmed."

"Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'"

"The resources required to rapidly move away from fossil fuels and prepare for the coming heavy weather could pull huge swaths of humanity out of poverty, providing services now sorely lacking, from clean water to electricity...."

"The greenest energy to use is the energy we don’t use at all."