Global warming

"We need to address climate change, we need to limit the temperature rise globally to the maximum extent but we cannot do it at the expense of keeping people in poverty and stopping their economic development."

"We were warned plenty that we were creating a disaster in the only atmosphere we’ve got, and we kept on doing it. Now we are facing the consequences."

"We don't have much time left. We are moving towards temperature increases of around two degrees Celsius, which is going to have consequences in the tropics, and we will lose things like glaciers. That's not a theory; it's happening right now. It's not a prediction; it's happening right now. But you just sightsee near those glaciers. But the glaciers are a big source of water. And on the questions of water, in California we store our water in a snowpack. When that's gone, the rain will be the same but it won't accumulate. With warming temperatures the snowpack will not work. It might be possible to substitute with dams, but that's complicated. This is conjoined with a big energy problem and I think that we really have to encourage development in this area. Just waiting for technological improvement won't work. We need to encourage it."

"The lie is that if we address the climate crisis, we will also solve the biodiversity crisis."

"Is humankind itself hastening its own end? Man has, for instance, been burning carbon-containing fuel — wood, coal, oil, gas — at a steadily accelerating rate. All these fuels form carbon dioxide. Some is absorbed by plants and the oceans but not as fast as it is produced. This means the carbon dioxide content of the air is going up — slightly but nevertheless up. Carbon dioxide retains heat, and even a small rise means a warming of the Earth's atmosphere. This may result in the melting of the polar ice caps with unusual speed, flooding the world before we have learned climate control. In reverse, our industrial civilization is making our atmosphere dustier so that it reflects more sunlight away and cools the Earth slightly — thus making possible a glacial advance in a few centuries, also before we have learned climate control."

"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."

"When I was a boy in the 1900s, the carbon dioxide level was still below 300 parts per million. This year, it reached 382, the highest figure for hundreds of thousands of years."

"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."

"One very simple truth about Global Warming is this; that it will spare nobody, however rich, mighty and powerful we think we are. … Mister Tony Blair, the Prime Minister of the UK once said that without proper action now, the average global temperatures would rise by 2 degrees Celsius. Scientists estimate that the subsequent rise in the sea level would be enough to swamp a large proportion of Bangladesh in 30/40 years time. It would be a serious catastrophe for my country and for the whole region if much of the land in Bangladesh disappears under the sea. I become frightened to think that my grand children (when I touch them) will have no place to live on this planet earth. I really want to be sure that my grandchildren, and their children after them, will be able to enjoy the beauty of my country that I have enjoyed, and be able to have enough land to live, and enough land for food."

"Despite its imperfections, the European Union can be, and indeed is, a powerful inspiration for many around the world. The challenges faced from one region to the other may differ in scale but they do not differ in nature. We all share the same planet. Poverty, organized crime, terrorism, climate change: these are problems that do not respect national borders. We share the same aspirations and universal values: these are progressively taking root in a growing number of countries all over the world. We share “l’irréductible humain”, the irreducible uniqueness of the human being. Beyond our nation, beyond our continent, we are all part of one mankind. Jean Monnet, ends his Memoirs with these words: “Les nations souveraines du passé ne sont plus le cadre où peuvent se résoudre les problèmes du présent. Et la communauté elle-même n’est qu’un étape vers les formes d’organisation du monde de demain.” (“The sovereign nations of the past can no longer solve the problems of the present. And the European Community itself is only a stage on the way to the organised world of the future.”) This federalist and cosmopolitan vision is one of the most important contributions that the European Union can bring to a global order in the making."

"There are all kinds of causes to be alarmed about. For example, there's the Greenhouse Effect, which is one of the more recent in a series of alarming worldwide homicidal trends to be discovered by those busy beavers, the scientists. They've found that the Earth is slowly being turned into a vast greenhouse, so that by the year 2010- unless something is done- the entire human race will be crushed beneath a humongous tomato. Or something along those lines. I confess that I haven't been following the Greenhouse Effect all that closely."

"I'm not saying that the Greenhouse Effect is not extremely important. Hey, I live in Miami, and if the polar ice caps start melting, I stand a good chance of waking up one morning and finding myself festooned with kelp. It's just that, what with working and paying bills and transporting my son to and from the pediatrician and trying to teach the dog not to throw up on the only nice rug in the entire house, I just don't seem to have enough room in my brain for the Greenhouse Effect and all the other problems I know I should be concerned about, such as drugs and AIDS and Lebanon and pollution and cholesterol and caffeine and cancer and Japanese investors buying the Lincoln Memorial and nuclear war and dirty rock lyrics and this new barbecue grill we got."

"Allow me to break down the facts of hunger as they stand right now. 811 million people are chronically hungry. 283 million are in hunger crises — they are marching toward starvation. And within that, 45 million in 43 countries across the globe are in hunger emergencies — in other words, famine is knocking on their door. Places like Afghanistan, Madagascar, Myanmar, Guatemala, Ethiopia, Sudan, South Sudan, Mozambique, Niger, Syria, Mali, Burkina Faso, Somalia, Haiti and on and on and on. The world has often experienced famine. But when has it ever been so widespread, in so many places, at the same time? Why?"

"There is no more consequential challenge that we must meet in the next decade than the onrushing climate crisis. Left unchecked, it is literally an existential threat to the health of our planet and to our very survival. … We are an economy in crisis but with an incredible opportunity: To not just rebuild back to where we were before, but better, stronger, more resilient and more prepared to the challenges that lie ahead. … These aren’t pie-in-the-sky dreams. These are actionable policies that we can get to work on right away. … Nothing’s a hoax. Nothing’s a hoax about that. It’s a very serious subject. I want clean air. I want clean water. I want the cleanest air, want the cleanest water. The environment is very important to me."

"Global warming is too serious for the world any longer to ignore its danger or split into opposing factions on it."

"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."

"Climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing humanity, and it is the world’s most vulnerable populations who are most immediately at risk. The actions of the wealthiest nations — those generating the vast majority of greenhouse gases — have tangible consequences for people in the rest of the world, especially in the poorest nations."

"Some governments are intent on having ambitious plans for meeting the Paris climate conference goals, but they have to survive politically long enough to put them in place. Macron and the French government have skipped over the part involving the workers and the community."

"Earth's oceans and land cover are doing us a favor. As people burn fossil fuels and clear forests, only half of the carbon dioxide released stays in the atmosphere, warming and altering Earth's climate. The other half is removed from the air by the planet's vegetation ecosystems and oceans. As carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere continue their rapid, human-made rise past levels not seen for hundreds of thousands of years, NASA scientists and others are confronted with an important question for the future of our planet: How long can this balancing act continue? And if forests, other vegetation and the ocean cannot continue to absorb as much or more of our carbon emissions, what does that mean for the pace of climate change in the coming century? "Today and for the past 50 to 100 years, the oceans and land biosphere have consistently taken up about half of human emissions," said Dave Schimel of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. "If that were to change, the effect of fossil emissions on climate would also change. We don't understand that number, and we don't know how it will change in the future.""

"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. This issue bears a similarity to Pascal’s Wager on the Existence of God. Pascal, it may be recalled, argued that if there were only a tiny probability that God truly existed, it made sense to behave as if He did because the rewards could be infinite whereas the lack of belief risked eternal misery. Likewise, if there is only a 1% chance the planet is heading toward a truly major disaster and delay means passing a point of no return, inaction now is foolhardy. Call this Noah’s Law: If an ark may be essential for survival, begin building it today, no matter how cloudless the skies appear."

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

"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."

"Let’s cut to the chase — and I’m sorry if the next statement upsets you — but in order to stop climate change and create a sustainable world, it requires the end of capitalism. I know I’m not “allowed” to say that. Saying such a thing would be heresy on one of the corporate media dog-and-pony bullshit infotainment hours. If I spoke that unholy fact on CNN or Fox News or CBS or NPR, a tranquilizer dart would immediately hit me in the neck, and they’d cut to a commercial while my lifeless body was dragged off. But let’s take our intellectual honesty out for a spin, shall we? As Guardian columnist George Monbiot said, “Capitalism has three innate characteristics that drive us towards destruction … firstly, that it generates and relies upon perpetual growth.” Endless growth on a planet with finite resources. Such a thing is physically impossible, no more scientifically feasible than Secretary of State Mike Pompeo touching his toes. The reason we’re now in the largest economic crisis since the Great Depression is because capitalism requires nonstop growth, much like cancer."

"Like cancer, capitalism grows until it murders the host body. … The pandemic shutdown has shown us the problem. It has revealed what the world looks like without as much pollution, without the chaos and roar of mostly meaningless “work” performed by the exploited, using materials stolen from the abused, for the benefit of the pampered and oblivious. Another world is possible, and we’ve just gotten a glimpse of it. You can buy all the land, water, and air you want — even as others die from starvation or thirst. It means that no matter what environmentalists do to try to mitigate climate change, the richest corporations in the world can easily undo it by buying and polluting ever more. It also means the biggest sociopaths … have the most impact."

"In our own lifetime we are witnessing a startling alteration of climate. Activities in the nonhuman world also reflect the warming of the Arctic—the changed habits and migrations of many fish, birds, land mammals, and whales."

"Climate change and biodiversity loss pose an even greater existential threat than the COVID-19 pandemic; to the extent that we have to put ourselves on what might be called a war-like footing. Putting a value on carbon is absolutely critical. We need a vast military style campaign to marshall the strength of the global private sector, which has trillions at its disposal. Each sector needs a clear strategy to speed up the process of getting innovations to market and we need to align private investment behind these industry strategies. If we can develop a pipeline of many moresustainable and "bankable" projects, at a sufficient scale, it will attract greater investment. CEOs and institutional investors have told me that alongside the promises countries have made, their nationally determined contributions, they need clear market signals, agreed globally, so that they have the confidence to invest without the goal posts suddenly moving. We are working to drive trillions of dollars in support of transition across ten of the most emitting and polluting industries including energy, agriculture, transportation, health systems and fashion. I can only urge you, as the world’s decision-makers, to find practical ways of overcoming differences so we can all rescue this precious planet and save the threatened future of our young people."

"The Coronavirus is serious enough but it's worth recalling that there is a much greater horror approaching, we are racing to the edge of disaster, far worse than anything that's ever happened in human history. … In fact there are two immense threats that we are facing. One is the growing threat of nuclear war, which has exacerbated it by the tearing what's left of the arms control regime and the other of course is the growing threat of global warming. Both threats can be dealt with but there isn't a lot of time. … If we don't deal with them we're done."

"We may add that focus on maximizing profits is also not always consistent with the hope for the survival of humanity, to borrow the phrase of a leaked memo from JP Morgan Chase, the U.S.’s largest bank, warning that "the survival of humanity" is at risk on our current course, including the bank's own investments in fossil fuels. Thus, Chevron canceled a profitable sustainable energy project because there’s more profit to be made in destroying life on Earth. ExxonMobil refrained from doing so, because it had never opened such a project in the first place, having made more rational calculations of profitability. And rightly so, according to neoliberal doctrine. As Milton Friedman and other neoliberal luminaries have instructed us, the task of corporate managers is to maximize profits. Any deviation from this moral obligation would shatter the foundations of "civilized life." There will be no recovery from the melting of the polar ice sheets and the other devastating consequences of global warming. Here, too, the catastrophe results from a market failure — in this case, of truly earth-shaking proportions."

"We hear the term “climate” every day, so it is worth thinking about what we actually mean by it. Obviously, “climate” is not the same as weather. The climate is one of Earth’s fundamental life support systems, one that determines whether or not we humans, and millions of other species, are able to live on this planet. It is generated by four components: the atmosphere (the air we breathe); the hydrosphere (the planet’s water); the cryosphere (the ice sheet and glaciers); the biosphere (the planet’s plants and animals). By now, our activities had started to modify every one of these components. Our emissions of CO2 had started to modify our atmosphere. Our increasing water use had started to modify our hydrosphere. Rising atmospheric and sea-surface temperatures had started to modify the cryosphere, most notably in the unexpected shrinking of the Arctic and Greenland ice sheets. Our increasing use of land, for agriculture, cities, roads, mining—as well as all the pollution we were creating—had started to modify our biosphere. Or, to put it another way: We had started to change our climate."

"Right now, climate change is accelerating. We should more properly say an accelerating change in the Earth System—of which our climate is one component. This impact is most obvious at high latitudes. What this means is that if we want to see what our future looks like, the Arctic is the place to look first. And it doesn’t look good. Arctic coastlines are retreating by up to 30 meters per year in areas such as the Laptev Sea and Beaufort Sea. Greenland and Antarctica are now losing somewhere between 300 billion and 600 billion tons of ice mass per year into the sea. And to make matters worse, probably much worse, melting sea ice caused by our activities is now causing the release of significant quantities of methane from the Arctic Ocean. For the first time, over a hundred plumes of methane—many of them over half a mile in diameter—have been observed rising from previously frozen methane stores in the East Siberian Sea. Indeed a conclusion was that thousands of such plumes, many of them nearly a mile across, now exist. This could be very big trouble on a very big scale. Methane is many times more potent a greenhouse gas than CO2. If, as seems likely, melting sea ice, triggered by our activities, is now causing the release of this methane, it will go on for decades, possibly centuries, and we will be completely unable to stop it. Almost all of the data that’s emerging now from the Arctic is worse—far worse—than the most extreme predictions of even ten years ago. But of course it’s not just the Arctic. It’s everywhere."

"All complex systems, such as the earth’s system, are characterized by one important feature: a very small change (“perturbation”) can lead to an extraordinarily large and unpredictable impact that “tips” the system into an entirely different and unpredictable state.Let’s take just one of the tipping points we’re heading for: a rise in global average temperature of above 2 degrees Celsius. There is a politically agreed global target—driven by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—to limit the global average temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius. The rationale for this target is that a rise above 2 degrees carries a significant risk of catastrophic climate change that would almost certainly lead to irreversible planetary “tipping points” caused by events such as the melting of the Greenland Ice Shelf, the release of frozen methane deposits from Arctic permafrost, or dieback of the Amazon. But in fact the first two are happening now—at below the 2-degree threshold. As for the third, we’re not waiting for climate change to do this—we’re doing it right now through deforestation. And unfortunately, recent research shows that we look certain to be heading for a larger rise in global average temperature than 2 degrees—a far larger rise. It is now very likely that we are looking at a future global average temperature rise of 4 degrees—and we can’t rule out a rise of 6 degrees. A 4-to 6-degree rise in global average temperature will be absolutely catastrophic. It will lead to runaway climate change, capable of tipping the planet into an entirely different state, rapidly. Earth would become a hellhole. In the decades along the way, we will witness unprecedented extremes in weather, fires, floods, heat waves, loss of crops and forests, water stress, and catastrophic sea-level rises. But even if we’re lucky enough to fall short of anything like a 4-to 6-degree rise in global temperature, there almost certainly won’t be a country called Bangladesh by the end of this century—it will be underwater. Large parts of Africa will become permanent disaster areas. The Amazon could be turned into savannah or even desert. And the entire agricultural system will be faced with an unprecedented threat. More “fortunate” countries such as the United States, the UK, and most of Europe may well look like something approaching militarized countries, with heavily defended border controls designed to prevent millions of people who are on the move from entering, because their own country is no longer habitable, or has insufficient water or food, or is experiencing conflict over increasingly scarce natural resources. These people will be “climate migrants.” The term “climate migrants” is one we will increasingly have to get used to. Indeed, anyone who thinks that the emerging global state of affairs does not have great potential for civil and international conflict is deluding themselves."

"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, these Pacific islands have contributed almost nothing to the problem of global warming."

"We are in an emergency situation in the Anthropocene epoch in which the disruption of the Earth system, particularly the climate, is threatening the planet as a place of human habitation."

"We are on a runaway train headed over the climate cliff as we stoke the engine with more coal to increase its speed."

"We are already facing growing catastrophes due to climate change. It is too late to avoid soaring temperatures, scarce water, and extreme weather. That ship has in many ways already sailed. The earth is going to be much less hospitable to human beings in the future."

"The climate is a common good, belonging to all and meant for all. … A very solid scientific consensus indicates that we are presently witnessing a disturbing warming of the climatic system. … Humanity is called to recognize the need for changes of lifestyle, production and consumption:, in order to combat this warming."

"The thirst for power and possessions knows no limits. In this system, which tends to devour everything which stands in the way of increased profits, whatever is fragile, like the environment, is defenseless before the interests of a deified market, which become the only rule."

"Two forces are emerging that will moot global warming. First, the end of the population explosion will, over the decades, reduce the increases in demand for just about everything. Second, the increase in the cost of both finding and using hydrocarbons will increase the hunger for alternatives."

"Capitalism as a driving force for climate change must, at the very least, be interrogated, and already-existing Indigenous rights frameworks and language can help us do this."

"Central to our reporting on climate change is the reality that global warming is real, is happening now, and is killing tens of thousands of people and displacing millions more. The warming planet presents an existential crisis for humanity."

"Television stations pour millions of dollars into building flashy "Weather Centers" to grab their audience's attention. As they flash the words "Severe Weather" and "Extreme Weather," why not also flash the words, "Climate Change" or "Global Warming"? The public depends on broadcasters for most of their news and information, even in this internet age]]. The daily deluge of sensational weather reporting must include explanations of the deeper changes occurring on our planet."

"The young people at these climate summits have always amazed me with their eloquence and bravery."

"…the advantages of fossil fuels come with a devastating downside. We now understand that the release of carbon dioxide (CO2) from burning fossil fuels is warming our planet faster than anything we have seen in the geological record. One of the greatest challenges facing humanity today is slowing this warming before it changes our world beyond recognition."

"Although there is enormous uncertainty about the exact progression of climate change, the direction of travel is entirely clear. This is a problem that demands coordinated global action. … A responsible government would be planning for this perfectly foreseeable outcome. Ours, however, is otherwise preoccupied."

"Treating the symptoms of climate change makes no sense if the causes are not tackled at the same time."

"Climate change is the defining issue of our time – and we are at a defining moment. We face a direct existential threat."

"Even though climate change science has gone through this exhaustive 20-year peer review process with the 3,000 best scientists in the world unanimously endorsing it, every National Academy of Science in a developed country on this planet endorsing it, still, based on some radio talk show host or some odd orthogonal argument; Science magazine did a review of every peer-review article for the previous ten years. None of them disagreed with this consensus."

"We are in the make-or-break decade in our effort to stay below 1.5 degrees Celsius, to keep the planet livable"

"All life is impermanent. We are all children of the Earth, and, at some time, she will take us back to herself again. We are continually arising from Mother Earth, being nurtured by her, and then returning to her. Like us, plants are born, live for a period of time, and then return to the Earth. When they decompose, they fertilize our gardens. Living vegetables and decomposing vegetables are part of the same reality. Without one, the other cannot be. After six months, compost becomes fresh vegetables again. Plants and the Earth rely on each other. Whether the Earth is fresh, beautiful, and green, or arid and parched depends on the plants. It also depends on us."

"I'm agnostic as to the causes. All I know is there is water where there once was ice."