Bill McKibben
Writer and climate campaigner; wrote The End of Nature in 1989 and founded 350.org and Third Act.
Bill McKibben did not write this page.
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Their wordsSo the key thing, of course, far beyond debate on this bill, is to try and defang that monster, and the chief method for that is simple: win the elections Tuesday in as sweeping a fashion as possible.
↗The President is Equal Parts Moron and Monsterbillmckibben.substack.com
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Their wordsYou could pick any week in the last two years and come up with roughly the same kind of idiocy and perfidy and graft; the Trump presidency is an ongoing evil MadLibs.
↗The President is Equal Parts Moron and Monsterbillmckibben.substack.com
- 11 days earlier
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Their wordsIf we lived on a planet that ran mostly on wind and solar power, war would be less likely.
↗Are the peace movement and the climate movement the same thing?billmckibben.substack.com
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Their wordsit is very simple to see the degree to which oil plays a crucial part in so many of these conflicts, as cause, as weapon, and increasingly as vulnerability.
↗Are the peace movement and the climate movement the same thing?billmckibben.substack.com
- 5 days earlier
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Their wordsIf what we’re worried about is reining in climate change, then we have to build huge amounts of clean energy and that has to quickly drive fossil energy down to zero. If we just build lots of both, or even just a little more of clean energy than dirty, than we haven’t gotten anywhere.
↗Making the Decent the Enemy of the Desperatebillmckibben.substack.com
- 4 days earlier
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Their wordsEl Niño, likely exacerbated by climate change and definitely riding in on top of already overheated seas, will raise temperatures to places that no member of our species has yet experienced.
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Their wordsAs it happens, when you accurately inform people about the crisis we face, their desire to act goes up dramatically.
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Our reading
The United States is currently engaged in a battle against the transition to clean electricity.
Their wordsUnlike the 25 Asian countries that have outlined a strategy for transition to clean electricity, we’re currently engaged in a battle against that transition.
- 3 days earlier
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Their wordsThere are a series of profound pragmatic reasons to worry about the rapid growth of AI, some of which I’ve described before.
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Their wordsAI represents a remarkable threat to the jobs on which many of us depend
- 5 days earlier
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Their wordsIf transmission corridors are matched by new gas pipelines, we haven’t made much progress.
- 2 weeks earlier
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Their wordsone way to understand a data center is that it's a device for burning natural gas, the latest excuse (after Ukraine and Iran) for the fuel that Big Oil is counting on to keep its business model afloat even as the world turns away from internal combustion cars and crude demand begins to drop.
↗The Two Horsemen, Riding in Formationbillmckibben.substack.com 1st of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsit was a chance to stand up to the oligarchs and this technology they've staked their future on.
↗The Two Horsemen, Riding in Formationbillmckibben.substack.com 2nd of 3 in this piece
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Their wordspoliticians routinely underestimate the potency of this whole complex of issues.
↗The Two Horsemen, Riding in Formationbillmckibben.substack.com 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 8 days earlier
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Their wordsIt is entirely prudent to keep researching and testing carbon capture technology-someday it may be part of the solution to the greatest problem humanity has ever faced.
↗Facts on the groundbillmckibben.substack.com 1st of 3 in this piece
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solarenergyclimate changebatteries
Their wordsthere is actually one thing we do know how to do, and that is build out lots of cheap solar, wind, and batteries.
↗Facts on the groundbillmckibben.substack.com 2nd of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsBuilding clean energy is much more likely, and much more effective, if we're also shutting down dirty energy.
↗Facts on the groundbillmckibben.substack.com 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 6 days earlier
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energypoliticselectric vehicles
Their wordsWhatever good he did with his early advocacy for electric vehicles has now been undone a hundred times over with his advocacy for the people who hate EVs and all the other things we need.
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Their words"Just switching to sustainable energy" is in fact the one good, scalable weapon we have to fight that
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Their wordsMusk's victims already number in the millions-a Lancet study predicts 14 million by 2030 as the indirect results of shutting down America's humanitarian work, which puts him up there in the Stalin/Mao category, and almost certainly the most deadly human of this millennium.
- 2 days earlier
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Their wordsin a world beginning to turn away from oil, the United States has become the biggest force trying to insure we keep pouring carbon into the atmosphere.
↗The growing rumblebillmckibben.substack.com 1st of 3 in this piece
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solarenergyAmericaphysicsclimate change
Their wordsBut physics is giving us very little time now, and so the next set of elections in this country will be, I think, our last real chance to make the sea change-replacing oil and gas with sun and wind-that is our best hope for limiting warming.
↗The growing rumblebillmckibben.substack.com 2nd of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsThis would accomplish nothing to reduce energy prices, since oil prices are set on a global market and there's not enough crude left off UK shores to influence that number.
↗The growing rumblebillmckibben.substack.com 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 5 days earlier
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Their wordsBut that's not how physical systems work. You push them and then past a certain point things change.
↗Reality intrudesbillmckibben.substack.com 1st of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsWe have made it hot enough on this planet that things are going very wrong.
↗Reality intrudesbillmckibben.substack.com 2nd of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsAt this point it won't lower the temperature rapidly, but it could keep it from climbing rapidly.
↗Reality intrudesbillmckibben.substack.com 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 4 days earlier
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Their wordsIt's clear by now that this is all part of the extension of oligarchic control over our lives.
↗A year in, the data center/AI battle starts to clarifybillmckibben.substack.com 1st of 3 in this piece
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Our reading
AI and the data-center buildout underlying it pose real and significant dangers to society.
Their wordsIts's clear by now that AI, and the data center development underlying it, pose real and significant dangers.
↗A year in, the data center/AI battle starts to clarifybillmckibben.substack.com 2nd of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsBut it seems increasingly clear to me that those limitations are precisely what makes being a human so interesting.
↗A year in, the data center/AI battle starts to clarifybillmckibben.substack.com 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 8 days earlier
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Their wordsIt would of course make great sense to tax these windfall profits, earned entirely on the back of dead Iranians and Americans, and everyone who's paying $4.50 a gallon at the pump.
↗Fun with numbersbillmckibben.substack.com 1st of 3 in this piece