What Bill McKibben thinks about energy
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.
We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.
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17 dated positions, 2020 to 2026, in their own words. Our reading of what Bill McKibben has said — not written or endorsed by them.
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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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Our readingThe 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.
- 8 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
- 8 days earlier
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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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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
- 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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solarAmericaphysicsclimate 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 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
- 12 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
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Their wordsBatteries are the transformative technology for the second half of this decade, as sun and wind were for the first half
↗Fun with numbersbillmckibben.substack.com 2nd of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsthat charge long leveled at sun and wind-that they provide "intermittent power"-is probably truer now of other energy sources
↗Fun with numbersbillmckibben.substack.com 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 6 years earlier
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Our reading · no longer heldBurning biomass is a good alternative to fossil fuels
Recalls holdingI previously personally supported burning bio-mass as an alternative to fossil fuels—in my case, when the rural college where I teach replaced its oil furnaces with a wood-chip burner more than a decade ago, I saluted it.
SaidBut as more scientists studied the consequences of large-scale biomass burning, the math began to show that it would put large amounts of carbon into the atmosphere at precisely the wrong moment