Quotes about Climate change

Yes, I am optimistic about the environment. If you assume business is exerting the most negative influence on the environment and also has the possibility to impact it positively, there are a bunch of forces that are impacting business that are fundamentally different from the situation 3 or 4 years ago. There are pressures to be transparent that just didn't exist before and these pressures are coming from unlikely places, such as the insurance industry. In the most recent issue of The Ecologist, the editorial asked what is having the most positive impact on global warming. The answer is the insurance industry. Unlike the current administration, the insurance industry has made its mind up for reasons of self-preservation. For purely pragmatic reasons, they are increasing pressure on big business to reduce C02 emissions. In a similar way in Europe, the Association of Insurers has concluded that increased transparency is critical to understand the risk that an insurance company has in insuring a company. That pressure to provide that transparency in and of itself can cause change.

We're in a giant car heading toward a brick wall and everyone's arguing over where they're going to sit.

Climate change has been here for some time and it is accelerating. It will not take any notice of the words from the UN, NATO or any other governmental body. Over the next 50 years it will lay waste to the most populous areas of the planet. The major economies, thus denied their cheap production facilities will collapse. They will then be inundated by the climate migrants. The only thing that will change this is ACTION, not words. Action by Governments and action by individuals. So let's do it.

THE DILEMMA OF THE NONEXPERT

Who and what are we to believe? Where to begin? Read a significant number of the 963 books on global warming listed on Amazon.com, and, to keep in the balance, read from the 1,054 books (July 2006) on global cooling and the coming ice age?

Amid all the conflicting claims and advice, it is sometimes difficult to know whom to believe about the environment, I cannot stop my life the next 2 to 10 years to become an expert on the environment or sustainability. Nor can any of us. I can only use my experience and best judgment.

The debate is exacerbated by the superior tone of those who are so sure about global warming. Global warming has become a religion, and those who don't buy into its gloom and doom scenarios are infidels who must be banished from any public forum.

I believe the environment must be protected and that regulations is often necessary. No matter who is right about the environment and sustainability, I support attending to the environment because the remedies are so attractive. I want a clean air and clean water for everybody. I vote for nature. But exaggerating problems without any real idea of the score of the game distorts society's priorities and makes it hard for citizens and leaders to make the best decisions.

Some countries of the world are like people fighting on a large boat. In the middle of their battle over how to catch the biggest fish, they look up and realize that the fine boat is sinking, and everyone is going down.  Their next fight will be for basic survival, and they will need to rely on one another, floating far from shore in the angry sea.

I don't believe in "average people" doing anything [about the climate]. People outght to support mitigation and adaptation within their own line of work, no matter how un-average that is.  I mean: if you're a butcher, baker, ballerina, banker, or a plumber, envision yourself as the post-fossil-fuel version of yourself, and get right after it

First, I worry about climate change. It's the only thing that I believe has the power to fundamentally end the march of civilization as we know it, and make a lot of the other efforts that we're making irrelevant and impossible

None of the global warming discussions mention the word “nanotechnology.” Yet nanotechnology will eliminate the need for fossil fuels within 20 years. If we captured 1% of 1% of the sunlight (1 part in 10,000) we could meet 100% of our energy needs without ANY fossil fuels. We can’t do that today because the solar panels are too heavy, expensive, and inefficient. But there are new nanoengineered designs that are much more effective. Within five to six years, this technology will make a significant contribution. Within 20 years, it can provide all of our energy needs. The discussions talk about current trends continuing for the next century as if nothing is going to change. I think global warming is real but it has been modest thus far - 1 degree f. in 100 years. It would be concern if that continued or accelerated for a long period of time, but that’s not going to happen. And it’s not just environmental concern that will drive this, the $2 trillion we spend on energy is providing plenty of economic incentive. I don’t see any disasters occuring in the next 10 years from this. However, I AM concerned about other environment issues. There are other reasons to want to move quickly away from fossil fuels including environmental pollution at every step and the geopolitical instability it causes.

Because of the complexity of the problem, environmental skepticism was once tenable. No longer. It is time to flip from skepticism to activism.

My experience is symptomatic of deep problems that have long plagued the environmental movement. Activists who vandalize Hummer dealerships and destroy logging equipment are criminal ecoterrorists. Environmental groups who cry doom and gloom to keep donations flowing only hurt their credibility. As an undergraduate in the 1970s, I learned (and believed) that by the 1990s overpopulation would lead to worldwide starvation and the exhaustion of key minerals, metals and oil, predictions that failed utterly. Politics polluted the science and made me an environmental skeptic.

Nevertheless, data trump politics, and a convergence of evidence from numerous sources has led me to make a cognitive switch on the subject of anthropogenic global warming.

I am not arguing that global warming is the same as eugenics. But the similarities are not superficial. And I do claim that open and frank discussion of the data, and of the issues, is being suppressed. Leading scientific journals have taken strong editorial positions of the side of global warming, which, I argue, they have no business doing. Under the circumstances, any scientist who has doubts understands clearly that they will be wise to mute their expression.

One proof of this suppression is the fact that so many of the outspoken critics of global warming are retired professors. These individuals are not longer seeking grants, and no longer have to face colleagues whose grant applications and career advancement may be jeopardized by their criticisms.