The Climate Cliff
The most dangerous cliff we are facing is not a financial one but rather the climate one. The warming of the Earth’s temperature and what it portends is not just for penguins and polar bears but will have serious consequences for everyone. A new report commissioned by the World Bank says failure to respond aggressively to climate change will put “unprecedented stresses on human systems” and “will render parts of the Earth uninhabitable.” If steps are not taken now, the planet’s temperature will rise by 4 degrees Celsius, that’s more than 7 degrees Fahrenheit, by the end of the century. Both the scale and the pace of the peril have increased substantially. Yet, fossil fuel corporations continue to place profits before human life and the eco system. We now seem to be nearing tipping points past which cataclysmic damage would be inevitable.
Recorded at the University of Colorado.
Speaker
Bill McKibben
Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org, is a leading environmental activist. He was one of the first to sound the alarm on climate change with his bestselling book The End of Nature. He is the author of The Age of Missing Information, Hope, Human and Wild, Deep Economy, Eaarth and The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon. He is the Schumann Distinguished Scholar in Environmental Studies at Middlebury College and is the recipient of the Gandhi Peace Prize and the Right Livelihood Award. He is the founder of Third Act, which organizes people over the age of 60 for action on climate justice.
Alison Rich –
Bill McKibben’s is the most authoritative, eloquent voice on our changing climate that I know of. We’re so lucky to have him. He spells out what the dangers are, what the inherent situation is, and what we must do to prevent the catastrophe that will be, unless we take the steps on which our lives and our planet depend. I trust on his guidance implicitly.