ALL BITES
All our "sticky" climate change metaphors, sound bites, quick comebacks, quotes, and quips that capsulize key points about the problem or solutions -- sorted by "Editor's Pick" and by "Rating."
Some skeptics view climate science as a house of cards. You pull one card from the bottom and the whole thing collapses. But science is mo ...
"Skepticism is invaluable to the scientific method. But an honest skeptic can be persuaded by facts. These deniers are largely impervious to ...
Claiming that 'Earth isn't warming, because 2008 was cooler than 1998' is like saying 'Spring isn't happening, because April 15th was cooler ...
Think of it like a who-dun-it mystery. Scientists have identified all the "usual suspects" sun, aerosols, land over, volcanoes, etc. ...
"2010 was the hottest and wettest -- don't Google that phrase, by the way -- year on record."—Bill Maher
"If 98 doctors say my son is ill and needs medication and two say, 'No, he doesn't, he is fine,' I will go with the ninety-seven. It's commo ...
If you thicken Earth's CO2 blanket, the planet gets warmer.
Variation: Add more blankets at night, and you overheat. Add more ...
Think of weather as a large die, with the number 6 signifying a violent storm. If you add dots to change the "1" to a "6," you've doubled y ...
“That’s a coffin with so many nails in it already that the hard part is finding a place to hammer in a new one.” — Geophysicist Ray Pierrehu ...
"When I was six years old, there were conflicting theories about how babies were born. Somebody said a stork brought them. Another guy said ...
In earth's past, CO2 rise lagged temperature, so CO2 can't possibly cause global warming? This is like saying "'I saw a chicken lay an eg ...
”Destroying a tropical rainforest and other species-rich ecosystems is like burning all the paintings of the Louvre to cook dinner."— Edward ...
Would you trust Joe Camel to teach science to your children? Even lifelong smokers don't want Joe near their kids. The tobacco industry pi ...
"Just as steroids make the baseball player stronger and increase his chances of hitting home runs, greenhouse gases are the steroids of the ...
Sign photographed on in the middle of Main Street, in Bison, Kansas on July 23, 2011 during the record-breaking drought.
"The climate system is an angry beast, and we're poking it with sticks."
— Walter Broecker, the climate science pioneer who unco ...
The USAF pioneered research on heat-trapping properties of CO2. "The Air Force didn't set out to study global warming. They just wanted th ...
If you can find a way to scientifically debunk climate change, you can be rich and famous. Just beware that many scientists before you have ...
Saying "climate change happened naturally in the past, and therefore human's can't cause it" is like saying "forest fires occurred naturally ...
Oh really, what is your evidence? Many people are confused about the definition of the word 'theory,' especially with climate change.
"Some say, 'Climate is always changing due to natural cycles. So it can't be us doing it.' That's like saying 'People die from natural cau ...
Think of CO2 in the atmosphere as water in a bathtub. If you partly open the drain and run the tap at the same rate, the water level stays ...
Models are unreliable. I agree -- they are often late for photo shoots, and sometimes never show up at all!
For those who spend little time in greenhouses, perhaps we should call it "The Parked Car Effect." We all know what happens when you park ...
Future generations "will reproach us, not for what we have used, but for what we have wasted." —Pres. Theodore Roosevelt.
If you want to find the truth, hire a detective (or scientist). If you just want to win, hire a lawyer (or PR firm).
What does "more intense precipitation" mean? It means that, in the immortal words of the Morton Salt Company, "When it rains it pours."
Using oil, coal, & natural gas for our energy is as if someone said, ‘let’s build a civilization on dinosaur bones.’ Somebody else says, ‘d ...
Do you greet your plumber with this skepticism: “Yeah, right! You’re just gonna snake that little thing down there and it’s gonna clear up ...
"If you like buying oil from the Saudis, you'll love buying solar from the Chinese!"— Thomas Friedman
"Science isn't "yes or no." Science is gradually reducing uncertainty. Consider gravity. We know gravity with a fairly high degree of und ...
"We're driving in a car with bad brakes in a fog and heaing for a cliff. We know for sure now that the cliff is out there, we just don't ...
Do you root for baseball players with lifetime .000 batting averages? This is like listening to the rare scientists who reject climate chan ...
Renewables too expensive? Navy Secy. Mabus: "Every new technology is more expensive. What if we hadn’t started using computers because the ...
Whether you choose 'wait and see' vs. accept the doctor's recommendation for urgent surgery is a value judgment. Ignoring or resolving clim ...
Suppose you saw a dead body in a crime scene. Would you believe a police detective who says, 'A ghost did it!' when there's evidence everyw ...
"Mother Nature is just chemistry, biology and physics. That's all she is. You cannot sweet-talk her. You cannot spin her. You cannot tell he ...
Think of hurricanes as a fire in a fireplace. Global warming isn't the spark but it is that extra log we are throwing onto that fire.
Critics call people concerned about climate change 'Chicken Little Alarmists.' However, U.S. Defense Dept. is worried about climate change.
"Let me address the argument that CO2 is benign because we exhale it. That's about as good an argument as saying a tsunami isn't dangerous ...
"It’s all a game of odds. We’ve never been here before. We just know two things: one, the CO2 we put into the atmosphere stays there for man ...
"How can a minuscule amount of CO2 cause global warming?" shout the sceptics! "Easily", is the response. Can't a bite from a tiny ins ...
"Mother Nature puts a time limit on how long we can dither and procrastinate" before taking action. "Several vulnerable elements in earth ...
"Climate is percentage of long underwear vs. shorts in your closest. Weather is deciding to wear long underwear or shorts today."
While it's hard to know how much global warming contributes to any single weather event, science tells us that we will see more and more ext ...
The most credible sources are the "grunts" working on the front lines of research -- drilling the ice cores, taking the measurements, crunch ...
"Over Earth’s history, ocean life has recovered from numerous sudden extinction episodes by adaptation and evolution of new species, but the ...
Blaming Exxon "is like blaming a raccoon for going through your trash. They’re simply responding to available opportunities." Their "multi ...
Recent sea level rise is mostly due to thermal expansion, the same reason that mercury -- or alcohol with red dye -- climbs in a thermometer ...
"...Climate change could have significant geopolitical impacts around the world, contributing to poverty, environmental degradation, and the ...
"At its core, global climate change is not about economic theory or political platforms, nor about partisan advantage or interest group pres ...
"Denial ain't just a river in Egypt." -- Mark Twain
"Call Me Cleopatra, 'Cause I'm the Queen of Denial" -- country-wes ...
"Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced." -- James Baldwin
Continued release of greenhouse gases is like playing "Russian Roulette with the climate, hoping that the future will hold no unpleasant sur ...
"...History will not judge us by how much economic growth we achieve in the immediate years ahead, nor by how much we expand material consum ...
"People ask me if I believe in global warming. I tell them, 'No, I don't,' because belief is faith; faith is the evidence of things not seen ...
"People across the northern hemisphere are facing the fact that a warming planet doesn't get rid of winter ... now is a good time to remind ...
Increasing CO2 for plants is like giving athletes anabolic steroids: it may produce short-term weight gain, but often with long-term, negati ...
"It's 3:23 in the morning, and I'm awake
because my great, great, grandchildren won't let me sleep.
...
"We are dependent on the natural world for the very air we breathe and every particle of food we eat. Many people, including me, would say w ...
“Mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdo ...
Climate change is like a big tsunami, far at sea but headed our way. To get our families "off the beach" and to safety, we need to act now. ...
Some people ignore a suspicious lump in their body, hoping it will go away. When they eventually go to the doctor -- because of night sweat ...
Telling the inhabitants of a coral that island that they're safe because sea level won't rise, is like a doctor telling a smoker, "stop worr ...
When you first arrive at the beach can you tell whether the tide is going in or out? No, not quickly: it would perhaps take you fifteen min ...
"Science is so powerful that it drags us kicking and screaming towards the truth, despite our best efforts to avoid it."
The bad news: we are causing it.
The good news: we can stop it.
“The prospect of extreme climate change and its potentially devastating economic and social consequences are of great concern to the insuran ...
"It should be possible to write about science in plain English, though asking a scientist to do that is like asking a cat to bark."— Dr. Ric ...
"Global warming will very probably unleash unstoppable planetary forces. And they will not be gradual. The history of our planet’s climate s ...
A hundred years from now, looking back, the only question that will appear important about the historical moment in which we now live is the ...
The faster Arctic ice melts and the more open sea is revealed, the more heat that becomes available to melt the remaining ice and heat up th ...
"Rising greenhouse gas emissions pose significant risks to society and ecosystems." — Exxon Mobil.
"Do you consult your dentist about your heart condition? In science, as in any area, reputations are based on knowledge and expertise in ...
"Action is the antidote for despair.—"American folk singer Joan Baez.
"The world is perfectly on track to six degrees Celsius increasing the temperature, which is very bad news. And everybody, even school child ...
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.
"Even when nuclear power plants go horribly wrong, they do less damage to the planet and its people than coal-burning stations operating nor ...
The Marines are quietly leading the way on efficiency and renewables.
"Our priority is to save lives by reducing the number of Marines ...
Some people say ‘When you are sure about climate change, then we will do something about it.’ Suppose your doctor says ‘Well, I am very ...
"If you don't know how to keep poisons out of somebody's water, or their air, how can you say you love your neighbor?" —Christian Environmen ...
"The paleoclimate record shouts out to us that, far from being self-stabilising, the Earth's climate system is an ornery beast which overrea ...
If the Arctic is warming, why was the winter of 2010 so cold?
The so-called Warm Arctic-Cold Continent Pattern is "kind of like le ...What do a banana and a piece of coal have in common? Both are made of carbon and both provide us with energy. Coal stores carbon that was in ...
To declare that the warming has not yet appeared and therefore the theory is wrong is like arguing that "a woman hasn't yet given birth and ...
Climate = the canvas on which 21st C history will be painted.
"Those who work to prevent global warming are deeply conservative, insistent that we should leave the world in something like the shape we f ...
"There is this long, wonderful history of the human race written in blood. We have this tendency to just take what we want. And that's how w ...
Partial evidence can be very misleading. Remember the "blind men feeling an elephant" allegory? One feels a leg and says it's a tree. Anot ...
One man's personal choices tell you nothing about the validity of the science. It's like saying, "Louis Pasteur sometimes neglected to wa ...
"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and to do these other things not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that ...
Who amongst us hasn't delayed opening a bill or bank statement, because we want to postpone reading the unpleasant news?
The formula for false media balance is: Add one truth plus one lie, then divide by two.
Variation: Accuracy is not achieved ...
Saying 'stopping the Keystone pipeline won't stop global warming,' is like a civil rights skeptic saying in 1960, 'Why Woolworth's lunch cou ...
I am skeptical we can keep burning fossil fuels with a business as usual mentality without harming the planet.
"When it comes to climate change, true skepticism is two-sided. One-sided skepticism is no skepticism at all." —Michael Mann. ...
"We desperately want to believe that big problems are overblown or nonexistent. Whenever a group of people 'desperately wants to believe' s ...
"It is not right to destroy the world God has given us. He created everything; as the Bible says, 'The God who made the world and everythin ...
"I wouldn’t characterize wanting to use the brakes on a foggy road as hysteria. Humanity is simply driving too fast for the conditions ahea ...
As renewable technologies jostle for position in the growing low carbon economy, commentators are asking 'Who is the fairest electricity gen ...
Humans have overrun the planet to live in every ecosphere. We have had a dramatic impact on natural resources in every land we have colonise ...
Replace your "ands" with "buts" or "therefores." It makes for better writing —Trey Parker, writer of South Park, on the art of storytellin ...
"Clean up Your Own Mess" -- Robert Fulghum
"Cleaning up after ourselves generally is neither easy nor fun, and we usually don't l ...
We're like the overweight patient that goes to the doctor and learns his cholesterol is too high. He doesn't die immediately—but until he ch ...
"Are we going to go down in history as the people who saved the bankers and let the biosphere go down?" —George Monbiot
As Earth's oceans warm and become more acidic, ocean creatures including pteropods are undergoing severe stress. They are harbingers of chan ...
The basic science of climate change is more than 150 years old. Back in 1859, Irish physicist John Tyndall predicted that winters would war ...
"The popular term 'global warming' is a misnomer. It implies something uniform, gradual, mainly about temperature, and quite possibly ben ...
Calling him [an oil lobbyist] a serious source on climate is like calling a fox a "serious" protector of the hen house.
The National Academy of Sciences is the "Supreme Court" for science. Honest Abe created it 150 years ago to summarize "state of the art" sc ...
The longer global warming continues, the greater the risk of "waking the sleeping giants"—major feedbacks such as ice sheet collapse, methan ...
Every day, beer is delivered to a restaurant in crates, and the driver takes away the empty bottles from the previous day in the same crates ...
Saying 'I hate government regulation, therefore global warming is a hoax,' is akin to saying 'I hate shots, therefore the flu doesn't exist. ...
"If ten people told you your house was on fire, you would call the fire department. You wouldn’t really care whether some of them thought th ...
Better to adapt than mitigate? This is like saying 'It's better to smoke, get cancer, then spend years in chemo- and radiotherapy, than to ...
“Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful” — George E. P. Box
"We're headed toward this cliff, and instead of taking our foot off the gas we're stepping on the pedal."—Scott Mandia.
All scientists are skeptics. The motto of UK's 350-year-old Royal Society is 'Nullius in verba,' Latin for "On the words of no one" or "tak ...
It's hard to change habits, especially when the most harmful consequences lie in the distant future. Try convincing a teenager to stop smok ...
"When we look at the last 4 decades, we've seen 0.5°C global warming. Some people say, 'well that's not much!' Then I tell them to think o ...
When your only tool is a hammer, all problems look like nails.
A corollary: Show me a problem that is obviously not "a nail" an ...
“Like the sinking of the Titanic, catastrophes are not democratic. A much higher fraction of passengers from the cheaper decks were lost. W ...
Question: "What is the single most important piece of evidence supporting global warming theory?" Answer: "What is the single strand th ...
Weather is like flipping a coin once. It is unpredictable. Climate is the average weather, measured over decades. It's like flipping a c ...
Does a winter cold snap disprove global warming? That's like saying in April, "Don't tell me the days are getting longer. Look how da ...
"...97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the tenets of ACC [anthropogenic climate change] outline ...
Climate change will have major impacts on the availability of water for growing food and on crop productivity in the decades to come. Increa ...
The climate system is like a rowboat. It has two stable states. "You can tip and then you’ll just go back. You tip it and just go back ...
Just thermometers, indicating since the 1880 that the Earth is warming due to climate change.
Banks, insurers and big investors are beginning to price climate risk into their decisions. This will accelerate the shift to low carbon ene ...
With "Cradle to Cradle" design, every waste product is raw material for the next process.
Minnesotans say: Last summer was nice, but I had to work both days!
As evaporation accelerates, dry areas get dryer and wet areas become wetter. Why? Because "what goes up must come down," but unfortunately ...
"The evidence for climate change is not a house of cards, where you take one piece out and the whole theory falls apart. It's more like a mo ...
97 of 100 doctors recommend quick action to correct your child's serious abnormalities revealed by tests. One doctor says the child seems ...
Debate is a contest of orators; Science is a contest of evidence.
"This is like saying that if someone else drops more litter than you, then it's OK for you to drop litter."—Dr. Richard Milne
As the Arctic warms, so the northern continents at higher latitudes experience cold winters with heavy snow falls. It's rather like the frid ...
In climate communication, "We need to stop being Chicken Little and start being The Little Engine That Could." Less of 'the sky is falling ...
Would you put your grandkids on an airplane that 97 of the top 100 aerospace engineers declared unsafe, because you heard the 3 others say ' ...
Cold winter in Europe, but warm in Siberia. So this disproves AGW? That's like saying: 'My keys were in my jacket, now they're not. ...
If 97 out of 100 oncologists advised you to remove a skin mole, would you listen to 3 oncologists saying the spot on your skin is benign? A ...
"The fact that humans are causing climate change is good news. That means we can do something about it." - NASA scientist Robert Cahalan
"If we never have another tornado or hurricane, the increased threat of droughts, heat waves, floods and fires are enough for us to take act ...
"Every major national science academy in the world has reported that global warming is real, caused mostly by humans, and requires urgent ac ...
When CC walks his dog, he moves in a straight line, but his dog, TC, tugs on the leash and wanders right and left. TC is Temperature Chang ...
- former Energy Secretary James Schlesinger responding the American addiction to fossil fuels and our inability to be energy independent
China has succeeded in growing its economy and lifting more people out of poverty, while reducing its CO2 emissions per unit of GDP (carbon ...
The Dinosaur Economy is an energy intense economy that relies primarily on fossil fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas that are derived f ...
"A million small things got us into this climate crisis, and millions of actions will get us out of it." - Patrick Gonzalez, climate scienti ...
It will take generations to decarbonise the world's economies. When it's over for us, the next generation will have to pick up the baton and ...
"It may not be common sense, but if common sense were good enough, we wouldn't need science."
No doctor can tell us exactly how and when we'll die. But that doesn't invalidate the reality of mortality. We can be quite certain tha ...
Fossil fuel industry is the only industry on earth throwing its waste out for free. If you run a restaurant, you have to pay someone to car ...
"Blaming La Nina for the record drought is like blaming the car engine for the speeding ticket. See what happens when the driver steps on th ...
"The last time climate change happened this fast was the Cretaceous (time of the dinosaurs) and the oil was being made then." - Stephanie C ...
Climate change is not a "cocktail hour curiosity." It is a very dangerous threat. Our climate system is an angry beast and we are poking i ...
"If you want to change the world for the better, first you have to change the story."
"I do not want the government telling me what to do. But, the longer we wait, the worse this problem gets...then you are going to see a lot ...
"I am a conservative Republican...I do not believe in wasting things...I do not believe in wasting natural resources or any resources that w ...
"Under pressure from climate stress even the most robust constitutional democracy may find its character threatened. Faced with more stress ...
"To my free enterprise colleagues -- especially conservatives here -- (if) you think it's all a bunch of hooey, the Chinese don't." — conser ...
"It's not enough to care; we must link our concern to each other & act collectively...'1,000 stallions unconnected cannot move a baby carria ...
Human's aren't the first species to alter the atmosphere; that distinction belongs to cyanobacteria, (blue-green algae) which, some two bill ...
Slowing emissions of carbon dioxide is somewhat like slowing credit-card spending and expecting your debt to shrink.
Ask a local farmer whether they have noticed any changes in the timing of growing seasons in the past few decades. Ask a local gardener if ...
"CO2 causes more severe droughts and floods, which are very bad for plants. So saying that more CO2 will be good for plants is like t ...
Climate chaos breeds conflict, violence and terrorism. When people become desperate, they do desperate things, because they have nothing l ...
"People used to think the world was flat. Then others said it was a perfect sphere. Once we could accurately measure, it turns out they are ...
Skepticism = looking at all the evidence before drawing a conclusion. Denial = rejecting any evidence that does not support your preferred, ...
"It is the nature of the human species to reject what is true but unpleasant, and to embrace what is obviously false but comforting."
Farmers know that plants grow best when all their needs are in balance, not just more and more CO2. Crops also need water, nutrien ...
"Meanwhile China will keep eating our lunch on clean energy. What we need are politicians willing to make the tough—and often unpopular—dec ...
"To be clear. I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy." — Jon Huntsman
"Our children and grandchildren are going to be mad at us for burning all this oil. It took the Earth 500 million years to create the stuff ...
Climate is about long term trends. Weather is short-term fluctuations.
Drawing conclusions about climate by looking at the we ...
Joseph Fourier (1768 — 1830), the 'Copernicus' of global warming.
Saying that CO2 is "only a trace gas" is like saying that arsenic is "only" a trace water contaminant.
Climate = what you expect. Weather = what you get. Variation: When travel, climate determines what you pack. Weather determines what ...
Weather is short term and unpredictable, like ocean waves.
Climate is long-term and predictable, like the tides.
Have you ever stood on a beach and watched the tide coming in? The long-term trend (the water level steadily rising) is hidden behind sh ...
Extreme weather is not 'caused' by climate change, just like murder is not 'caused' by guns. But just as greater availability of firearms ma ...
'First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, and then you win.'
“It is no longer enough to love, feed, shelter, clothe and educate a child – not when the future itself is in danger. Being conscientious pa ...
Imagine your radiologist pointing to a spot on your lung x-ray, which several top oncologists have agreed shows cancer.. Would you say, 'I ...
Keystone XL pipeline is not the most destructive. The worst pipeline runs from Wall St. to Capitol Hill, via K St. It gushes money, no ...
Saying a cold winter disproves long-term global warming is like the guy who wins two hands of poker and thinks he's figured out how to 'bea ...
'Or if the sun revolves around the earth?' Climate Scientist Michael E. Mann's response to the statement that climate change is a hoax.
100 years ago, Titanic's Captain Smith steamed ahead full speed, despite iceberg warnings. By time the fatal 'berg was visible, it ...
"Man has been appointed as a steward for the management of God's property, and ultimately he will give account of his stewardship." (Luke 16 ...
Would you ever see a commercial like this? No, because then you would think, 'what are the other 32 out of 33 dentists saying?'
"Even small rises in sea level will have very big impact in some places, as storm surges hit coasts. If you raise the floor of a basketball ...
Just as bad as wearing outdated disco clothes is believing this outdated idea: 'scientists still disagree if humans are causing climate chan ...
Evangelical Christians acknowledge that we live in God's world. Acting from love of God and Jesus Christ, Christians act to protect the natu ...
This is not Gen X, Y or Z. It is Gen U - the U-turn generation whose task is to see global emissions slow, and over the next 30-40 years, ...
Many Earth systems behave like rubber bands, by not reversing smoothly down the same path that they were stretched along. This means that ma ...
Take two breaths. Your second breath comes from phytoplankton, who produce 1/2 the world's oxygen. One more reason to protect oceans.
The task of reducing carbon emissions seems enormous, but every journey starts with a single step. You can reduce your carbon emissions by i ...
"'Coal = Jobs.' Yes, for lung doctors."—Thomas Friedman, New York Times Columnist
"Think of Earth's climate as a drunk: When left alone, it sits; when forced to move, it staggers." —Dr Richard Alley.
Want your kids skiing down the bunny slope or the triple black diamond expert slope? This is our choice for reducing our global carbon emis ...
"There is a great market opportunity for innovation. We going to go from green vs. gold to green = gold."—James Bradfield Moody.
"Past climate change is not a source of comfort. It's a cause for concern."— John Cook
It's the Olympics. USA has a chance to win gold in the Clean Energy Race event. Unfortunately, she is falling behind other countries.
"Science is not a democracy. It is a dictatorship. It is the evidence that does the dictating." - author John Reisman
We are not the radicals. Oil companies are the radicals. They are willing to alter the chemical composition of the atmosphere to make more ...
What happens in the Arctic, doesn't stay in the Arctic. The rapid disappearance of sea ice cover can have consequences that are felt all ove ...
"Anyone who hears this: your job for the rest of your life is to make the impossible possible."—Dave Roberts (Grist).
"This generation has altered the composition of the atmosphere on a global scale through...a steady increase in carbon dioxide from the burn ...
“Much of the impact of climate change will be felt through changing patterns of water availability, with shrinking glaciers and changing pat ...
"Of all sectors of society, agriculture is the sector most likely to be affected by changes in climate. Investment [in agricultural research ...
"The word rival, after all, comes from 'people who share the same river.'"
Many wars are ignited by conflict over scarce resources ...
When you've built a great wall of evidence it takes more than a brick coming loose to bring the whole lot down.
" 'Clean coal' represents a breakthrough —in the marketing of coal. But it does not represent a breakthrough in the burning of coal." ...
"The cheapest carbon to remove from the atmosphere, is the carbon we don't put there in the first place."
Mark Twain famously said, "Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it." It turns out that he was wrong. We have ...
Climate change increases the odds for extreme weather. Like playing Russian Roulette, while adding more and more bullets to a revolver. Yo ...
"Think of the atmosphere as a sponge. The hotter the air, the bigger your sponge, so it can hold more water. And when you squeeze it out, yo ...
"Carbon offsets...are like pushing your food around your plate to give the impression you've eaten it."
There's no one "silver bullet" that can solve our energy and climate challenge in one shot. Instead, it's going to take a lot of little bu ...
Weather is like CNN. Climate is like The History Channel.
"Nature favours those organisms which leave the environment in better shape for their progeny to survive" — James Lovelock
"...I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait 'til oil and coal run out before we t ...
"Before we start geoengineering we have to raise the following question: are we sufficiently talented to take on what might become the onero ...
"Last month, more than 70 European companies, including Ikea and Coca Cola, asked the European Union to aim for more ambitious carbon cuts." ...
"To a patient scientist, the unfolding greenhouse mystery is far more exciting than the plot of the best mystery novel."—Dr. David Schindler
97 doctors said you must have a tumor removed or it'll kill you. But you decided to follow the advice of 3 who said "Nah, it's just a shado ...
"An obese, middle-aged man is running to catch a bus. Suddenly, he clutches his chest, falls to the ground and dies of a massive heart attac ...
It is easier to argue for the existence of Santa Claus than argue against all the evidence of climate change.— a scientist at Washington Uni ...
Sure, the climate always changes—just like asteroids have always hit the Earth. But does that mean that a big asteroid hitting the Earth tod ...
Electric utility CEOs say they must burn coal to meet our energy demands. Sure, hungry kids want candy not vegetables. Yet, burning coal o ...
Climate change is "a significant investment risk for the foreseeable future".
"If you question the numbers, just ask the plants."— Andy Extance, Simple Climate.
Who doesn’t want economic investment? Who doesn’t want renewable sources of energy? Who doesn’t want cleaner air and water and a thriving ec ...
Climate change is like a train: it starts slowly, but it’s awfully hard to stop once it gains a bit of momentum.
In order to prevent climate change, the world has to switch from high-carbon, polluting, power generation; to new, low-carbon generating cap ...
“Is heart surgery preferable to a good diet? Of course not. Let’s go for the good diet.”—Bill Gates, on geoengineering.
"A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus."—Martin Luther King.
Some skeptics conflate 'uncertainty' with 'ignorance'. This is the idea that because scientists are uncertain about some aspect [of climate ...
1.4 F of warming so far has led to 40% less Arctic ice mass, Western wildfires that now consume 6x more forest, more frequent big hurricanes ...
Continuing to burn fossil fuels in order to maintain the growth economy is like keeping on drinking to avoid a hangover.
The world is in the grip of a rush to renewables. Dirty old King Coal can be excused for being tired and grumpy at times.
Do you believe information provided from the Watergate Burglars? No, neither should you believe computer hackers who steal private e-mails ...
Since 1950, the global percentage of dry areas has increased by about 1.74% of global land area per decade. That is 1.74% compounding intere ...
"Hope is a verb with its sleeves rolled up." - Dr. David W. Orr, Professor of Environmental Studies Program, Oberlin College, Ohio.
"(To truly resolve climate change), there are no silver bullets, only silver buckshot." - Bill McKibben author & Founder of 350.org
"Saying climate change is not real is like saying, 'the sun may not be real because it got dark last night." - comedian Bill Maher
Just as rebuilding your house in a week would cost far more than rebuilding it slowly, so hasty remodeling of the global energy system would ...
"I am a pilot. I love flying in bad weather because you must trust the cockpit instruments. Up here, if you do not accept science, you die.— ...
"What do jet engines, computers, transistors, the internet, and the Global Positioning System (GPS) have in common? They all owe their exist ...
"The earth itself is a spaceship. We had better keep an eye its air control system." - Roger Revelle, Director of the Scripps Institute of ...
"A wait and see policy may mean waiting until it is too late." — 1979 National Academy of Sciences report, Carbon Dioxide and Climate: A Sc ...
Who amongst us has not delayed opening a bank or credit card statement because we don't want to be reminded of the unpleasant news it contai ...
Positive feedback increases change in whatever direction that change is heading—so it's self-reinforcing. While riding a motorbike, what st ...
“...When it comes to climate change, it's the fossil fuels we insist on burning—particularly oil—that are the single greatest cause of globa ...
The concentration of carbon dioxide in the air is like the water level in a bathtub. If water pours in faster than it drains out, the level ...
Science denial and politicization occurs whenever some influential group sees a new discovery as threatening to their worldview, values, st ...
Efficiency is simply "getting what you paid for." When you buy a light bulb, you pay for light; not waste heat.
Variation: Ef ...
"I really, really deplore the politicisation and polarisation of this issue" [global warming]. "There are these increasingly unprincipled at ...
By the 2040s, the entire North Pole will be open water in the summer, with no sea ice. This has terrible consequences for Santa Claus and h ...
Global warming, like obesity, is an unanticipated consequence of prosperity.
In 2010, 37 governments spent $409bn on artificially lowering the price of fossil fuels, according to the International Energy Agency. This ...
Galileo championed the idea that Earth revolves around the sun, but some of his evidence was later proven wrong. Today, peer review and co ...
A car with airbags costs more than a car without. Society decides how valuable those airbags are. Society can decide the value of renewable ...
"Knowledge of the oceans is more than a matter of curiosity. Our very survival may hinge upon it.” President John F. Kennedy, Jr., March 196 ...
A school bus goes up a hill, then down. The hilltop is the tipping point. Earth is the bus, but with no driver, just quarreling teenagers, ...
In New York City, pumps at some sewage stations have been raised to higher elevations, and the city government has undertaken extensive plan ...
Who knew? Power plants use 40% of U.S. freshwater supplies. How will they cope with a drier climate? Who will keep the lights on when the w ...
If aliens came and damaged our planet, would you declare them 'persons' and give them money, or would you mobilize to fight them?
Climate change is like one of those Hollywood disaster movies that pit obstructionists against ordinary people who become heroes. Those movi ...
"You don't have to believe in climate change to solve it. Everything we do to raise energy efficiency, will make money, improve security & ...
"Once people understand climate protection puts money in your pocket, the political resistance will melt faster than the glaciers." - Amory ...
"Imagine if I was scolding my kids not to pee on the toilet seat while paying them per-dribble. I'm just saying."—David Roberts, Grist.
Wildfires dominate the headlines – but the media coverage focuses only on effects while ignoring a major cause. Talking about western wildfi ...
The U.S. is sitting on a vast, untapped reserve of cheap, clean energy: the energy lost every day to leakage, outdated infrastructure and ...
"It's getting warmer. Storms are getting stronger...and it's getting harder to say this is an accident of nature" — Dr. Stephen Schneider.
"Heat waves are the greatest weather related killer in the US. Each year, it kills more people than hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, blizzard ...
"We're in a giant car headed for a brick wall and everyone is arguing over where they want to sit." - David Suzuki
To stay below the blood-alcohol limit, we should drink no more than six standard drinks. To keep world temperature increase below 2C we must ...
Cutting greenhouse gas emissions is like buying an insurance policy: we incur a cost to reduce a risk.
"We will see it, our kids will live it, and there's a question of whether our grandkids will make it through or not."
There are only a few plausible explanations for changing climate. To be accepted as a robust explanation for global warming, Greenhouse Gase ...
'You can't wake a person who is pretending to sleep'—Oromo saying, Ethiopia
"The more people with visible tattoos who advocate for clean energy, the more success it will have in Washington. You win the tattooed vote ...
Weather gone wild. "It's been a crazy two years. WIth droughts, and floods, and tornadoes and heat waves."
There’s no “STOP” button. There’s no emergency brake. Think of our climate system as an enormous tanker with a world’s worth of momentum beh ...
"This is, at the bottom, a moral issue; we have met the enemy and they is Shell." - Bill McKibben
"You never have 100% certainty in anything. If you wait for 100% certainty on the battlefield, something bad is going to happen." — Vice Ad ...
"Responsibility is a big Republican theme. Why should we not take responsibility for what we are collectively doing to the climate system?" ...
"Don't look now, but that hoax just ate New Jersey."— Melinda Henneberger, Washington Post.
"The odds that natural variability created these [recent weather] extremes are minuscule... To count on those odds would be like quitting yo ...
Reject climate change? "Make sure to say that very publicly, because I want our grandchildren to read what you said and what I said." - Bob ...
"(Climate Change) is ultimately an argument of humans vs. physics. It is not Republicans vs. Democrats, liberals vs conservatives, or envir ...
"We have everything we need to face this urgent challenge. All it takes is political will. And in our democracy, political will is a renewab ...
"It's very easy right now to talk about climate change as... theoretical, to talk about the dirtiness caused by coal plants as...aesthetic" ...