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climate change

Reluctant activist

Bill McKibben

Bill McKibben is a reluctant activist. But he is very good at it. The founder of the 350.org movement, Bill is currently in New Zealand hosted by 350 Aotearoa as part of his Do the math campaign.   Sustainable Lens went along for a listen and a chat.

Here are some of our favourite bits:

Asking for same liveable planet people always had isn’t radical. Changing the global system for profit is radical.

Jail over climate change wasn’t the end of the world, the end of the world is end of the world.

We can’t outspend the other guys, we have to find other currencies to work in.

The fossil fuel industry is no longer a normal industry.  Being against the laws of physics makes it a rogue industry.  Either Exxon has to bend or laws of Physics.

Time to stop tinkering. How do we make it possible for politicians make the system changes we need?

Misplaced kindness: NZ subsidising richest industry on earth to come drill here.

We don’t lack technology, just political will.

Desmond Tutu:  Climate change a deeply moral issue: if wrong to wreck planet, it’s wrong to profit from it.

In China 25% get their hot water from solar. In US is less than 1% and is mostly used for swimming pools.

Why are we continuing to explore for oil when existing oil reserves are  five times more than a 2 degree warming?

If 1 degree warming melts the Arctic, we’re fools to be experimenting with the earth to find out what 2 degrees will do.

Hurricane Sandy insight into utter vulnerability of our systems to climate change.

We’ve taken one of the biggest physical features on earth and broken it. Bill McKibben on effect of climate change on Arctic ice

Bill McKibben: loves Dunedin, but on a rational planet shouldn’t have to have come back.

 

Bill was last in Dunedin in 2009, we spoke with him then too, before we were on the radio.