Bill McKibben
๐ค SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
But if you think about it, the scale of the problem that we face, it soon becomes clear that really the most important thing an individual can do is be somewhat less of an individual.
Join together with others in movements large enough to have some chance at changing those political and economic ground rules that keep us locked on this current path.
That's why I helped start 350.org 20 years ago, the first
global grassroots climate campaign and why we do this, why we founded Third Act to help those of us over 60 play our role and on and on and on.
If people are willing to, beyond whatever they're doing at home, plug in with others.
then we may be able to make shifts large enough to really matter.
First thing to do is just a basic point of understanding that there's two halves to this task.
One, you could call the demand side and the other, the supply.
We have to start using
You know, heat pumps and electric vehicles for mobility and induction cooktops.
And we have to have a lot of solar power and wind power and things.
Those things are starting to roll out.
Really, the only real accomplishment legislatively of our Congress in the 30 some years we've known about all this was this Inflation Reduction Act last year, which puts a fair amount of money in the direction of some of those things.
And that is a place where people can play a part on their own and in their community.
So that's part of the battle.
But the other half is this question of supply side.
To make that happen fast enough, we also have to shut down the expansion of the fossil fuel industry.
It doesn't do any good to build solar panels if you're building lots of oil wells and gas fracking rigs and stuff at the same time.
So that's why we work so hard to do things like shut down new pipelines and put land off limits for leasing.
So movements are essential for both these things.