Fossil Fuel Quotes - Page 8

• If we do not get our act together and transform our energy system away from fossil fuel, there is a real question as to the quality of the planet that we are going to be leaving our children and our grandchildren.

  Bernie Sanders

  Children, Real, Leaving

  "Trump's EPA Pick Softens Positions Amid Democratic Criticisms" by Jennifer A Dlouhy, www.bloomberg.com. January 19, 2017.

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• Delhi is locked in a complete choking smog at the moment - they've had to close schools in one of the world's biggest cities. They have their own reasons for needing to get off fossil fuels fast.

  Bill McKibben

  School, Cities, Fuel

  "Donald Trump Is a Disaster for the Earth on Every Single Level". Interview with Julia Lurie, www.motherjones.com. November 11, 2016.

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• The climate is nearing tipping points. Changes are beginning to appear and there is a potential for explosive changes, effects that would be irreversible, if we do not rapidly slow fossil-fuel emissions over the next few decades.

  James Hansen

  Energy, Climate, Would Be

  "Coal-fired power stations are death factories. Close them" by James Hansen, www.theguardian.com. February 14, 2009.

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• We of the richer societies, who have had access to more energy than we have the experience to wield intelligently are making decisions we are not qualified to make almost every time we enter the voting booth, go to the grocery store or step into a car show room. We do not know what is "normal." Because our whole life and in some respects a generation or two before us have only known this era of fossil fuel exploitation and resource grabbing; we call this normal.

  Alfred W. Crosby

  Two, Car, Decision

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• No matter what else happens, this is the century in which we must learn to live without fossil fuel.

  David Goodstein

  Fuel, Matter, Fossils

  David Goodstein, Michael Intriligator (2012). “Climate Change and the Energy Problem: Physical Science and Economics Perspective”, p.23, World Scientific Publishing Co Inc

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• We have already used more than half of that budget. This means that three quarters of the fossil fuel reserves need to stay in the ground, and the fossil fuels we do use must be utilized sparingly and responsibly.

  Christiana Figueres

  Mean, Fossils, Three

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• Human use of fossil fuels is altering the chemistry of the atmosphere; oceans are polluted and depleted of fish; 80 per cent of Earth's forests are heavily impacted or gone yet their destruction continues. An estimated 50,000 species are driven to extinction each year. We dump millions of tonnes of chemicals, most untested for their biological effects, and many highly toxic, into air, water and soil. We have created an ecological holocaust. Our very health and survival are at stake, yet we act as if we have plenty of time to respond.

  David Suzuki

  Ocean, Air, Years

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• A permanent and sustainable solution to all the problems facing working people is possible by taking the biggest companies into democratic ownership, and reorganizing the economy on a democratically planned basis. Under such a system we could democratically decide how to allocate resources. We could rapidly transition away from fossil fuels, develop massive jobs programs to rebuild the country's rotting infrastructure, and begin to build a whole new world based on meeting the needs of the majority, not the profits of a few.

  Kshama Sawant

  Country, Jobs, People

  Source: www.socialistalternative.org

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• To maintain our economic and national security, we must maximize all of our nation's energy resources, including renewable sources, alternative fuels, and fossil fuels, all in a way that balances economic development and protecting our environment.

  Joe Heck

  Balance, Energy, Alternatives

  Source: www.motherjones.com

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• We shouldn't penalize those that depend on fossil fuels for energy and the jobs they provide.

  Joe Heck

  Jobs, Energy, Fuel

  Source: www.motherjones.com

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• That is certainly the promise of [Donald Trump] campaign and the promise of his economic program.This economic program is really the pickup truck of economic programs. It's the Ford F-150 of economic programs. It's about manufacturing. It's about oil, fossil fuels. It's a deliberate, forceful reassertion of an image of American industrialism that we have inherited from the 20th century.

  Judy Woodruff

  Oil, Promise, Campaigns

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• Now we are all learning what it's like to reap the whirlwind of fossil fuel dependence... Our destructive addiction has given us a catastrophic war in the Middle East and - now - Katrina is giving our nation a glimpse of the climate chaos we are bequeathing our children.

  Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

  Children, War, Giving

  "'For They That Sow the Wind Shall Reap the Whirlwind'". www.huffingtonpost.com. May 9, 2010.

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• It is a search for a mythical CO2 sink to explain an immeasurable CO2 lifetime to fit a hypothetical CO2 computer model that purports to show that an impossible amount of fossil fuel burning is heating the atmosphere. It is all a fiction.

  Tom Segalstad

  Atmosphere, Fiction, Burning

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• I don't think the fossil fuel industry will listen, not until we build up a lot of pressure. I do think we can persuade some shareholders that they don't want to be involved in this enterprise.

  Bill McKibben

  Thinking, Fuel, Want

  Source: thinkprogress.org

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• Is the divine presence a Republican? Or is He/She/It running an inter-galactic fossil fuel conglomerate?...whatever the explanation may be, the Paraclete appears to be as determined as any terrestrial corporate frontman to prevent a successful conclusion to the climate talks. How I know? Because every time anyone gets together to try to prevent global climate breakdown, He swaths the rich, densely habited parts of the world with snow and ice, while leaving obscurer places to cook.

  George Monbiot

  Running, Successful, Ice

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• There is also a great deal of behind-the-scenes pressure from political funders too. And by funders I don't just mean the fossil fuel industry. Many of those exerting pressure on our society to ignore climate change, oppose climate change legislation, and shut down efforts to develop a clean energy economy are doing so out of ideology, not just economics. In the simplest terms, many large industries don't want the government telling them what to do with their businesses and they don't want any restrictions on what they can and cannot do, which includes polluting our shared environment.

  Katharine Hayhoe

  Mean, Effort, Political

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• The fact is fossil fuel carbon will stay in the surface climate system for millennia.

  James Hansen

  Fossils, Facts, Climate

  "Global warming activist, former NASA scientist James Hansen speaks out before World Affairs Council of Oregon appearance". Interview with Scott Learn, www.oregonlive.com. April 24, 2013.

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• Bitumen is junk energy. A joule, or unit of energy, invested in extracting and processing bitumen returns only four to six joules in the form of crude oil. In contrast, conventional oil production in North America returns about 15 joules. Because almost all of the input energy in tar sands production comes from fossil fuels, the process generates significantly more carbon dioxide than conventional oil production.

  Thomas Homer-Dixon

  Oil, America, Environmental

  "The Tar Sands Disaster". www.nytimes.com. March 31, 2013.

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• This year - today - I am repenting of my dependence on fossil fuels.

  Jim Wallis

  Years, Fuel, Today

  FaceBook post by Jim Wallis from Jan 22, 2015

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• At issue is not whether the global economy will pass away. It is passing away. Rising populations and debt combined with depletion of freshwater sources and fossil fuel make the status quo untenable. The only question is whether civil society will survive the transition.

  Daniel Suarez

  Issues, Passing Away, Transition

  Daniel Suarez (2010). “Freedom (TM)”, p.46, Penguin

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• We discover too late that we have turned a blind eye to the extinction of a species that is essential to the balance of life in a particular context. Or we discover too late that the importation of a foreign life-form, animal or vegetable, has upset local ecosystems, damaging soil or neighbouring life-forms. We discover that we have come near the end of supplies-of fossil-fuels for example -on which we have built immense structures of routine expectation.

  Rowan Williams

  Eye, Animal, Ecosystems

  Rowan Williams (2012). “Faith in the Public Square”, p.188, A&C Black

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• The 1,230 gigawatts (GW) of renewable power generating capacity in place at the end of 2009 now constitutes just over 25 percent of total generating capacity worldwide. This is over three times nuclear generating capacity and roughly 38 percent of the capacity of fossil fuel-burning power plants worldwide.

  Christopher Flavin

  Burning, Fuel, Fossils

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• Improved energy productivity and renewable energy are both available in abundance—and new policies and technologies are rapidly making them more economically competitive with fossil fuels. In combination, these energy options represent the most robust alternative to the current energy system, capable of providing the diverse array of energy services that a modern economy requires. Given the urgency of the climate problem, that is indeed convenient.

  Christopher Flavin

  Technology, Alternatives, Fuel

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• ...A one-pound box of prewashed lettuce contains 80 calories of food energy. According to Cornell ecologist David Pimentel, growing, chilling, washing, packaging, and transporting that box of organic salad to a plate on the East Coast takes more than 4,600 calories of fossil fuel energy, or 57 calories of fossil fuel for every calorie of food.

  Michael Pollan

  Cooking, Energy, East

  Michael Pollan (2006). “The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals”, p.180, Penguin

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• If an aircraft is able to fly day and night without fuel, propelled only by solar energy, let no one claim that it is impossible to do the same thing for motor vehicles, heating and air-conditioning systems or computers, etc. This project voices our conviction that a pioneering spirit with political vision can together change society and and reduce society's dependence on fossil energies.

  Bertrand Piccard

  Night, Air, Motor Vehicles

  "Solar-powered plane reaches new heights". CNN interview, edition.cnn.com. April 19, 2010.

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