A Quote by Bill McKibben

I did very much like [Barack] Obama's attack on fossil fuel subsidies for fossil fuel companies. We asked for that in demonstrations and petitions, and now we'll try to push it forward.

Bill McKibben

Quote Topics

Asked Attack Barack Companies Demonstrations Did Forward Fossil Fossil Fuel Fuel Like Much Now Obama Petitions Push Subsidies Try Very

Quote Author

Bill McKibben
American - Environmentalist
Born: December 8, 1960

When you think about the current present value of the fossil fuel reserves that are on the books, the current fossil fuel companies, the last time that that much wealth was at stake was when the South fought the Civil War.

Chris Hayes

The American Republican Party is the last political bastion of the fossil fuel industry - now so in tow to the fossil fuel industry that it cannot face up to the realities of carbon pollution and climate change.

Sheldon Whitehouse

If your child gets asthma, the fossil fuel industry doesn't pay. Or if there's a natural disaster, the bill is paid by the taxpayer, not the fossil fuel company.

James Hansen

We can't change the fossil fuel companies' behavior in isolation from the rest of the industrial system. As long as they have customers, they're going to continue to operate, whether or not we divest of their stock. However, divesting might be helpful in terms of disrupting the story that what these companies do is perfectly okay. This situation differs from apartheid in a key regard though: racial equality in South Africa was no threat whatsoever to capitalism as we know it. Ending the fossil fuel era is a much deeper change.

Charles Eisenstein

Every candidate running for president has got to answer the following very simple question: At a time when we need to address the planetary crisis of climate change, and transform our energy system away from fossil fuels and into energy efficiency and sustainability, should we continue to give $135 billion in tax breaks and subsidies over the next decade to fossil fuel companies?

Bernie Sanders

We're clearly coming to the end of the fossil fuel era. We have the technology to shift to renewable energy, we have the will of the people. The only thing that's keeping us back is the fossil fuel industry's hold on our political system. That's what we need to change.

Mark Ruffalo

In addition to contributing to erosion, pollution, food poisoning, and the dead zone, corn requires huge amounts of fossil fuel - it takes a half gallon of fossil fuel to produce a bushel of corn.

Michael Pollan

Now that Europe has developed through deforestation and fossil fuel use it is telling Brazil not to develop through deforestation and fossil fuel use. Bolsonaro is the backlash against such hypocrisy.

Michael Shellenberger

Most climate debates have focused on cutting the use of fossil fuels. But besides a few high-profile scuffles over fuel extraction in vulnerable wild places like the offshore Arctic, political leaders have ignored fossil fuel production as a necessary piece of climate strategy.

Lydia Millet

Of course methane is a fossil fuel, but as long as it is burned efficiently and fugitive emissions of methane gas are minimised, it is a less harmful fossil fuel than coal and oil and is an important way-station on the global journey towards low-carbon energy.

Mark Walport

It is a fact that many of the wars and conflicts happening all over the world are aggravated or fought strictly for geopolitical fossil fuel energy interests, and many of the world's most dangerous regimes are funded by fossil fuel dollars.

Mark Ruffalo

The great thing about cheap natural gas, again it's cheap, and it provides a cleaner alternative to coal. But it's still a fossil fuel, and because it's still a fossil fuel, it still emits carbon.

Thomas Friedman

We promote new fossil fuel infrastructure, from airport expansion and coal mines in the U.K. to oil pipelines in the U.S. Investments are meant to build and secure our shared future - but all these fossil fuel investments are directly fuelling the climate crisis that threatens to undermine that future.

Caroline Lucas

Most Republicans are not prepared to stand up to the fossil fuel industry because they get a lot of their campaign funds from the Koch brothers and other people in the fossil fuel industry. That tells me why we have to reform our campaign finance system.

Bernie Sanders

Subsidies for the oil, gas and coal industries are projected to cost taxpayers more than $135 billion in the coming decade. At a time when scientists tell us we need to reduce carbon pollution to prevent catastrophic climate change, it is absurd to provide massive subsidies that pad fossil-fuel companies' already enormous profits.

Bernie Sanders

Just 8% of the $409bn spent on fossil-fuel subsidies in 2010 went to the poorest 20% of the population.