A Quote by Bill McKibben
I think that so far the political and economic power of the fossil fuel industry has trumped all else.
Related Quotes
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.
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.
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.
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.
This is sort of the epitome of the economic elite that is converging with a political elite. It's not only the banks and insurance companies. It's the war industry and private prisons. Certainly the fossil fuel agencies. It's not only that they're supporting this campaign, they're supporters of the Clinton Foundation. And where the Clinton Foundation ends and Hillary's [Clinton] political actions begin, that too is quite troubling.
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.
I think we need to go straight at the fossil fuel industry.
Because the financial power of the fossil-fuel industry is so great it can, and has, delayed any real action of the climate issues almost everywhere.
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.
Other thing we need to understand is that the financial power of the fossil fuel industry has so far prevented even any minor progress. They have a sweetheart deal unlike any other business on Earth: they're allowed to dispose of their waste for free, to use the atmosphere as an open sewer. And they will do all they can to defend that special privilege.
Viewed as a means to the end of political freedom, economic arrangements are important because of their effect on the concentration or dispersion of power. The kind of economic organization that provides economic freedom directly, namely, competitive capitalism, also promotes political freedom because it separates economic power from political power and in this way enables the one to offset the other
We should not only look at the short-term economic benefits of fossil fuels but also at the bad news for climate change. We should therefore not greet the fossil fuel age unconditionally.
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.
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.
The fossil fuel industry has taken control of, and powered up, architecture and methods originally built by the tobacco industry and others to attack and deny science.
The fossil fuel industry maintains a science denial operation and a political influence operation designed to do just that. What's good for their business is more important to them than what's good for America.
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