A Quote by Kenneth S. Deffeyes

In a sense, the fossil fuels are a onetime gift that lifted us up from subsistence agriculture and eventually should lead us to a future based on renewable resources.

Kenneth S. Deffeyes

Quote Topics

Agriculture Based Eventually Fossil Fossil Fuel Fossil Fuels Fuels Future Gift Lead Lifted Renewable Renewable Resources Resources Sense Should Subsistence Up Us

Quote Author

Kenneth S. Deffeyes
Geologist
Born: 1931

The U.K. government faces three choices to deal with carbon-heavy fossil fuels: force people to stop using them immediately; facilitate a rapid transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy; or hope business-as-usual market forces solve our problem for us.

Clive Lewis

Burning fossil fuels has given us the gift of seeing ourselves in new ways. But that very gift now enables us to see we've got to change our ways.

Sylvia Earle

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

Nuclear power and fossil fuels are the choices of the past. Renewable energy is the choice of the future that is here today.

Hermann Scheer

And in the process, we have come up with fuels - algae-based fuels, isobutanol-based fuels and other fuels - that we think will power the planes in the future so that, you know, by 2020 I hope that our planes will be powered on fuels that are clean fuels and are not polluting the environment so that we'll have a green airline and an airline that actually has fuels that will be hopefully cheaper than the dirty fuels of the past. So [we're] doing good and also turning a profit at the same time.

Richard Branson

Japan is a model already to the lie that economic growth is the key to our future. If they can really show an alternative to nukes and fossil fuels, then they will be the poster boy for the renewable energy for the future.

David Suzuki

Just as fossil fuels from conventional sources are finite and are becoming depleted, those from difficult sources will also run out. If we put all our energy and resources into continued fossil fuel extraction, we will have lost an opportunity to have invested in renewable energy.

David Suzuki

Science tells us we need to keep the majority of fossil fuels in the ground, and that we must urgently invest in renewable energy, and other alternative industries. Doing so would create millions of jobs, ensure a fair transition for fossil fuel workers into new industries, and avert the most catastrophic climate breakdown.

Barry Gardiner

The choice before us is simple. Will we continue to subsidize the dirty fossil fuels of the past, or will we transition to 21st century clean, renewable energy?

Elizabeth Warren

Today, in directly harnessing the power of the Sun, we're taking the energy that God gave us, the most renewable energy that we will ever see, and using it to replace our dwindling supplies of fossil fuels.

Jimmy Carter

The consensus is clear. We need an immediate and determined shift to a clean, renewable economy. The continued mass burning of fossil fuels is inconsistent with a healthy, prosperous future for our civilization.

Al Gore

The issue of climate change is one that we ignore at our own peril. There may still be disputes about exactly how much we're contributing to the warming of the earth's atmosphere and how much is naturally occurring, but what we can be scientifically certain of is that our continued use of fossil fuels is pushing us to a point of no return. And unless we free ourselves from a dependence on these fossil fuels and chart a new course on energy in this country, we are condemning future generations to global catastrophe.

Barack Obama

Obviously, nu-que-lar power is, uh, a renewable source of energy, and the less demand there is for non-renewable sources of energy, like fossil fuels, the better it off it is for the American people.

George W. Bush

We are quite convinced that if he were alive today, as an astute businessman looking out to the future, he would be moving out of fossil fuels and investing in clean, renewable energy.

Stephen Heintz

We could replace people with fossil fuels, have higher and higher levels of industrialization, of agriculture, of production, without thinking of the green-house gases we were admitting, and climate change is really the pollution of the engineering paradigm, when fossil fuels drove industrialism. To now offer that same mindset as a solution is to not take seriously what Einstein said: that you can't solve the problems by using the same mindset that caused them.