Climate change is for real. We have just a small window of opportunity and it is closing rather rapidly. There is not a moment to lose.
Rajendra K. PachauriRead
Climate change: It's here. If we don't react, war, pestilence and famine will follow close behind
Interpretation
Climate change poses serious threats that can lead to widespread suffering if not addressed promptly.
This quote by Rajendra K. Pachauri emphasizes the urgent need for action against climate change, suggesting that if humanity does not respond effectively, severe consequences such as wars, diseases, and food shortages will arise. It serves as a stark warning about the interconnected challenges posed by environmental degradation and the necessity of proactive measures to avert such crises.
In practice
In a conference on environmental policies, a speaker could use this quote to stress the importance of immediate action against climate change.
Climate change is for real. We have just a small window of opportunity and it is closing rather rapidly. There is not a moment to lose.
Unless a price can be put on carbon emissions that is high enough to force power companies and manufacturers to reduce their fossil-fuel use, there seems to be little chance of avoiding hugely damaging temperature increases
There is, even today, a Flat Earth Society that meets every year to say the Earth is flat. The science about climate change is very clear. There really is no room for doubt at this point.
Nobody on this planet is going to be untouched by the impacts of climate change.
We have embarked globally on a path of unsustainable development. Our lifestyles, the way we produce goods and services, are all part of a system that is completely unsustainable. I see solutions to climate change leading to a much larger philosophical shift in the way human society develops. We need a new matrix to define what human progress is.
The impact of climate change will fall disproportionately upon developing countries and the poor persons within all countries. It will therefore exacerbate inequalities in health status and access to adequate food, clean water and other resources.
Development of Western science is based on two great achievements: the invention of the formal logical system (in Euclidean geometry) by the Greek philosophers, and the discovery of the possibility to find out causal relationships by systematic experiment (during the Renaissance). In my opinion, one has not to be astonished that the Chinese sages have not made these steps. The astonishing thing is that these discoveries were made at all.
Scientists who think science consists of unprejudiced data-gathering without speculation are merely cows grazing on the pasture of knowledge.
It is not a simple matter to differentiate unsuccessful from successful experiments. . . .[Most] work that is finally successful is the result of a series of unsuccessful tests in which difficulties are gradually eliminated.
The human race has a yearning to explore. That's part of our biological and psychological makeup.
Nearly all men die of their medicines, not of their diseases.
Modern science says: 'The sun is the past, the earth is the present, the moon is the future.' From an incandescent mass we have originated, and into a frozen mass we shall turn. Merciless is the law of nature, and rapidly and irresistibly we are drawn to our doom.
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