If global warming is not contained, the West will face a choice of a refugee crisis of unimaginable proportions, or direct complicity in crimes against humanity.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the dire consequences of global warming, warning of a looming refugee crisis or complicity in human rights violations.
George Monbiot's quote underscores the urgent need to address global warming. He suggests that if action is not taken, the consequences could lead to a massive influx of refugees fleeing environmental disasters, putting the West in a position where it must either address this humanitarian crisis or be complicit in the suffering of those affected, thus framing the climate crisis as a profound moral issue.
In practice
In a speech about climate change at a UN conference.
The notions that nature exists to serve us; that its value consists of the instrumental benefits we can extract; that this value can be measured in cash terms; and that what can't be measured does not matter, have proved lethal to the rest of life on Earth.
I believe that anyone who wants to stand in a national election should receive a course of psychotherapy. Completing the course should be a qualification for office. This wouldn't change the behaviour of psychopaths, but it might prevent some people who exercise power from imposing their own deep wounds on others.
I became an environmentalist because I love the living world, but I spend much of my life thinking about electricity, industrial processes and civil engineering.
Places that have become agricultural deserts, trashed by giant corporations, could be reforested, drawing carbon dioxide from the air on a vast scale. The ecosystems of land and sea could recover, not just in pockets but across great tracts of the planet.
Never underestimate the power of intrinsic values. They inspire every struggle for a better world.
Why is it so easy to save the banks - but so hard to save the biosphere?
A zero-gravity flight is a first step toward space travel.
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.
In the last analysis the entire field of psychology may reduce to biological electrochemistry.
We have found a strange footprint on the shores of the unknown.
Opponents say natural selection is not a theory supported by observation or experiment; that it is not based on fact; and that it cannot be proved. Well, no, you cannot prove the theory to people who won't believe in it any more than you can prove that the Battle of Hastings took place in 1066. However, we know the battle happened then, just as we know the course of evolution on earth unambiguously shows that Darwin was right.
That's one of the ironies of our time: Right when we're on the edge of serious improvements in health care, we're also cooking the planet.
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