There was never a time you could get the majority of people in Alabama or Mississippi, or even southern Delaware, to vote to end segregation. What changed things was the rule of law, the courts. Brown v. Board of Education was ushered in by a movement, but it was a legal decision.
Probably the single-most concrete and substantive thing an American, young American, could do to lower our carbon footprint is not turning off the lights or driving a Prius, it's having fewer kids...we'll soon see a market in baby-avoidance carbon credits similar to efforts to sell CO2 credits for avoiding deforestation.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes that reducing the number of children is a significant way to lower carbon footprints.
Andrew Revkin's quote suggests that one of the most effective actions young Americans can take to reduce their impact on the environment is to reconsider their choices about parenthood. By highlighting the environmental costs associated with population growth, he proposes the idea of 'baby-avoidance carbon credits' as a futuristic solution that parallels current markets aimed at reducing carbon emissions through lifestyle changes.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about climate change solutions, one could reference this quote to highlight non-traditional methods of reducing environmental impact.
Similar quotes
We have a structural problem because you can simultaneously understand the medium to long-term risks of climate change and also come to the conclusion that it is in your short-term economic interest to invest in oil and gas. Which is why, you know, anybody who tells you that the market is going to fix this on its own is lying to you.
And finally, to all Canadians: Canada is a great country, one of the hopes of the world. We can be a better one – a country of greater equality, justice, and opportunity. We can build a prosperous economy and a society that shares its benefits more fairly. We can look after our seniors. We can offer better futures for our children. We can do our part to save the world's environment. We can restore our good name in the world.
This is the moment when something once more begins visibly to happen, something truly new and unique... something truly historical, in the sense that history again demands to be heard.
Together, let us make this a new beginning. Let us make a commitment to care for the needy, to teach our children the values and the virtues handed down to us by our families, to have the courage to defend those values and the willingess to sacrifice for them. Let us pledge to restore, in our time, the American spirit of voluntary service, of cooperation, of private and community initiative, a spirit that flows like a deep and mighty river through the history of our nation.
In any situation that we find in our lives, when there is something that we feel should be better, we must exert effort to try and make it better. So it's the same socially, musically, politically in any department of our lives.