QuoteProject
We've built a new Earth. It's not as nice as the old one; it's the greatest mistake humans have ever made, one that we will pay for literally forever.
Bill Mckibben
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote highlights humanity's detrimental impact on the planet and the irreversible consequences of our actions.

Bill McKibben's quote reflects a profound concern about environmental degradation caused by human activities. He emphasizes that the changes we've made to the Earth are not improvements, but rather the greatest errors in our history, with lasting repercussions that humanity will endure indefinitely. This serves as a stark reminder of our responsibility toward the environment and the dire need for sustainable practices.

Themes

EnvironmentHumansNatureImpactMistake

In practice

Example use cases

This quote can be used in an environmental awareness speech to highlight the consequences of climate change.

More from Bill Mckibben

The religious environmental movement is potentially key to dealing with the greatest problem humans have ever faced, and it has never been captured with more breadth and force than in RENEWAL. I hope this movie is screened in church basements and synagogue social halls across the country, and that it moves many more people of faith off the fence and into action.
Bill MckibbenRead
Remember...this year has already seen more billion-dollar weather-related disasters than any year in US history. Last year was the warmest ever recorded on planet Earth. Arctic sea ice is near all-time record lows. Record floods from Pakistan to Queensland to the Mississippi basin; record drought from the steppes of Russia to the plains of Texas...This is what climate change looks like in its early stages.
Bill MckibbenRead
Alone among businesses, the fossil-fuel industry is allowed to dump its main waste, carbon dioxide, for free.
Bill MckibbenRead
The laws of Congress and the laws of physics have grown increasingly divergent, and the laws of physics are not likely to yield.
Bill MckibbenRead
You think OWS is radical? You think 350.org was radical for helping organize mass civil disobedience in D.C. in August against the Keystone Pipeline? We're not radical. Radicals work for oil companies. The CEO of Exxon gets up every morning and goes to work changing the chemical composition of the atmosphere. No one has ever done anything as radical as that, not in all of human history.
Bill MckibbenRead
Climate change is the single biggest thing that humans have ever done on this planet. The one thing that needs to be bigger is our movement to stop it.
Bill MckibbenRead

Similar quotes

The fog comes on little cat feet. It sits looking over the harbor_x000D_ _x000D_ and city on silent haunches and then moves on.
Carl SandburgRead
The voice of the natural world would be, "Could you please give us space and leave us alone to get along with our own lives and our own ways, because we actually know much better how to do it then when you start interfering."
Jane GoodallRead
A lot of people attack the sea, I make love to it.
Jacques Yves CousteauRead
October is the month for painted leaves. Their rich glow now flashes round the world. As fruits and leaves and the day itself acquire a bright tint just before they fall, so the year near its setting. October is its sunset sky; November the later twilight.
Henry David ThoreauRead
I would prefer to stay up and watch the stars than sleep.
Vera RubinRead
But more wonderful than the lore of old men and the lore of books is the secret lore of ocean.
H. P. LovecraftRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.