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.
Interpretation
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.
In practice
This quote can be used in an environmental awareness speech to highlight the consequences of climate change.
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.
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.
Alone among businesses, the fossil-fuel industry is allowed to dump its main waste, carbon dioxide, for free.
The laws of Congress and the laws of physics have grown increasingly divergent, and the laws of physics are not likely to yield.
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.
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.
I think of rivers, of tides. Forests and water gushing out. Rain and lightning. Rocks and shadows. All of these are in me.
When we plant trees, we plant the seeds of peace and seeds of hope.
In many environments, take away the ants and there would be partial collapses in many of the land ecosystems.
I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contain'd, I stand and look at them long and long.
To such an extent does nature delight and abound in variety that among her trees there is not one plant to be found which is exactly like another; and not only among the plants, but among the boughs, the leaves and the fruits, you will not find one which is exactly similar to another.
'Tis spring; come out to ramble_x000D_ _x000D_ The hilly brakes around,_x000D_ _x000D_ For under thorn and bramble_x000D_ _x000D_ About the hollow ground_x000D_ _x000D_ The primroses are found._x000D_ _x000D_ And there's the windflower chilly_x000D_ _x000D_ With all the winds at play,_x000D_ _x000D_ And there's the Lenten lily_x000D_ _x000D_ That has not long to stay_x000D_ _x000D_ And dies on Easter day.
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