Quotes on Global Warming

While we may not live to see the full realization of our ambition, we will have the satisfaction of knowing that the world we leave to our children will be better off for what we did.

Those who are already feeling the effects of climate change don't have time to deny it - they're busy dealing with it.

How much damage will have been done before we act?

The debate's over. The people who dispute the international consensus on global warming are in the same category now with the people who think the moon landing was staged on a movie lot in Arizona.

We cannot hope to either understand or to manage the carbon in the atmosphere unless we understand and manage the trees and the soil too.

I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while.

Either the Earth System would undergo major phase transitions as a result of unchecked human pressure on nature's capacities and resources or a "Great Transformation" towards global sustainability would be initiated in due course. Neither transitions nor transformations will be manageable without novel forms of global governance and markets.

A deal must include an equitable global governance structure. All countries must have a voice in how resources are deployed and managed.

Global warming is not just the greatest environmental challenge facing our planet - it is one of our greatest challenges of any kind.

Global warming is no longer a philosophical threat, no longer a future threat, no longer a threat at all. It's our reality.

We have a responsibility to protect the rights of generations, of all species, that cannot speak for themselves today. The global challenge of climate change requires that we ask no less of our leaders, or ourselves.

The warnings about global warming have been extremely clear for a long time. We are facing a global climate crisis. It is deepening. We are entering a period of consequences.

Global warming is a matter of national security. Will we live in a world where we must fight our neighbors for fresh water and food? Or will we take the lead now and leave to our children and grandchildren a world better off than the one we inherited from our parents?

All new schools...should be models for sustainable development: showing every child in the classroom and the playground how smart building and energy use can help tackle global warming...Sustainable development will not just be a subject in the classroom: it will be in its bricks and mortar and the way the school uses and even generates its own power.

The Himalayan Glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau have been among the most affected by global warming. The Himalayas...provide more than half of the drinking water for 40% of the world's population...Within the next half-century, that 40% of the world's people may well face a very serious drinking water shortage, unless the world acts boldly and quickly to mitigate global warming.

Unless we act boldly and quickly to deal with the underlying causes of global warming, our world will undergo a string of terrible catastrophes.

Think of a single problem confronting the world today. Disease, poverty, global warming... If the problem is going to be solved, it is science that is going to solve it. Scientists tend to be unappreciated in the world at large, but you can hardly overstate the importance of the work they do. If anyone ever cures cancer, it will be a guy with a science degree. Or a woman with a science degree.

I don't think the human race will survive the next thousand years, unless we spread into space. There are too many accidents that can befall life on a single planet. But I'm an optimist. We will reach out to the stars.

Global warming is controversial, of course, but the controversy is mainly over whether human activity is driving it.