worried us by bill mckibben essay

“Worried? Us?” Bill McKibben sounded one of the earliest alarms about global warming and catalyzed an international debate on the issue that is still ongoing. According to McKibben, fifteen years ago¸ global warming was just a hypothesis. But now he makes it one of his first priorities. In “Worried? US?” McKibben mainly talks about how he feels about the situation that people are oblivious about global warming. He shows his concerns about the health of our global ecosystem, particularly the relationship between humanity and nature and the impact of our consumer society on both. As said by McKibben, people who were convinced that the earth was warming fast were a small minority. I have to say that I’m part of that minority because I believe us as human beings are polluting the earth’s atmosphere(s). According to McKibben, scientists didn’t start to take action until 1995 when they organized themselves into a collective call the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. They believe that human influence plays a huge part in global warming. McKibben ask why, in the face of mainstream scientific evidence, so many people continue to ignore the threat of global. I agree with McKibben because I think people are ignoring this major environmental problem and it’s only a matter of time for things to get worse and for us to lose things that we desire the most. In the beginning of McKibben’s essay, he talks about the small group of people who believe about global warming are the only small percentage of people in history that believe that that world is going to change. McKibben mentions at the beginning of the essay on how only a small percentage of people can only do so much to convince people that the world is changing. To McKibben, he thinks all they achieved so far is to add another line to the long list of human problems. As he goes on about the essay McKibben starts to.
The following three pieces, by Anne Petermann, Dr. Rachel Smolker, and Keith Brunner were written in response to Bill McKibben’s new article in Rolling Stone magazine, titled, “Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math: Three simple numbers that add up to global catastrophe – make clear who the real enemy is.” The System Will Not be Reformed Response by Anne Petermann Bill McKibben, in his new Rolling Stone article, “Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math” does an effective job at summarizing the hard and theoretical numbers that warn us of the devastating impacts of continuing to burn the Earth’s remaining fossil fuel reserves–yet it somehow falls short of its stated goal to help mobilize a new movement for climate action. While the article is full of facts and figures and the future they portend, it falls into several traps common to US-based environmentalists, which undermine its movement-building objective. The first and most obvious trap is relying on math to mobilize a movement. Environmentalists, often worried about attacks on their credibility, or afraid they will be labeled “emotional” by industry, tend to focus on statistics, mathematical analyses and hard science to make their case.  Unfortunately statistics like “565 Gigatons or 2,795 Gigatons” do not inspire passion. While McKibben is focusing on Gigatons and percentages and degrees Celsuis, however, corporations like Shell are running multi-million dollar ad campaigns with TV commercials that feature families having fun, hospitals saving lives, children getting good educations, because of fossil fuels.  Coal = energy security; natural gas = maintaining the American way of life.  And as Dr. Rachel Smolker of BiofuelWatch points out below, some of these very same companies are moving into the bioenergy realm–wreaking yet more havoc on communities and ecosystems in the name of supposedly “clean, renewable.
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NEW From Bill McKibben Oil and Honey: The Education of an Unlikely Activist Bestselling author and environmental activist Bill McKibben recounts the personal and global story of the fight to build and preserve a sustainable planet Bill McKibben is not a person you’d expect to find handcuffed in the city jail in Washington, D.C. But that’s where he spent three days in the summer of 2011, after leading the largest civil disobedience in thirty years to protest the Keystone XL pipeline. A few months later the protesters would see their efforts rewarded when President Obama agreed to put the project on hold. Read more. Articles & Media Bill McKibben interviewed on Democracy Now! Bill McKibben: Obama Can Salvage His Climate Legacy by Rejecting Keystone XL Oil Pipeline Rolling Stone Obama and Climate Change: The Real Story The president has said the right things about climate change – and has taken some positive steps. But we're drilling for more oil and digging up more carbon than ever Click here to read the full article TomdDispatch Movements Without Leaders What to Make of Change on an Overheating Planet Click here to read the full article Do The Math Dance of the Honey Bee Bill Moyers presents the short documentary “Dance of the Honey Bee.” Narrated by Bill McKibben, the film takes a look at the determined, beautiful, and vital role honey bees play in preserving life, as well as the threats bees face from a rapidly changing landscape.
The Global Warming Reader Edited and introduced by Bill McKibben 424 pp. OR Books – Sept. 2011. .00. With his much-touted list of prominent scientists who dispute global warming, Senator James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) is a leading voice in climate skepticism. Yet some diligent sleuths, as well as other scientists, have uncovered awkward facts about his list (now in its fourth year and third iteration). First, Inhofe has received at least a million dollars in campaign contributions from big oil and gas; and to take the original list as an example, 84 of his 400 skeptics likewise have industry ties. Equally awkward are these people’s questionable credentials: 44 are TV weathercasters, 20 economists and 70 simply experts in nothing germane to climatology. Worst of all, increasing numbers of Inhofe’s skeptics have turned out to be climate change believers, and despite repeatedly trying to dissociate themselves from the list and asking to be removed from it, remain on it anyway.* Just as the scientific consensus on climate change is well-established, so too the reasons for the denial are clear. Our civilization runs on the fuels causing climate change, so there are many vested interests that will do their utmost to suppress information about these fuels’ harmful effects. Deniers may relish the chance to attack the scruples of climate scientists in the wake of ClimateGate (never mind that these scientists were subsequently cleared of any unscrupulousness), but the example of Senator Inhofe and many others show that the deniers have committed their own share of fraud. They also represent a tiny minority view that has been granted grossly disproportionate airtime, receive their funding from oil companies and keep repeating the same old arguments in broken-record style. Author Bill McKibben is a foremost authority on climate change and the machinations of those who so.