William H. Calvin Quotes

#1. If we don't start thinking big about the CO2 problem, we may miss our opportunity to stop a climate runaway that will trash the habitable parts of the earth.

William H. Calvin

#2. Climate change has a very high procrastination penalty that just grows with each passing year of inaction - rather like what happens if you don't pay off your credit card. But for climate, there is no such thing as a fresh start from bankruptcy.

William H. Calvin

#3. Anyone who would tackle our current addiction to fossil fuels is going to have to maneuver around denial.

William H. Calvin

#4. Trusting your energy policy to the fossil fuel lobby is like trusting your health care system to the tobacco lobby.

William H. Calvin

#5. Countries that innovate first get the new jobs, developing an economic edge over the C-free laggards that end up having to later import the technology.

William H. Calvin

#6. Carrying on as usual carries enormous risks, condemning today's students to a world of constant insecurity and frequent catastrophes.

William H. Calvin

#7. The real focus needs to be on political action to stop this runaway train, real soon.

William H. Calvin

#8. Since Serengeti-scale savanna scenes are only one or two million years old, our earliest after-the-apes ancestors didn't move into this scene so much as they evolved with it, as the slower climate changes and uplift produced more grass and less forest.

William H. Calvin

#9. Even if we stop the growth, we'd still be adding a constant amount of fossil carbon to the atmosphere each year.

William H. Calvin

#10. It's going to be like herding stray cats, and the political leaders who can do it will be remembered as the same kind of geniuses who pulled off the American Revolution.

William H. Calvin

#11. You can always spot the pioneers by the arrows in their backs.

William H. Calvin

#12. Our CO2 mixes with everyone else's within a year, then hangs around for centuries like a shroud.

William H. Calvin

#13. Stopping emissions growth represents the most minimal of do-something responses.

William H. Calvin

#14. Unless we redesign our civilization in numerous ways, all of the science in the world won't save us.

William H. Calvin