Climate Changes Quotes & Sayings

The issue of climate change, it really does bring home the fact that we are on one planet, and that some of the impact of what human beings do in one corner of the world is going to affect people in a distant corner of the world. So we may still feel very far from each other, but we are really very close to each other because of the changes we have made with travel and technology and especially the information technology. — Wangari Maathai

What are we individually doing to join effects to combat climate change? — Lailah Gifty Akita

The message snow gives us is very valuable: The environment you live in can suddenly change! Are you ready for this? Let us be thankful to the snow for this spectacular warning! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

And now again the story of Tripoli changes.
But whatever the outcome, she will have still her limpid skies, her air like wine, and a climate where it is a sin to acknowledge an ache or a pain, old age or unhappiness. — Mabel Loomis Todd

The fear of climatic catastrophes is an ancient one and not unlike our fear of strangers. In the past, people believed that the climate almost always changes for the worse, and only rarely for the better - God's punishment for sinful behavior. — Hans Von Storch

Our climate is changing. The Earth's climate has, in fact, warmed by 1.1 to 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit since the industrial revolution. People look at this and say: Oh, that is not very much. In fact, it is very much, and it changes the dynamic. It impacts species. It kills some. It diminishes the carbon sink of the ocean. It does a number of things. — Dianne Feinstein

For human beings to destroy the biological diversity of God's creation; for human beings to degrade the integrity of the earth by causing changes in its climate, by stripping the earth of its natural forests or destroying its wetlands; for human beings to contaminate the earth's waters, its land, its air, and its life -- these are sins. — Patriarch Bartholomew

What else has changes since 1984? Oil's running our, I say Earth's population is eight billion, mass extinction of flora and fauna are commonplace, climate change is foreclosing the Holocene Era. Aparteid's dead, as are the Castros in Cuba as is privacy. The USSR went bankrupt; the Eastern bloc collapsed; Germany reunified; the EU has gone federal; China's a powerhouse- though their air is industrial effluence in a gaseous state - and North Korea is still a gulag run by a coiffed cannibal. p 500 — David Mitchell

Nature is not static, but causes its own, internally-generated changes - both in climate and in biological systems. — Roy Spencer

[A] group of leading academics argue that humanity must stay within defined boundaries for a range of essential Earth-system processes to avoid catastrophic environmental change. . . . They propose that for three of these - the nitrogen cycle, the rate of loss of species and anthropogenic climate change - the maximum acceptable limit has already been transgressed. In addition, they say that humanity is fast approaching the boundaries for freshwater use, for converting forests and other natural ecosystems to cropland and urban areas, and for acidification of the oceans. Crossing even one of these planetary boundaries would risk triggering abrupt or irreversible environmental changes that would be very damaging or even catastrophic for society. — Jonathan A. Moo

People change their behavior and thinking not because they are "told to be different" but when the conditions are present that require and empower them to figure out what to do and to act on a plan. Try giving teenagers a lot of advice and see if it changes behavior. They probably don't look at you and say, "Gee, Dad, or Mom, thanks for explaining reality to me. Now I will run out and do it." But if you provide context - by listening, sharing information and positive examples, setting expectations and consequences, creating a healthy emotional climate, and challenging them to do their best - they will figure it out and implement it. That is a lot better than just "telling them what to do. — Henry Cloud

Behold the Sea,
The opaline, the plentiful and strong,
Yet beautiful as is the rose in June,
Fresh as the trickling rainbow of July;
Sea full of food, the nourisher of kinds,
Purger of earth, and medicine of men;
Creating a sweet climate by my breath,
Washing out harms and griefs from memory,
And, in my mathematic ebb and flow,
Giving a hint of that which changes not. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nature and the spirit of our ancestors are giving you loud warnings. Today you see increasing floods, more damaging hurricanes, hail storms, climate changes and earthquakes as our prophecies said would come. Why do animals act like they know about the earth's problems and most humans act like they know nothing? If we humans do not wake up to the warnings, the great purification will come to destroy this world just as the previous worlds were destroyed. — Thomas Banyacya

Any objective look at what science has to say about climate change ought to be sufficient to persuade reasonable people that the climate is changing and that humans are responsible for a substantial part of that - and that these changes are doing harm and will continue to do more harm unless we start to reduce our emissions. — John Holdren

This is exciting, it is bold and it is absolutely necessary if we are to have any chance of stopping potentially catastrophic changes to our climate system. — Jerry Brown

We study the past ecological history, with the conscience of the present ecological conditions. The key to predict future aquatic ecosystem changes. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Like the canary in the coal mine, the climate changes already evident in the Arctic are a call to action. — Susan Collins

I don't believe - till something radical changes that we are not on track to do - that hybrids are material to climate change. They're fashionable, everybody loves them, the Prius is selling well, but so are Gucci bags. But they don't impact the way the world carries stuff. You know it's a fashion statement. — Vinod Khosla

Ctrl+Alt+Believe: Reboot System is for associations that are courageous and want to emerge from unconscious thoughts and become conscious about choice - associations that have a deep conviction to meet the visions and mission of their members in spite of changes in the business climate, globalism, technology, generational changes, and all that is yet to come. — Holly Duckworth

Many scales of climate change are in fact natural, from the slow tectonic scale, to the fast changes embedded within glacial and interglacial times, to the even more dramatic changes that characterize a switch from glacial to interglacial. So why worry about global warming, which is just one more scale of climate change? The problem is that global warming is essentially off the scale of normal in two ways: the rate at which this climate change is taking place, and how different the "new" climate is compared to what came before. — Anthony D. Barnosky

When real revival happens, it changes the moral climate of a community ... because we've turned from our wicked ways. — Rick Warren

All of us can make changes, but the changes that are most needed are not light bulbs and windows but laws and policies and treaties. So, yes, we are in a phase of this (climate protection) struggle where civic and political action is at the top of the list. — Al Gore

It's too late to stop climate change, that's for sure, but we can still influence the degree of changes and the degree of impacts. We can prepare for a softer landing. — Hermann E. Ott

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

We need to think about sex and gender in a more ecological kind of framework, understanding that changes in one environment inevitably impact changes in other environments. Gender here might be thought of more as a climate or ecosystem and less as an identity or discrete bodily location. — J. Jack Halberstam

In view of the immense power of natural weather and climate fluctuations and the great buffering capacity of the Earth, especially the ocean, it is easy to be skeptical about whether small anthropogenic changes of atmospheric composition can have important practical impacts. — James Hansen

Such an atmosphere is un-American, the most un-American thing we have to contend with today. It is the climate of a totalitarian country in which scientists are expected to change their theories to match changes in the police state's propaganda line. — Harry S. Truman

The climate is nearing tipping points. Changes are beginning to appear and there is a potential for explosive changes, effects that would be irreversible, if we do not rapidly slow fossil-fuel emissions over the next few decades. — James Hansen

I don't know that I can give a definitive answer to that, I can only say that if we create the right climate those who are producing those products will have the opportunity to move into a higher value product if changes are needed if we get this right. — John Anderson

the nearness of climate tipping points, beyond which climate dynamics can cause rapid changes out of humanity's control. Tipping points occur because of amplifying feedbacks - as when a microphone is placed too close to a speaker, which amplifies any little sound picked up by the microphone, which then picks up the amplification, which is again picked up — James Hansen

It is certain that such a revolution in thought - that is, such an expansion of consciousness, such an evolution of intelligence - is not the result of a whim. It is in fact a question of a cosmic influence to which the earth, along with everything in it, is subjected. A phase in the gestation of the planetary particle of our solar system is completed. Gaston Bachelard observes, in this connection, what he calls "a mutation of Spirit." A new period must begin, and this is heralded by seismic movement, climate changes, and finally, above all, by the spirit that animates man. — Schwaller De Lubicz

Because one of the greatest misconceptions in the climate debate is that our society is refusing to change, protecting a status quo called "business-as-usual." The truth is that there is no business-as-usual. The energy sector is changing dramatically all the time - but the vast majority of those changes are taking us in precisely the wrong direction, toward energy sources with even higher planet-warming emissions than their conventional versions. — Naomi Klein

We need healthy forests if we want to protect our climate. As the climate changes, forests become more vulnerable to insect outbreaks, droughts and wildfires. Simultaneously, when our forests are destroyed, their carbon is released back into the atmosphere, further impacting climate change. It's a horrifying one-two punch. — Chris Noth

There is a majority of scientists that say that global carbon emissions by humans causes some changes in the climate. — Marco Rubio

What's happening with the planet's climate right now needs to be a wake-up call to all of us, meaning all heads of state, all heads of social organizations, in order to take a more energetic approach to countering the global changes to the climate. — Dmitry Medvedev

Global climate change is real and we have a limited time to change our behavior or live with the consequences. We can all help by making small changes in our lives to letting our voice be heard by our governing bodies. As has always been the case in this country, if the people demand change, it will come. — Kyra Sedgwick

The dramatic importance of climate changes to the world's future has been dangerously underestimated by many, often because we have been lulled by modern technology into thinking we have conquered nature. This well-written book points out in clear language that the climatic threat could be as awesome as any we might face, and that massive world-wide actions to hedge against that threat deserve immediate consideration. — Stephen Schneider

We don't think much about climate change and rising sea levels here in the U.S. Beyond a few gardeners, birders and hikers who notice the changes in our own ecosystem, we live on, blissfully unaware of our changing Earth. Our storms - Katrina, Sandy - are dismissed as once-in-a-century events. — J. Maarten Troost

The race is now on between the technoscientific and scientific forces that are destroying the living environment and those that can be harnessed to save it ... If the race is won, humanity can emerge in far better condition than when it entered, and with most of the diversity of life still intact. — Edward O. Wilson

In September 2013, the panel of 209 lead authors and 600 contributing authors, from 39 nations, poring over 9,200 scientific publications, came to these landmark conclusions: global warming is "unequivocal," sea levels are rising, ice packs are melting, and if we continue at this pace we "will cause further warming and changes in all components of the climate." However, they added, we can slow the process down if we begin at once. — Diane Ackerman

Deliberately modifying the earth's atmosphere would be a desperate gamble with significant risks. Yet the more likely climate change is to cause devastation, the more attractive even the most perilous attempts to mitigate those changes will become. — Michael Specter

There are great challenges before you, from the overwhelming nature of climate change to the unfairness of an economy that excludes so many from our collective wealth, and the changes necessary to build a more inclusive and generous Canada. I believe in you. — Jack Layton

The close relationships between the abrupt ups and downs of solar activity and of temperature that I have identified occur locally in coastal Greenland; regionally in the Arctic Pacific and north Atlantic; and, hemispherically, for the whole circum-Arctic, suggesting that changes in solar activity drive Arctic and perhaps even global climate. — Willie Soon

I believe in a world in which science is the key for supporting the
development of a happy future for humanity. So, I advocate for such a
situation in which scientists would speak louder. If science is silent, there is no way to solve high priority problems at a global level, such as: the gap between developed and undeveloped countries, poverty, limited energy resources, limited food and even drinking water (especially related to the population growth phenomenon), global warming and rapid climate
changes, etc. — Eraldo Banovac

Some doomsayers think the collapse will be triggered by runaway government spending, excessive taxation, oppressive regulation, food shortages, fuel shortages or natural disasters such as deadly pandemics or lethal changes in the world's climate. — Robert Higgs

Each and every one of us can make changes in the way we live our lives and become part of the solution [to climate change] — Al Gore

Vast migrations of people - some voluntary, most not - have shaped the human condition. More of us flee from war, oppression, and famine today than at any other time in human history. As the Earth's climate changes in the coming decades, there are likely to be far greater numbers of environmental refugees. Better places will always call to us. Tides of people will continue to ebb and flow across the planet. But the lands we run to now have already been settled. Other people, often unsympathetic to our plight, are there before us. * — Carl Sagan

Unfortunately, the issues of climate change, unlike many other issues, are very subtle because the changes we observe are very, very subtle. — Wangari Maathai

I'm not one to attribute every activity of man to the changes in the climate. There is something to be said also for man's activities, but also for the cyclical temperature changes on our planet. — Sarah

In the current climate motorists have a long list of issues from which to choose to raise on the doorstep. Policies aimed at reducing emissions - like the changes to Vehicle Excise Duty or here in Manchester the proposals for congestion charges - are not without controversy. — Lucy Powell

Oceans need more attention because climate change IS an ocean issue. Our oceans will be the first victim, and sea life will suffer dramatically. Detailed proof is hard in ocean science, but I think we're already seeing big ocean changes caused by climate change, such as starvation of whales, seabirds, and other animals off the coast US west coast. — Mark Powell

Fighting Climate Change calls for innovation, cooperation and will power to make the changes that the world needs. — Narendra Modi

Rouse him: - make after him, poison his delight, Proclaim him in the streets; incense her kinsmen, And, though he in a fertile climate dwell, Plague him with flies: though that his joy be joy, Yet throw such changes of vexation — William Shakespeare

The bottom line is that we do not accept climate change because we wish to avoid the anxiety it generates and the deep changes it requires. In this regard, it is not unlike any other major threat. However, because it carries none of the clear markers that would normally lead our brains to overrule our short-term interests, we actively conspire with each other, and mobilize our own biases to keep it perpetually in the background. — George Marshall

Given the nature and magnitude of the challenge, national action alone is insufficient. No nation can address this challenge on its own. No region can insulate itself from these climate changes. That is why we need to confront climate change within a global framework, one that guarantees the highest level of international cooperation. — Ban Ki-moon

It must be that there are years unlike other years, as different in climate and direction and mood as one day can be from another day. This year of 1960 was a year of change, a year when secret fears come into the open, when discontent stops being dormant and changes gradually to anger. It wasn't only in me or in New Baytown. Presidential nominations would be coming up soon and in the air the discontent was changing to anger and with the excitement anger brings. — John Steinbeck

We as a species must make a decision. How absurd that sounds. It sounds absurd because we've never made a decision as a species, and it seems implausible to think that we could. But . . . continuing on our present course would threaten the entirety of human civilization. . . We could well have only a decade within which to make major changes lest we lose the opportunity to retrieve a climate balance that is favorable for human life and human civilization. Al Gore, U.S. Vice President, 1993-2001 — George A. Seielstad

Film 'This Changes Everything' is not a sad story. It's not a slit-your-wrists climate film. It's a story about people who are making change happen. — Avi Lewis

My view is that climate changes have happened in the last 80 years, that is, the world has got a little bit warmer, although not as warm as it has been in Medieval times, or the Bronze Age. — Piers Corbyn

The global surface albedo [surface whiteness] and greenhouse gas changes account for practically the entire global climate change. — James Hansen

The underlying principles of sound investment should not alter from decade to decade, but the application of these principles must be adapted to significant changes in the financial mechanisms and climate. — Benjamin Graham

Climate has always changed. It always has and always will. Sea level has always changed. Ice sheets come and go. Life always changes. Extinctions of life are normal. Planet Earth is dynamic and evolving. Climate changes are cyclical and random. Through the eyes of a geologist, I would be really concerned if there were no change to Earth over time. In the light of large rapid natural climate changes, just how much do humans really change climate? — Ian Plimer

Overall, becoming a carbon-neutral country would involve changes in our behaviour, but these are modest compared with the changes that will be forced upon us if we do nothing. — Caroline Lucas

The evidence that climate change is happening is completely unequivocal ... The later governments leave tackling climate change, the harder it will be to combat ... The variation we are seeing in temperature or rainfall is double the rate of the average. That suggests that we are going to have more droughts, we are going to have more floods, we are going to have more sea surges and we are going to have more storms. These are the sort of changes that are going to affect us in quite a short timescale — John Beddington

Was Superstorm Sandy caused by greenhouse warming of the planet? In a word, no. Individual storms arise from specific conditions in the atmosphere. Since records have been kept, hurricanes have varied in number and intensity each season with cycles going up and coming down. The temptation to attribute any specific weather event to global warming distracts us from considering and adopting adaptive strategies, such as improving and expanding irrigation for agriculture and the water supply for cities, that will serve us well when climate changes inevitably arrives on our doorstep. — E. Kirsten Peters

I'm interested in what kind of food we're going to eat as the climate changes. I'm interested in what kind of economy we're going to have in another 1,000 years. — Winona LaDuke

A sensible climate policy would emphasize building resilience into our capacity to adapt to climate changes - whether cooling or warming; whether wholly natural, wholly man-made, or somewhere in between. — Steven F. Hayward

We're at a time when we are being presented with undeniable changes in the global climate and fundamental issues that affect every single one of us, and it's the time we're listening to the most hokey shite on the radio and watching vacuous bullshit celebrities being vacuous bullshit celebrities and desperately trying to forget about everything. Which is fine, you know, but personally speaking, I can't do that. — Thom Yorke

The need for general scientific understanding by the public has never been larger, and the penalty for scientific illiteracy never harsher ... Lack of scientific fundamentals causes people to make foolish decisions about issues such as the toxicity of chemicals, the efficacy of medicines, the changes in the global climate. — Peter Agre

I like to layer when I fly - the climate always changes from the airport to the plane to the new city. — Shay Mitchell

Somebody like me - I am a member of the Global Military Advisory Council on Climate Change, we've been at this for several years now. To have somebody like the Prince of Wales talk about something [like climate changes] elevates that conversation to a much higher level. — Chris Barrie

Are you surprised, as if it were a novelty, that after such long travel and so many changes of scene you have not been able to shake off the gloom and heaviness of your mind? You need a change of soul rather than a change of climate. [ ... ] Do you ask why such flight does not help you? It is because you flee along with yourself. You must lay aside the burdens of the mind; until you do this, no place will satisfy you. — Seneca.

Politicians have responsibility to act if the public opinion changes. Flooding, storms, droughts are all getting people talking about climate change. I wonder if someday Atlanta will run out of water? — David Titley

In my personal belief, the big problem with climate change is getting people to understand the magnitude and scale that we're dealing with. If you buy a vehicle that gets 35 miles to the gallon, that means nothing; it's not enough. We need to make changes across society and in every piece of the energy pie. — Marshall Herskovitz

Europe has found itself confronted with fresh challenges - challenges of a global character, the nature of which is directly connected with changes in the international climate and the difficulties of seeking new models for co-operation. — Boris Yeltsin

We're facing enormous changes in our planetary life, with climate change and the adaptations that all natural systems are going to have to make to these climate changes, and so it's extremely important to bear witness to what's happening. — Alison Hawthorne Deming

We belong to a short-lived genus of species. All of our cousins are already extinct. What's more, we do damage. The brutal climate and environmental changes that we have triggered are unlikely to spare us. For — Carlo Rovelli

Climate change is not a major issue because it will cause sea level rises or temperature increases, since we know how to live at higher elevations and regulate the temperature within our homes. It is a major issue because ecosystems are finding it difficult to adapt to the rapidity of the climate and environmental changes and are dying off, thereby accelerating the species extinction that is already underway due to our consumption habits. — Shailesh Rao

I believe that our species will not last long. It does not seem to be made of the stuff that has allowed the turtle, for example, to continue to exist more or less unchanged for hundreds of millions of years, for hundreds of times longer, that is, than we have even been in existence. We belong to a short-lived genus of species. All of our cousins are already extinct. What's more, we do damage. The brutal climate and environmental changes that we have triggered are unlikely to spare us. — Carlo Rovelli

To reduce the interpretation of the causality of all kinds of climate changes and of global warming to one variable, CO2, or to a small proportion of one variable - human-induced CO2 - is impossible to accept. Elementary rationality and my decades-long experience with econometric modelling and statistical testing of scientific hypotheses tell me that it is impossible to make strong conclusions based on mere correlation of two (or more) time series. — Vaclav Klaus

The more the climate is forced to change, the more likely it is to hit some unforeseen threshold that can trigger quite fast, surprising and perhaps unpleasant changes. — Richard Alley

The retreat of the Arctic sea ice, the warming of the oceans, the rapid shrinking of the glaciers, the redistribution of species, the thawing of the permafrost - these are all new phenomena. It is only in the last five or ten years that global warming has finally emerged from the background "noise" of climate variability. And even so, the changes that can be seen lag behind the changes that have been set in motion. The warming that has been observed so far is probably only about half the amount required to bring the planet back into energy balance. This means that even if carbon dioxide were to remain stable at today's levels, temperatures would still continue to rise, glaciers to melt, and weather patterns to change for decades to come. — Elizabeth Kolbert

[ ... ]virtue is not some kind of mode whose value is
incontestable, it is simply
a scheme of conduct, a way of getting along, which varies
according to accidents of geography and climate and which, consequently, has no
reality, the which alone exhibits its futility.
Only what is constant is really good; what changes perpetually cannot
claim that
characterization: that is why they have declared that immutability belongs to the
ranks of the Eternal's perfections; but virtue is completely without this quality: there
is not, upon the entire globe, two races which are virtuous in the same m
anner;
hence, virtue is not in any sense real, nor in any wise intrinsically good and in no sort
deserves our reverence. — Marquis De Sade

I am persuaded to think that any climate change is bad because of the investments and adaptations that have been made by human beings and all of the things that support human existence upon this globe. Even minor fluctuations of climate could change the distribution of fish, ... upset agriculture, ... and inundate costal cities ... ... Such changes could occur at a faster rate perhaps than human society can evolve. — Fred Singer

As foreign minister of Norway, I learnt how natural changes provoked by climate change are creating new sources of political instability. — Jonas Gahr Store

I think it's just yet another piece to cause confusion and I think that the 'so-called scientific debate' is very silly now - It's like a bunch of theologians arguing over how many angels you can stick on the head of a needle. When you've got a side that changes from global warming, global warming, global warming to climate change, which is intuitive - the climate has always been changing since the beginning of time - and then just begins to claim every answer is the correct answer, you often stand back, and I don't care who you are, you have to question as to what the real motive is in this. — Joe Bastardi