Greenhouse Gas Quotes & Sayings

It is critical that the world captures every last bit of energy efficiency, if we are to reduce greenhouse gas emissions enough to keep below dangerous rises in temperature. I am pleased that this important new study shows how information and communication technology can play an essential role in saving energy. Now we need more and effective government policies that reward such action and penalize delayed responses. — Christiana Figueres

I taught world history. I understand there was an Ice Age ... seasons come and seasons go. I do not believe the world's going to end because of the 2 percent man-made greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere. And even if it were, we're not going to stop it. — John Shimkus

The international equity question arises from the costs of climate change itself and mitigation varying greatly across countries. It is affected by the historical responsibility for current greenhouse gas emissions, which countries which were not responsible for what's in the atmosphere now think are very important. Currently rich countries don't think those issues are very important. — Ross Garnaut

The fact is that seven per cent of the global population emits 50 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions, and the proportions are the same for the use of energy and raw materials, meat, wood, etc. Simply put, an infinitesimal minority consumes the most and imposes damage on the overwhelming majority, while asking it to change. — Yann Arthus-Bertrand

Whereas CO2 is the dominant greenhouse gas overall, it accounts for only 11 percent of agricultural emissions.2 The rest is nitrous oxide (53 percent) and methane (36 percent). Nitrous oxide is 296 times more potent per pound than CO2 as a climate-change gas, and on farms it results mainly from the use of fertilizer but also from cattle pee, especially if there is excessive protein in their diet, and from the burning of biomass and fuel.3 Methane, which is 25 times more potent than CO2, is mainly emitted by cows and sheep when they belch. Some is also emitted from silage. The CO2 comes from machinery but also from the heating of greenhouses to grow crops out of season or in countries that just don't have the right climate. — Mike Berners-Lee

India was a late comer to industrialization, and as such, we have contributed very little to the accumulation of greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming. But we are determined to be part of the solution to the problem. — Manmohan Singh

The benefits of a healthier diet are far-reaching because they also equate to fewer animals being bred into inhumane factory farm conditions and fewer greenhouse gas emissions. — Michael Greger

We can debate this or that aspect of climate change, but the reality is that most people now accept our climate is indeed subject to change as a result of greenhouse gas emissions. — Tony Blair

The US is responsible for 25 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. It should take responsibility for leading the way. — Tony Juniper

I think the whole human-induced greenhouse gas thing is a red herring ... I see climate change as due to the ocean circulation pattern. I see this as a major cause of climate change ... These are natural processes. We shouldn't blame them on humans and CO2. — William M. Gray

Dickens knew there were vast reserves of methane hydrate trapped frozen in sea-beds all around the world and wondered what would happen if a lot of that frozen methane on the sea floor had melted from a solid into a gas, and bubbled up from the ocean's depths? Would it be enough to account for the "signature" of carbon-12 that geologists were finding in the rocks associated with the Permian Mass Extinction? So he went back to the lab and melted frozen methane in water warm enough. The results were dramatic. The gas not only dissolved into the water, but it also rose up out of the water and into the air. Dickens published a paper in 1999 suggesting that a 5 degree Celsius increase in ocean temperatures would have been adequate to melt enough methane hydrate crystals to create the Permian carbon-12 signature. And such a massive release of methane, itself a greenhouse gas vastly more potent than CO2, would also trigger a catastrophic, swift warming of the planet. — Thom Hartmann

The black line is carbon emissions to date. The red line is the status quo - a projection of where emissions will go if no new substantial policy is passed to restrain greenhouse gas emissions. — David Roberts

Prime Minister Cameron says he wants to be the greenest government ever, but the definition of green is immature ... I don't deny for a moment that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but there are so many other factors that affect climate. It is more complicated than the computer models that we are using. What the truth is, nobody knows. — Nigel Lawson

For every $1 billion we invest in public transportation, we create 30,000 jobs, save thousands of dollars a year for each commuter, and dramatically cut greenhouse gas emissions. — Bernie Sanders

It is a simple fact of life on earth that there is going to be no successful mitigation of the climate change problem without a truly global effort. All developing companies or all major developing countries have to be part of that and accept substantial constraints on greenhouse gas emissions. — Ross Garnaut

The message I am trying to get across is exactly this: Protecting the environment does not require us to be against large SUVs or trucks. Instead we should develop technology to cut down greenhouse gas emissions because that is where the action is - it's not about what the size of the car is. — Arnold Schwarzenegger

A vegan riding a hummer contributes less to greenhouse gas emissions than a meat eater riding a bicycle. — Paul Watson

I did a lot of work on energy efficiency at the White House. By the time I left we had taken the equivalent of six hundred cars a year off the road in reduced greenhouse gas emissions just in the White House complex. — William J. Clinton

CO2 is a minor player in the total system, and human CO2 emissions are insignificant compared to total natural greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, lowering human CO2 emissions will have no measurable effect on climate, and continued CO2 emissions will have little or no effect on future temperature ... While controlling CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels may have some beneficial effects on air quality, it will have no measurable effect on climate, but great detrimental effects on the economy and our standard of living. — Jonathan Duhamel

When people switch to car-sharing from car ownership, they reduce their vehicle miles traveled by 44 percent, and thus their greenhouse gas emissions go down by, like, 40 percent. — Jessica Scorpio

The money economy thus leaves a large ecological footprint, defined as the amount of land and resources required to meet a typical consumer's needs. For example, with only about 4% of the world's population, the United States, the largest money economy, consumes in excess of one-quarter of the world's energy and materials and generates in excess of 25 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. — Stuart L. Hart

They argue that, if the governments of developed countries want a fifty-fifty chance of hitting the agreed-upon international target of keeping warming below 2 degrees Celsius, and if reductions are to respect any kind of equity principle between rich and poor nations, then wealthy countries need to start cutting their greenhouse gas emissions by something like 8 to 10 percent a year - and they need to start right now. The idea that such deep cuts are required used to be controversial in the mainstream climate community, where the deadlines for steep reductions always seemed to be far off in the future (an 80 percent cut by 2050, for instance). But as emissions have soared and as tipping points loom, that is changing rapidly. Even Yvo de Boer, who held the U.N.'s top climate position until 2009, remarked recently that "the only way" negotiators "can achieve a 2-degree goal is to shut down the whole global economy."48 — Naomi Klein

Production of concrete is the third largest contributor of greenhouse gas emissions after electrical power production and automobiles. Moreover, the process used today is essentially the same as that used 150 years ago. Since cement manufacture is responsible for about 5% of global energy use and greenhouse gas emissions, reducing energy requirements for concrete manufacture could have a significant impact on both energy and the environment. — Hewitt Crane

The simplest way to remove carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, is to grow plants - preferably trees, since they tie up more of the gas in cellulose, meaning it will not return to the air within a season or two. Plants build themselves out of air and water, taking only a tiny fraction of their mass from the soil. — Gregory Benford

There is not going to be, we can be quite certain, there's not going to be any action on reducing greenhouse gas emissions by China or India or Indonesia or Brazil unless all developed countries are making a major effort. It will still be a big job to get them in, even if we are all making the effort. But our making the effort is a necessary condition. — Ross Garnaut

You have to be able to generate usable energy without greenhouse gas emissions and you have to be able to do it cheaply if you want people to choose that approach. — Ramez Naam

China is a main energy consumer and, therefore, is also a big greenhouse gas emitter. We must use energy resources rationally and must conserve. This needs us to adjust our economic structure, transform the mode of development, to make economic development more dependent on progress of science and technology and the quality of the work force. — Wen Jiabao

Factory farming is one of the biggest contributors to the most serious environmental problems. The meat industry causes more greenhouse gas emissions than all the cars, trucks, planes and ships in the world. — Joan Jett

American restaurants throw away an estimated six thousand tons of food every day. All that food rotting in landfills contributes to global warming - see, when it decomposes, it releases methane, a greenhouse gas twenty-one times more damaging than carbon dioxide. So no matter what you're eating or where you're eating it, be conscious about how hungry you really are. — Sara Gilbert

Although they [light and medium trucks] have only 5% of the transportation market ... , they account for fully 35% of greenhouse gas emissions from freight transportation. — David Suzuki

Geologists and paleo-climatologists know that in the past the Earth's temperature has been substantially warmer than it is today, and that this warming has occurred under purely natural circumstances. Until we can say precisely how much of the current global warming and greenhouse gas increase is the result of this normal temperature cycle, we will not be able to measure how much human activity has added to this natural trend, nor will we be able to predict whether there will be any lasting negative effects. — Greg Benson

I honestly don't know, but if America continues to refuse to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, I see a bleak future not only for American society, but for the world as a whole. This is a global problem that is not going away, and the United States is an obstacle to solving it. — Peter Singer

'Scientific' computer simulations predict global warming based on increased greenhouse gas emissions over time. However, without water's contribution taken into account they omit the largest greenhouse gas from their equations. How can such egregious calculation errors be so blatantly ignored? This is why man-made global warming is 'junk' science. — Michael Myers

Bopha, Sandy, floods in Pakistan, droughts in China ... How many reports from the likes of the World Bank, NASA and the International Energy Agency will it take? How many preventable catastrophes until our leaders realize that climate change will not be solved by nice speeches and empty promises? Countries like Canada and the U.S. have promised to reduce their greenhouse gas pollution and provide adequate financial support for developing countries, they have so far failed on both counts. — Steven Guilbeault

Natural gas emits only half the carbon dioxide of coal when burned, but if methane leaks when oil companies extract it from the ground in a sloppy manner - methane is far more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide - it can wipe out all the advantages of natural gas over coal. — Thomas Friedman

Climate change is a global problem. The planet is warming because of the growing level of greenhouse gas emissions from human activity. If this trend continues, truly catastrophic consequences are likely to ensue from rising sea levels, to reduced water availability, to more heat waves and fires. — Malcolm Turnbull

One common strategy on which we should all be able to agree is to take steps to reduce the risk of human extinction when those steps are also highly effective in benefiting existing sentient beings. For example, eliminating or decreasing the consumption of animal products will benefit animals, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and lessen the chances of a pandemic resulting from a virus evolving among the animals crowded into today's factory farms, which are an ideal breeding ground for viruses. That therefore looks like a high-priority strategy. Other — Peter Singer

How are we going to know what impact that has on the greenhouse gas emissions? How are we going to hold everybody accountable for doing their part? — Christy Clark

Many of our actions degrade our habitat because we undertake them in order to reach goals whose allure blinds us to myriad dire consequences. In order to fuel our complex civilizations, we are lacing our planet's atmosphere with carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that, if it has not already begun doing so, will soon warm the Ice Age climate to which we owe our very existence. — Steven M. Stanley

Ben West, one of the effective altruists mentioned in chapter 4, has shown that even if your goal were solely to slow down climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, you could do that more effectively by donating to organizations that are encouraging people to go vegetarian or vegan than by donating to leading carbon-offsetting organizations. — Peter Singer

We need to remind ourselves that our ultimate goal is not to reduce greenhouse gases or global warming per se but to improve the quality of life and the environment. We all want to leave the planet in decent shape for our kids. Radically reducing greenhouse gas emissions is not necessarily the best way to achieve that. — Thomas P.M. Barnett

CAFE standards have little impact on greenhouse gas emissions, and the environmental benefits of increasing CAFE standards are frequently overstated. Their impact on human health is more certain: CAFE standards have resulted in tens of thousands of deaths since their adoption. — Amy Ridenour

We have to create more and more vegetarians, and help people to understand that it is not only the suffering of the animals (which is what made me vegetarian) but also the incredible harm to the environment, the tremendous amount of greenhouse gas created by the whole vast machinery of intensive animal farming. — Jane Goodall

There are many who still do not believe that global warming is a problem at all. And it's no wonder: because they are the targets of a massive and well-organized campaign of disinformation lavishly funded by polluters who are determined to prevent any action to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming out of a fear that their profits might be affected if they had to stop dumping so much pollution into the atmosphere. — Al Gore

I am troubled by the lack of common sense regarding carbon dioxide emissions. Our greatest greenhouse gas is water. Atmospheric spectroscopy reveals why water has a 95 percent and CO2 a 3.6 percent contribution to the 'greenhouse effect.' Carbon dioxide emissions worldwide each year total 3.2 billion tons. That equals about 0.0168 percent of the atmosphere's CO2 concentration of about 19 trillion tons. This results in a 0.00064 percent increase in the absorption of the sun's radiation. This is an insignificantly small number. — Michael Myers

The best way to deal with climate change has been obvious for years: cut greenhouse-gas emissions severely. We haven't done that. In 2010, for example, carbon emissions rose by six per cent - the largest such increase on record. — Michael Specter

New York and Connecticut belong to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative to cut carbon emissions, and New York City has been a leader in energy efficiency. — Frances Beinecke

Switching to light-coloured roofs and roadways would have the equivalent effect on greenhouse gas emissions to taking one billion cars off the road for eleven years. — Steven Chu

In an agreement with China, President Obama has already pledged to reduce America's net greenhouse-gas emissions by more than 25% by 2025. In return, China has agreed to 'peak' its carbon-dioxide emissions in 2030. — John Barrasso

Greenhouse gas emissions and global warming are among humanity's most pressing concerns. Societal expectations on climate change are real, and our industry is expected to take a leadership role. — Ali Al-Naimi

What we should be doing [in US] is accelerating every year our efforts to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, have a cleaner energy future, have much more energy conservation. And this won't hurt anybody. This will create a new economy for America, if we've got the discipline to do it. — William J. Clinton

The road to energy independence, economic recovery, and greenhouse gas reductions runs through the building sector. — Edward Mazria

Soils could also be giving up their carbon stores: evidence emerged in 2005 that a vast expanse of western Siberia was undergoing an unprecedented thaw. The region, the largest frozen peat bog in the world, had begun to melt for the first time since it formed 11,000 years ago. Scientists believe the bog could begin to release billions of tonnes of methane locked up in the soils, a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide. The World Meteorological Organisation recently reported the largest annual rise of methane levels in the atmosphere for a decade. — David Adam

On some issues, I'm a staunch Conservative - like curtailing greenhouse gas emissions so that we can Conserve the environment. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Greenhouse gas emissions: Ultimately, stabilisation - at whatever level - requires that annual emissions be brought down to more than 80% below current levels — Nicholas Stern

Voluntary actions by corporations should not go beyond innovative win - win 'no regrets' initiatives. Greenhouse gas control practices that are uneconomic penalize either consumers or stockholders while politicizing the issue of corporate responsibility. Few will be satisfied, and the ineffectual measures will eventually have to be abandoned. — Robert L. Bradley Jr.

Carbon dioxide isn't the only greenhouse gas out there. Other substances, such as water vapor and nitrous oxide, also trap heat to varying degrees. — Jamais Cascio

The theory of man-made global warming and climate change based on human greenhouse gas emissions is the greatest international scientific fraud ever perpetrated on the world's citizens! — John Casey

Al Gore likes to say that mankind puts 70 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every day. What he probably doesn't know is that mother nature puts 24,000 times that amount of our main greenhouse gas-water vapor-into the atmosphere every day and removes about the same amount every day. While this does not 'prove' that global warming is not man-made, it shows that weather systems have by far the greatest control over the Earth's greenhouse effect, which is dominated by water vapor and clouds. — Roy Spencer

NASA's Aqua satellite is showing that water vapor, the dominant greenhouse gas, works to offset the effect of carbon dioxide (CO2). This information, contrary to the assumption used in all the warming models, is ignored by global warming alarmists. — Walter Cunningham

Meat is a tremendous environmental challenge. It contributes enormous amounts of greenhouse gas, especially beef eating. — Michael Pollan

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

Being told about the effects of climate change is an appeal to our reason and to our desire to bring about change. But to see that Africans are the hardest hit by climate change, even though they generate almost no greenhouse gas, is a glaring injustice, which also triggers anger and outrage over those who seek to ignore it. — Sigmar Gabriel

Unless we decide to reduce greenhouse gas emissions within just a few years from now, our destinies will already be chosen and our path towards hell unalterable as the carbon cycle feedbacks ... kick in one after another. — Mark Lynas

Choosing the most fuel-efficient vehicles within a class can save drivers at least $1,500 in fuel costs and avoid more than 15 tons of greenhouse gas pollution over the life of the vehicle, as well as help reduce dependence on foreign oil. — Carol Browner

I hope that in future Congresses there will reemerge a recognition that climate change is a reality, that our policies to meet our energy needs must also deal responsibly with environmental issues, including the damage caused by greenhouse gas emissions. — Jeff Bingaman

Recent warming coincides with rapid growth of human-made greenhouse gases. The observed rapid warming gives urgency to discussions about how to slow greenhouse gas emissions. — James Hansen

Greenhouse gas pollution, through its contribution to global climate change, presents a significant threat to Americans' health and to the environment upon which our economy and security depends. — Gina McCarthy

Being vegan or vegetarian isn't just about compassion for animals. Most of the destruction of the planet is the result of all the clear-cutting, groundwater contamination, grain production, fuel consumption, greenhouse gas, viral proliferation - the direct result of livestock production. — William McNamara

Researchers at the Naval Postgraduate School have told us that the entire Arctic ice cap may totally disappear in summer in as little as five years if nothing is done to curb emissions of greenhouse gas pollution. — Al Gore

The clock is ticking as nature attempts to absorb the increased greenhouse gas emissions. — Ernest Moniz

There is an extraordinary irony in government efforts to promote more rational and sustainable forms of behaviour in individuals in economies which are dominated by the imperative to make profit through capital accumulation, and which are inevitably addicted to unsustainable growth. Too much of the practice literature ignores political economic matters mediating practices. As Tim Jackson and others have shown, the idea of a green capitalism, in which growth of output is 'de-coupled' from greenhouse gas emissions, is an impossible dream. I shall therefore argue that practice approaches need to consider political economic matters. — Elizabeth Shove

So we now know the formula for extinction. Something happens to increase global temperatures five to six degrees, which triggers a melting of the frozen carbon and methane oceanic reserves that then leads to further global warming devastating life on Earth. Thus, the pressing question for us today is this: Can seven billion people on the planet burning fossil fuels imitate the sort of carbon greenhouse gas release caused by the Permian lava flows, or the K/T mass extinction impact or whatever warming caused the PETM? The answer is yes. — Thom Hartmann

Obama added, . . . So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can. It's just that it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all the greenhouse gas that's being emitted. — Mark R. Levin

Some time ago we discovered the carbon cycle - a long-term set of chemical reactions that govern climates based on how much carbon is free in the atmosphere. At that point, it became clear that humans were affecting our environments far more profoundly than we realized. By releasing so much carbon and greenhouse gas into the environment, we're making long-term changes to every aspect of the natural world. — Annalee Newitz

It is common sense that when women are able to plan their pregnancies, populations grow more slowly and as a result so do greenhouse gas emissions. Providing access to contraception and preventative health should be one of the many effective strategies used to fight climate change. — Kavita Ramdas

While the ranking of individual years can be affected by chaotic weather patterns, the long-term trends are attributable to drivers of climate change that right now are dominated by human emissions of greenhouse gases, the data shows quite clearly that it's the greenhouse gas trends that are responsible for the majority of the trends. — Gavin Schmidt

Many governments are giving subsidies to fossil fuel production and consumption that encourage greenhouse gas emissions, at the same time as they are spending on projects to promote clean energy. This is a wasteful use of scarce budget resources. — Jose Angel Gurria

The EPA's greenhouse gas regulations, along with a host of other onerous regulations, are unnecessarily driving out conventional fuels as part of America's energy mix. The consequences are higher energy prices for families and a contraction of our nation's economic growth. — Gina McCarthy

We will pay for this [climate change] one way or another. We will pay to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions today and we'll have to take an enormous hit of some kind. Or we will pay the price later in military terms. And that will involve human lives. There will be a human toll. There is no way out of this that does not have real costs attached to it. — Anthony Zinni

Temperature measurements in the arctic suggest that it was just as warm there in the 1930's ... before most greenhouse gas emissions. Don't you ever wonder whether sea ice concentrations back then were low, too? — Roy Spencer

There is no evidence when we look to the past for any precedent for the rate of change in atmospheric composition that we're causing, and the rates of change in climate that we can expect, as we continue to burn fossil fuels and elevate these greenhouse gas concentrations. — Thom Hartmann

Food now represents the single largest component of municipal solid waste brought to landfills, where it also releases methane, a greenhouse gas 34 times more potent than carbon dioxide. And if that weren't enough, it costs Americans $1.5 billion a year just to dispose of the wasted food.17 The impacts of food waste are not limited to the United States, however. The footprint of food that is lost or wasted across the globe is estimated as follows. 28 percent of all agricultural land - an area larger than Canada18 38 times the volume of water used by all U.S. households19 3.3 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent; if it were a country, uneaten food would be third in its greenhouse gas footprint, after the United States and China20 — Dana Gunders

We have climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions, mostly from human power and transportation infrastructure. At the same time, we have 2 billion people who live in energy poverty. — Ramez Naam

There is an incredible renewable energy resource off both coasts of this country - wind and tidal energy that can power our economy, create good paying jobs and reduce greenhouse gas pollution. — Chellie Pingree

If we are serious about moving toward energy independence in a cost-effective way, we should invest in solar energy. If we are serious about cutting air and water pollution and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, we should invest in solar energy. — Bernie Sanders