Climate of Hope Quotes

“The changing climate should be seen as a series of discrete, manageable problems that can be attacked from all angles simultaneously. Each problem has a solution. And better still, each solution can make our society healthier and our economy stronger.”
― Michael R. Bloomberg, Climate of Hope: How Cities, Businesses, and Citizens Can Save the Planet

“Models are models - and the real world is different. For example, for the last three years the world economy has grown significantly, but emissions have stayed flat - which wasn't supposed to happen for decades. The commitments that nations made in Paris won't kick in until 2020, but many are already implementing their pledges and moving ahead of schedule. The Marrakech Climate Change Conference, around the time of the 2016 U.S. Elections, saw the rest of the world setting strong new goals, with Germany submitting a plan to cut its climate footprint by 95 percent, and twenty-nine new regional and local governments (many in China) committing to similarly deep emissions cuts.”
― Carl Pope, Climate of Hope: How Cities, Businesses, and Citizens Can Save the Planet

“I didn’t know it yet, but this new priority would mean enormous changes in the way I saw the world and environmentalism. Previously environmentalists worked to stop bad things—pollution, clear-cutting, overfishing—but we more or less accepted the big-picture American economy, with the established industries that made it up. Not anymore. Now we were about to find ourselves in a different business: helping to foster a different kind of economic development, one based on knowledge and technology rather than fossil fuels. After thirty-five years of working to clean up after twentieth-century industrialism, environmentalists were about to plunge into creating its twenty-first-century replacement. But before we could go full tilt toward the new, we had to stop the last spasms of the old—an energy future crafted during George W. Bush’s first term by Vice President Cheney.”
― Michael R. Bloomberg, Climate of Hope: How Cities, Businesses, and Citizens Can Save the Planet

“Even before the convention, the results from the state and local consultations suggested a surprising shift in the membership’s concerns—after more than a hundred years in which the protection of wild places was our highest priority, club leaders were now saying that climate change needed to be at the top of our agenda.”
― Michael R. Bloomberg, Climate of Hope: How Cities, Businesses, and Citizens Can Save the Planet

“Defense, it is clear, is not enough. To find an answer, we decided to mount the most intensive consultation process in the club’s modern history, inviting over five thousand grassroots leaders to participate in a series of meetings, surveys, and discussions. It culminated in our first national convention, which we held in San Francisco in September 2005.”
― Michael R. Bloomberg, Climate of Hope: How Cities, Businesses, and Citizens Can Save the Planet

“The reality is that the uncertainty involved means we do not know with precision whether we can achieve either of those goals; nor do we know for certain what the consequences will be if we do not. Regardless, most people put little faith in projections that far out, which is understandable. Scientists have been wrong plenty of times before. What people want to know is not exactly what will happen to the Earth eighty years from now but what will happen to their house, their job, and their community this year. Telling people that they might possibly save the Earth from distant and uncertain harm is not a great way to convince them to support a particular policy.”
― Michael R. Bloomberg, Climate of Hope: How Cities, Businesses, and Citizens Can Save the Planet

“the United States, the debate has too often centered on how likely various doom-and-gloom scenarios are, and when they’ll occur. But scaring people doesn’t work.”
― Michael R. Bloomberg, Climate of Hope: How Cities, Businesses, and Citizens Can Save the Planet

“Instead of arguing about making sacrifices, let’s talk about how we can make money. Instead of pitting the environment versus the economy, let’s consider market principles and economic growth. Instead of focusing on polar bears, let’s focus on asthmatic children. And instead of putting all hope in the federal government, let’s empower cities, regions, businesses, and citizens to accelerate the progress they are already making on their own.”
― Michael R. Bloomberg, Climate of Hope: How Cities, Businesses, and Citizens Can Save the Planet

“The two of us have no interest in the tired old debate that is still playing out on Capitol Hill. Our interest is not in winning an argument or an election. It’s in saving lives, promoting prosperity, and stopping global warming.”
― Michael R. Bloomberg, Climate of Hope: How Cities, Businesses, and Citizens Can Save the Planet

“over the past decade Congress has not passed a single bill that takes direct aim at climate change. Yet at the same time, the United States has led the world in reducing emissions.”
― Michael R. Bloomberg, Climate of Hope: How Cities, Businesses, and Citizens Can Save the Planet