Hothouse Earth Quotes

“The last glacial episode peaked just 20,000 years ago, following which time our planet has been warming again. Officially, we entered a new interglacial – known as the Holocene (from the Greek for ‘completely new’) – a little under 12,000 years ago, but that isn’t the end of the story. We are still in the Ice Age, and the cold is slated to return – if nature were left to its own devices – probably within 10,000 years. The thing is, global heating, driven by human activities, has put a spanner in the works to the extent that the next glacial episode is virtually certain to be postponed, perhaps indefinitely.”
― Bill McGuire, Hothouse Earth: An Inhabitant's Guide

“anything above 1.5°C will see the advent of a world plagued by intense summer heat, extreme drought, devastating floods, reduced crop yields, rapidly melting ice sheets and surging sea levels. A rise of 2°C and above will seriously threaten the stability of global society.”
― Bill McGuire, Hothouse Earth: An Inhabitant's Guide

“On the other hand, if you have been worried or frightened by what you have read, that’s good, you should be, especially on behalf of your children and their children. But don’t let fear feed inertia. Fear does not have to be paralysing. Indeed, it is often the driver of effective action. No one ever won a war while knowing no fear, and make no mistake, this is a war. Wherever we live on this magnificent planet, we all need to do our utmost to try to keep it that way. The fact that the future looks dismal is not an excuse to do nothing, to imagine it’s all too late. On the contrary, it is a call to arms.

So, if you feel the need to glue yourself to a motorway or blockade an oil refinery, then do it. In his book How to Blow Up a Pipeline, Andreas Malm argues convincingly that, such is the scale of the climate crisis, sabotage and property damage are absolutely justified in the battle against fossil fuel companies and others working against the public good. I understand that this is not to everyone’s taste, but there is plenty more you can do. Drive an electric car or, even better, use public transport, walk or cycle; stop flying; switch to a green energy tariff; eat less meat; spread the word about the predicament we find ourselves in among your friends and family; lobby your elected representatives at both local and national level; and use your vote wisely to put in power a government that walks the talk on the climate emergency.”
― Bill McGuire, Hothouse Earth: An Inhabitant's Guide

“There is no easy way to say it, but the world of our children and their children will be a far more perilous one. As resources and habitable land diminish, nations will turn against one another in an effort to maintain or gain what they feel is their share or their right. As economies degrade, the social fabric begins to fray and mass migration becomes a global phenomenon, so the election of populist leaders promising the Earth is likely to become increasingly commonplace. At a time when the need for stable and sensible governance will never have been so critical, many countries could be led by unqualified premiers for whom posturing and saber-rattling replace discourse and cooperation. This is nothing less than a recipe for war.”
― Bill McGuire, Hothouse Earth: An Inhabitant's Guide

“Our climate is being destroyed by unadulterated, free-market capitalism—an ideology that simply cannot be sustained on a small planet with limited resources. It is a system that has no interest in the greater good and that rewards inordinate capital and the few that have it, rather than the majority who don’t. It cares nothing for the environment or biodiversity and doesn’t give a fig about the fate of future generations. In fact, it is exactly the wrong economic system to have in place at a time of global crisis. The bankruptcy of the system is especially well upheld in the grossly asymmetric portioning of carbon emissions between the rich elite and everyone else.”
― Bill McGuire, Hothouse Earth: An Inhabitant's Guide