Climate Change: “We’re Essentially in a Wartime Situation”

A Conversation with Bill McKibben

September 22, 2023 | Geneva Point, New Hampshire

Since the publication of The End of Nature in 1989, Bill McKibben has become our public conscience during the climate crisis. In 2007 Bill and seven Middlebury College students founded 350.org, a global movement of climate activists committed to forcing change and arresting the rise in temperature before global temperatures reach 1.5º or 2º Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Understanding that climate and democracy are inseparably linked, Bill helped launch Third Act, “a community of experienced Americans over the age of sixty determined to change the world for the better,” in 2021. Third Act activists are now working with the more youthful activists of 350.org to address the crises in democracy and our climate. Bill and I spoke on a lovely afternoon at the recent Eastern Old Growth Conference in Moultonborough, New Hampshire. 

—Jamie Sayen

Bill McKibben by StoryWorkz

Jamie Sayen (JS): There are fifty percent fewer wild animals on the planet than in 1970; energy use in the last three decades is greater than all energy use prior to the 1980s; 40 billion tons of CO2 a year are emitted globally; carbon emissions have nearly doubled since 1988, which I think is a particularly poignant and appalling fact; and finally Business as Usual is going to give us a 3-4º Celsius (5-6º Fahrenheit) global temperature increase. Your thoughts on what it’s going to take for us to survive?

Bill McKibben (BM): Survival is a low bar, but it’s fairly basic. We obviously have to adapt to the change that we’ve already caused. In the summer of 2023, there’s hardly a part of the globe that hasn’t been burned, flooded, something. We’ve had the hottest temperatures we’ve seen on the planet in 125,000 years. Even my state of Vermont, which we’re used to thinking of as somewhat of a climate refuge, had the worst flooding it’s ever seen.

A view of Langdon Street in downtown Montpelier on July 11, 2023. The bridge seen in this photo crosses over the North Branch of the Winooski River, a normally quiet tributary that was raging that day. On many a July day in midsummer, the rocky bottom of the stream can be seen far below the bridge. Photo: ©Bryan Pfeiffer

We are going to have to adapt to those things we can no longer prevent. But, there are profound limits to that adaptation. I think it’s becoming clear that the planet is more delicately balanced than we’ve really understood. And that even in the increases in temperature that we’ve seen so far, under 1.5º Celsius, there is massive, massive damage. As the temperature increases to 2º and 2.5º  Celsius, the increase in damage isn’t going to be linear, it’s going to be more like exponential because we keep crossing these tipping points.

The thing we have to do most to survive, at least with anything resembling the civilizations that we’re used to, is to limit the rise in temperature to as low as possible. That means one thing, and one thing only, which is stop using coal and gas and oil. That’s 80 percent or more of the greenhouse emissions that we face. We have to stop using that stuff right now. As soon as is physically possible. The good news is that that’s not a crazy idea anymore. We now live on a planet where the cheapest way to produce power is to point a sheet of glass at the sun. There’s not really a financial or technical obstacle to getting off fossil fuel fast, but there are enormous political obstacles to doing that.

“The thing we have to do most to survive at least with anything resembling the civilizations that we’re used to, is to limit the rise in temperature to as low as possible. That means one thing, and one thing only, which is stop using coal and gas and oil. That’s 80 percent or more of the greenhouse emissions that we face…. The engineers have dropped the price of renewable energy 90 percent in a decade. Now, it’s up to everyone else, in their capacity as citizens, to force change to happen. I think the only way to do that is to build movements big enough that they can challenge or check the power of the fossil fuel industry.”

JS: How do we move those obstacles?

BM: The thing that interests me is how we make it possible to make that change fast. The engineers have done their job. They’ve dropped the price of renewable energy 90 percent in a decade. Now, it’s up to everyone else, in their capacity as citizens, to force it to happen. It’ll happen over 50 or 75 years. The sheer fact that solar power is all but free will get us in the direction eventually. But, if it takes 50 or 75 years, it will be a broken planet that we run on this stuff. I think the only way to do that is to build movements big enough that they can challenge or check the power of the fossil fuel industry.

We do that by all the things we’ve been trying to do, and more: blocking pipelines, divesting from fossil fuel, passing legislation like the IRA [the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act], and on and on and on. But it takes way more focus than has happened so far to make change at the speed we’re going.

You have to vote and register people to vote in huge numbers for the right people. You have to sue the hell out of bad guys, use whatever our legal system can do. You have to take advantage of the places where you have majorities, like California, to pass really ground-breaking legislation.

We have to march. We have to use our bodies sometimes. There’s no mystery here. In the last hundred years, we’ve seen the rise of nonviolent social movements. They have an endless series of tools. There just have to be enough people willing to use them enough.

There’s never been a political movement that wasn’t hard, that came easy. And this one is, in some ways, harder than most [like the civil rights movement] because there were a lot of bigots in the world, but there were not huge, huge corporations that absolutely depended on bigotry to run their business model. It was clear at some point that the civil rights movement was going to win certain victories just because it was so obviously right. There was plenty of opposition and resistance, but at a certain point, the economic system was like, “this is stupid.” That’s not going to happen here. By this point it’s clear that Exxon is determined to drill the last drop of oil on Planet Earth if they can get away with it.

JS: The climate movement and the civil rights movement are really critical for reviving democracy which gets ossified if we just sit back, vote, and wait for the government to do it. I just worry that the scale is so small, and the challenge is so big.

BM: What I worry about most is the time limits on both democracy and the climate. At Third Act, those are the things that we focus on because we think they’re completely linked, but also because I think there’s an expiration date on both. If Donald Trump wins the next election, I don’t think we’re going to have a democracy.

“The climate obviously comes with a time limit. All of our political systems are bad at producing quick action. The only time where quick action happens is war, because there’s no alternative. Literally it’s a war, because what do you do in a war? If you’re losing, you lose land, territory. We’re losing a lot every day now.”

The climate obviously comes with a time limit. All of our political systems are bad at producing quick action. The only time where quick action happens is war, because there’s no alternative. But the powers that be haven’t realized that we’re essentially in a wartime situation here. 

Downtown Montpelier flooded on July 11, 2023. The Vermont State House is on higher dry land at left. Note the bridges over the Winooski River on right. Photo courtesy of Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets.

Literally it’s a war, because what do you do in a war? If you’re losing, you lose land, territory. We’re losing a lot every day now. The good news about the war is that we’re not required to go kill anybody. Or bomb anybody. All we have to do is build a zillion solar panels.

JS: You talk a lot about climate justice. One of the impressive things about Wildlands, Woodlands, Farmlands & Communities is that they’re looking at the wildland component, the economic transformation component, and environmental justice for all, whether rural or inter-city, human or non-human.

BM: Absolutely. And, I think all these things are completely doable. I think we have a whole endless series of good answers for how to live sanely on this planet. We’re just not going to get to play them out if we don’t manage to arrest the rise in temperature quickly. Because that’s just going to overwhelm everything that everybody else is working on. Progress in building wonderful stuff like that in Vermont ground to a halt this summer because everybody was under water.

Flooded cropland, Lower Winooski River Intervale, Colchester and Burlington, Vermont, July 12, 2023. In the near view are private crop fields that have been ditched for years to increase production, but which flood regularly. In the far distance are lands owned by the non-profit Intervale Center and farmed by a variety of startup operations and CSA farms. To the distant right is a property, recently acquired by Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department, that is being restored from active farmland to natural floodplain vegetation in recognition of its regular flooding and its value as natural habitat. Photo courtesy of Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets.

JS: We live this consumer-materialist lifestyle that isn’t bringing us the happiness that was promised. The message I would like to give to people is: “Stop consuming; buy what you need; buy a little bit extra, enough to have some fun in life, and then, go outside with a kid.”

BM: That’s my world too. It’s not like I’m depriving myself, I just don’t care [to consume]. We’ve had this sort of strange period of high consumer capitalism that isn’t making us happy. It will fade, but it won’t fade fast enough that it will be the main way that we will take on climate change. We still have to build the fucking solar panels.

JS: I hope we can get people to start thinking about how, “My life is going to improve by not spending money on crap.”

BM: I completely agree. That cultural change is beautiful and important, and deep. It’s the thing I would most like to work with in the world. The thing I’m trying to say is: it’s not really a response to the actual physical emergency we find ourselves in right now. I don’t think you can make the numbers work in the time that we have.

JS: What about World War II when they basically threw the light switch? They stopped making cars. Or Covid?

BM: Yup. Two interesting things there: One is Covid shut down the world far more than any environmentalist had imagined could be done. No one driving; no one flying. At its height, it cut carbon emissions about 12 percent. Most of the carbon emissions that we’re dealing with are embedded in the guts of the system and not easily amenable to individual action. It’s the gas and coal and oil that just keeps the basic world that we’ve built moving, running. Even if everybody stops driving, most of it’s still there. People went back to their homes, and energy use in homes went way up even as it went way down in offices.

The other thing about it was: people couldn’t wait to be done with it. If our democracy goes down, it’s in large part because people got so pissed off that anyone asked them to do anything about Covid.

JS: It might have been different if we’d had FDR instead of Donald Trump.

BM: Absolutely. Context is really important. America’s been incredibly lucky that in the past when we’ve had emergencies, the world has thrown up the great leaders of our time. We did not luck out this time. Weirdly, though I have many problems with Biden, I don’t think he’s trying to be Obama or Clinton. I think he’s trying to be LBJ with shades of FDR.

“Climate change, if you think about it, is probably the ultimate test of whether the big brain was a good adaptation or not. It’s gotten us into a lot of trouble, and now, can it get us out?... I think the real answer to that question is that this will be decided by how big are the hearts attached to those brains.”

JS: You have made a good point that we can’t just hammer people with disaster, we have to have some hope, and not empty, hollow, whistling in the wind kind of hope. What are the hopeful things that can pull us through and maybe get us to go up a couple of quantum levels in terms of fighting climate change?

BM: Climate change, if you think about it, is probably the ultimate test of whether the big brain was a good adaptation or not. It’s gotten us into a lot of trouble, and now, can it get us out? 

I think the real answer to that question is that this will be decided by how big are the hearts attached to those brains. That’s what we don’t know. Above all else, it’s going to take some kind of basic human solidarity to see us through this next fifty years. For the last fifty years, if you’re an American, neighbors have been a kind of optional thing. You’ve got a credit card? Someone will bring whatever you need to your door. That’s not going to be true in the next fifty years. In a world where everything floods all the time, or burns down, you’d better have some neighbors you can count on and trust.

Underwater Cabinet Meeting, Maldives, "International Day of Climate Action", organized by 350.org on October 24, 2009.

JS: I have a sense of urgency because I want to see our grandkids have a fair chance. This keeps me going, but also keeps me up at night—that the game may be over. I can’t give into that…

BM: You’ve just got to keep reminding yourself that the great American trap is to think that what you do as an individual is the key thing. The most important thing an individual can do is to be less of an individual. Join together with others in movements large enough to actually change the political and economic ground rules. That’s why we started Third Act. Now we’ve got tens of thousands of volunteers of a certain age who have tons of time, and often have good networks. Now they’re pitching it, backing up the kids who have been doing great work for the last decade.

Bill McKibben at a Third Act action in Washington, DC on June 8, 2023, to stop the Mountain Valley Pipeline. Photo: ©Nate Birnbaum.

I’m not saying there’s not plenty of reason to despair; there is. But there’s not yet an excuse to give up. That moment may come, but that day hasn’t come yet.

We’re obviously not going to stop global warming. We’re talking here about a world where the good outcome is the temperature goes up 2º Celsius, which is a disaster in every way. That’s the good outcome now. 1.5º is a great outcome, but we’re going to be above 1.5º C in November, I think, for a little while. We’re definitely headed in that direction. We’ll do everything we possibly can to stop it.

JS: Our tendency is to assume there’s a technological fix for all this, and therefore, we can wait for the technological fix.

BM: That’s the maddening thing. The technological fix is here. It’s called solar panels and wind turbines. They’re amazing. There’s a lot of money being made in continuing to burn carbon. Depending on how you estimate it, the world’s coal and gas and oil reserves are worth $40 or $50 trillion dollars. That’s what people are fighting over. That’s what’s preventing us from making a series of rational decisions about the future of the world.

“The most important thing an individual can do is to be less of an individual. Join together with others in movements large enough to actually change the political and economic ground rules. That’s why we started Third Act. Now we’ve got tens of thousands of volunteers of a certain age backing up the kids who have been doing great work for the last decade.”

JS: Last question: The End of Nature came out 35 years ago. Looking back now, as a young oldster, a reflection on the life you’ve had: Has it reinforced your faith in mankind?

BM: That’s a good question, and I don’t know the answer to that. When I wrote The End of Nature, I knew we were in enormous trouble, hence the title. I think I analyzed it more or less correctly. It does surprise me how little, how badly, our systems have reacted here. 

This is such a strange crisis because we got a complete warning of exactly what was going to happen long before it happened. 

It does force one at a certain level to qualify one’s unlimited faith in the human spirit. But, on we go. One hopes that now that the damage is abundantly clear, people will find it within themselves to do what we need to do. And it doesn’t need to be everybody. Movements never are. But it needs to be enough people, and more than there are at the moment doing it.

350.org acrobats in Chenai, India, "International Day of Climate Action", organized by 350.org on October 24, 2009.