In certain ways, we, many of us, stopped paying attention to the world. I have to think we would have moved on the whole climate issue in a different way if we'd been paying better attention.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
It should simply be an empirical matter whether the climate is changing or not and whether we're responsible. But the various sides of the debate have now become so tribal that it's no longer a matter of changing our views as more information comes in.
We unfortunately already live on a planet where the climate has changed and will continue to change no matter what we do now. We're playing a game of making the problem less bad rather than preventing it.
On climate change, we often don't fully appreciate that it is a problem. We think it is a problem waiting to happen.
For reasons we don't have to get into, climate change has become an incredibly polarized issue in the United States. I think that is sad. My own personal view is that we're in a planetary emergency such has not been seen in 600,000 years.
Even if we were to stop putting out greenhouse gases right now, we'd still face decades of warming.
If you look at all the serious scientists in the world, there is no big disagreement on the basics of this... it would be absolute lunacy to act as if climate change is not occurring.
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.
We can look back through ice-core data and see over 800,000 years, relationships between carbon dioxide and the temperature of the world. So those people who deny the importance of climate change are just wasting their time. They're also being diversionary because if we don't act the risks are enormous.
You know, I get frustrated with our country's administration, which is really the people who are not acknowledging global warming. I mean, it's accepted by scientists around the world, scientists in our country and it's accepted by every country around the world with the exception of the United States.
We can't take climate change and put it on the back burner. If we don't address climate change, we won't be around as humans.
No opposing quotes found.