Our carbon emissions have to eventually go to zero. We have to. Otherwise we're never going to have a stable climate and that's what our goal is for human civilization to thrive, a stable climate. We don't want one that's hotter, we don't want one that's colder, we want one that's stable.
Katharine HayhoeI feel like a physician, one who's done a scan of the patient's body and seen evidence of a potentially serious issue.
Katharine HayhoeThere has been a concerted effort to frame caring about climate change and the environment as an alternate religion - one that worships the creation rather than the creator, so to speak.
Katharine HayhoeWhere I live, if I put solar panels on my roof I'm not allowed to sell that energy back to the grid. I can't change that restriction myself. I need our local decision-makers to fix that.
Katharine HayhoeThere is also a great deal of behind-the-scenes pressure from political funders too. And by funders I don't just mean the fossil fuel industry. Many of those exerting pressure on our society to ignore climate change, oppose climate change legislation, and shut down efforts to develop a clean energy economy are doing so out of ideology, not just economics. In the simplest terms, many large industries don't want the government telling them what to do with their businesses and they don't want any restrictions on what they can and cannot do, which includes polluting our shared environment.
Katharine HayhoeOne of the biggest issues with renewables right now is the fact that if the wind isn't blowing, if the sun isn't shining, we don't have energy. Many people are working on storage technology so when the wind isn't blowing, we can use the energy stored in our giant batteries, essentially. But what happens if we don't have enough stored energy?
Katharine Hayhoe