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America’s most influential enviro McKibben: Use America’s defense budget to fight climate war

Via The HARRY READ ME File: Described by the Boston Globe as “America’s most important environmentalist”, 350.org founder Bill McKibben says America’s defense budget must “be put to work defending us against the most dangerous adversaries we face” — climate change.

BILL MCKIBBEN: “It should be possible to build large quantities of solar panels and turbine blades, and it should be possible to put lots of people at work on good jobs doing that, okay? And it should be a huge priority, and if you think we don’t have the money then you’re not paying attention. We have things like the defense budget that need to be put to work defending us against the most dangerous adversaries we face. The conceit of that New Republic piece was that we are in fact already at war though we do not really recognize it. But, by all the measures that we normally count as warfare, that’s what’s going on. We’re losing territory day by day. People are being killed day by day in great numbers. There will probably be added to that death toll tonight someplace along the coast of Florida. We’re at war, we’re just not fighting back, and the time has come to do that, and it will take as the history of WWII shows, government leadership to make that happen. It will take a concentrated national effort and a concentrated international effort to make that happen. It won’t happen on its own, it requires leadership.”

Bill McKibbin: The Hottest Fight in the Hottest Year
Oberlin College
Oberlin, Ohio
October 6, 2016

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