Jeff Goodell quotes

One of the big questions in the climate change debate: Are humans any smarter than frogs in a pot? If you put a frog in a pot and slowly turn up the heat, it won't jump out. Instead, it will enjoy the nice warm bath until it is cooked to death. We humans seem to be doing pretty much the same thing. (Jeff Goodell)
Australia is the only island continent on the planet, which means that changes caused by planet-warming pollution - warmer seas, which can drive stronger storms, and more acidic oceans, which wreak havoc on the food chain - are even more deadly here.
Jeff Goodell
Have we failed to slow global warming pollution in part because climate and environmental activists have been too polite and well behaved?
Jeff Goodell
In reality, studies show that investments to spur renewable energy and boost energy efficiency generate far more jobs than oil and coal.
Jeff Goodell
So if you want to know how Exxon Mobil can make $10 billion profit in 90 days, just look around. The whole world was built for them.
Jeff Goodell
But Big Oil and Big Coal have always been as skilled at propaganda as they are at mining and drilling. Like the tobacco industry before them, their success depends on keeping Americans stupid.
Jeff Goodell
Extracting oil from the tar sands is a nasty, polluting, energy-intensive business.
Jeff Goodell
From the industry's point of view, the problem is not that coal companies blast the top off mountains, turning the area into a moonscape and polluting the air and releasing toxic chemical into what's left of the local streams and aquifers. It's that the people who live near the mines are too cozy with their cousins.
Jeff Goodell
You think the weather is weird now? Just wait. A new MIT study, just published in a peer-reviewed journal, projects that the Earth could see warming of more than 9 degrees F by 2100 - more than twice earlier projections.
Jeff Goodell
Bill Gates is a relative newcomer to the fight against global warming, but he's already shifting the debate over climate change.
Jeff Goodell
Maybe more climate activists will think about the climate change not as an international problem to be resolved in an air-conditioned meeting hall, but as a guerilla war to be fought in the streets. (Jeff Goodell)
When it comes to global warming, coal is the gorilla in the room.
Jeff Goodell
If we drill the hell out of everything, including protected public lands and fragile regions like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, America can emerge as an 'energy superpower.'
Jeff Goodell
Nobody disputes that cheap natural gas would be a good thing for the economy. The question is, is this a sustainable new development that can be counted on for decades to come, or simply a 'bubble' brought on by a land grab and drilling frenzy?
Jeff Goodell
Coal boosters like to tout coal as cheap and plentiful - well, not anymore. At least not in China.
Jeff Goodell
Although most Americans don't know it, the U.S. gets more oil from Canada than it does from the entire Middle East.
Jeff Goodell
The coal industry is an even larger part of the Australian economy than it is of the American, and it has an enormous amount of political power.
Jeff Goodell
In reality, Republicans have long been at war with clean energy. They have ridiculed investments in solar and wind power, bashed energy-efficiency standards, attacked state moves to promote renewable energy and championed laws that would enshrine taxpayer subsidies for fossil fuels while stripping them from wind and solar.
Jeff Goodell
When it comes to energy, cost isn't everything - but it's a lot. Everybody wants cheap power.
Jeff Goodell
In the U.S. alone, weather disasters caused $50 billion in economic damages in 2010.
Jeff Goodell
Once we start deliberately messing with the climate systems, we could inadvertently shift rainfall patterns (climate models have shown that rainfall in the Amazon might be particularly vulnerable), causing collapse of ecosystems, drought, famine, and more. (Jeff Goodell)
Some studies suggest that the Arctic Ocean may be ice-free by the end of the century.
Jeff Goodell
It may be too late for West Virginia to save itself from the ravages of Big Coal. But it's not too late for America.
Jeff Goodell
It's not all Obama's fault: His plans to rebuild America's energy infrastructure have been hampered by the recession, and his efforts on global warming have been stymied by Tea Party wackos and weak-kneed Democrats in Congress.
Jeff Goodell
Is it in our national interest to overheat the planet? That's the question Obama faces in deciding whether to approve Keystone XL, a 2,000-mile-long pipeline that will bring 500,000 barrels of tar-sand oil from Canada to oil refineries on the Gulf of Mexico.
Jeff Goodell