Bill McKibben at Power Shift 2011

April 19, 2011

Here’s the transcript and video of Bill’s firey speech at Power Shift 2011, the 10,000 person climate conference and training in Washington, DC. Enjoy — and please spread the word!

It starts:

“Very, very few people can ever say that they are in the single most important place they could possibly be, doing the single most important thing they could possibly be doing — that’s you, here, now. You are the movement that we need if we are going to win in the few years that we have. You have the skills now, you are making the connections, and there is no one else. It is you. That is a great honor and that is a terrible burden. There is no one else.”

… “We will never have as much money as the oil companies, so we need a different currency to work in, we need bodies, we need creativity, we need spirit.”

Bill McKibben

Bill McKibben is the author of a dozen books about the environment, including The End of Nature (1989), the first book for a general audience on climate change, and Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet (2010). He is a founder of the grassroots climate campaign 350.org, which has coordinated 15,000 rallies in 189 countries since 2009. He is a frequent contributor to various publications including The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, Rolling Stone, and Outside. He is also a board member and contributor to Grist Magazine.

A scholar-in-residence at Middlebury College, Bill holds honorary degrees from a dozen colleges. In 2011 he was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.


Tags: Activism, Energy Policy, Politics