An overwhelming majority of scientists who have looked into the matter agree that global warming is underway and is... caused by people burning fossil fuels. This is the meta-fact hovering over all the details. [...] In [mining and] burning so much [hydrocarbons in the form of] coal, oil, and gas [as fossil fuels] we've released [a fraction of] 460 million years of sequestered carbon into the atmosphere in a mere two hundred years. There are consequences for doing this. The trajectory of climate problems has gotten only more severe since I discussed the issue in The Long Emergency in 2005. Greenhouse gas emissions have exceeded predictions. The IPCC report expects a sea level rise of at least three feet [91 cm] […]; James Hansen of NASA says... seventeen feet [5.18 m]. If that is the case, there would be no need to argue over the finer points of how many square miles in the Netherlands would be underwater... along with Bangladesh, many Pacific islands, most of Florida, and the Mississippi River Delta, Houston, Jacksonville, Key West, and thousands of other places.

About This Quote

About James Howard Kunstler

James Howard Kunstler was a contemporary American writer, social critic, blogger. James Howard Kunstler is an American writer, social critic, public speaker, and blogger known for his analysis of urban development, suburbanization, and energy issues. Born in New York City to Jewish parents, he gained prominence through his non-fiction works critiquing American suburban development and predicting societal changes based on resource constraints. Read more on Wikipedia →

More quotes by James Howard Kunstler