Peter Kalmus > Quotes

“Let this sink in for a moment: our society has reached a point where even one person’s trash, taken by itself, generates more CO2e than the average Bangladeshi generates for everything.”
― Peter Kalmus, Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution

“Our current system’s existence depends in part on a story to mollify the poor and prevent an uprising: that after some more growth, everyone will be rich; that economic equality for all is just around the corner, if only we run our engines of extraction ever faster. In a non-growing (steady- state) society, this story obviously makes no sense.”
― Peter Kalmus, Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution

“That I have limits is a fact, and I accept it. I don’t expect my changes to have a big impact. (I don’t expect anything, actually.) If what I do has impact, I know this impact arises only from an existing resonance, a resonance that grows through interacting with many other people in turn. We are like water molecules in a wave: we simultaneously transmit the wave and are moved by it. No one water molecule causes the wave, but together an enormous number of water molecules carry the wave. It’s all of us together, carried by a resonance, that will effect great change.”
― Peter Kalmus, Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution

“Saving the planet” is a fantasy for society’s collective ego. It allows us to continue in our false belief that we’re separate from the biosphere, that what’s happening to “the planet,” while sad for polar bears, somehow won’t affect us.

If you feel discouraged, maybe you’re trying to save the world.”
― Peter Kalmus, Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution

“There are numerous scientific studies detailing the rapid migration of animals and plants poleward at an average rate of over a mile per year, and where possible to higher elevations. Marine species are also moving poleward, and doing so even more rapidly than land species.”
― Peter Kalmus, Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution

“Part of my response is to opt out of this destructive system. Opting out brings me the satisfaction of transitioning from consumer to producer. It can be playful, or delicious; sometimes it can be frightening; ultimately, it’s fulfilling. Opting out is another form of reconnecting; as I lessen my dependence on global corporate systems, I naturally need to opt in to local biospheric systems.”
― Peter Kalmus, Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution

“[...] our economic system is a part of the biosphere, and not the other way around. If something we do collectively harms the biosphere, we’ll need to stop, no matter what some corporations or individuals might prefer.”
― Peter Kalmus, Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution

“All that fuel disappears over the course of the journey as if by magic, right into the atmosphere. I sometimes wonder whether we’d have climate change if people had to lug their own fuel, or if CO2 was hot pink and easy to see—either way everyone would be aware of just how much stuff they were dumping into the atmosphere. As it is, we pump it effortlessly, invisibly, and mindlessly into our tanks, and it comes out our exhaust just as effortlessly, invisibly, and mindlessly, allowing us to avoid knowing the material nature of our fuel, its sheer bulk. Out of sight, out of mind.”
― Peter Kalmus, Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution

“Hellfire and brimstone don’t inspire us to change; they lead to guilt. Guilt is a coping mechanism that allows us to merely limp along with our anxiety. It’s what we feel when we engage in some action that goes against our deeper principles, but that we don’t actually intend to change. Guilt is an insincere self-apology for a painful internal fracture. It leads us to symbolic actions that allow us to function with this fracture. Why not just heal the fracture?”
― Peter Kalmus, Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution

“There were half as many wild animals (vertebrates) alive in 2014 as there were 40 years earlier, and today’s extinction rate is about 1,000 times higher than the background rate. Humans and livestock account for over 97% of land vertebrate biomass, whereas wild animals account for less than 3%. We have essentially replaced the Earth’s wild places with agriculture, the Earth’s nonhumans with humans.”
― Peter Kalmus, Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution

“Trains still have potential for efficiency increases, and could run on renewable electricity. They therefore hold potential to become much more favorable relative to other modes of transport. But planes are already nearly as efficient as they can be.”
― Peter Kalmus, Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution

“First and foremost, we’ll need to learn how to see ourselves as just one part of a vast, complex, and beautiful tapestry of life. We’ll need to respect and value nonhumans just as much as humans. We’ll need to come out of the hubristic mindset of having dominion over nature. As I said earlier, we’ll need to realize that our economic system is a part of the biosphere, and not the other way around. If something we do collectively harms the biosphere, we’ll need to stop, no matter what some corporations or individuals might prefer.”
― Peter Kalmus, Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution

“I know that I can change the world; indeed, I am changing the world. What I can’t do is save it.”
― Peter Kalmus, Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution

“Humans: let’s stop burning fossil fuels. Let’s stop killing each other and our planet. Let’s stop merely talking about love; let’s start practicing it. We have nothing to lose but our misery.”
― Peter Kalmus, Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution

“The Ogallala Aquifer covers a vast expanse of the US high plains from Nebraska to Texas; we’re currently depleting it at nine times its recharge rate (a depletion ratio of 9). Other aquifers in the world are faring even worse. The depletion ratio is 27 for the Western Mexico Aquifer, 48 for the Northern Arabian Aquifer, and a whopping 54 for the Upper Ganges Aquifer, which provides water for Northern India and Pakistan, including the subcontinent’s wheat belt.”
― Peter Kalmus, Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution

“We approach these confrontations with nature much as we approach warfare, by bringing in more firepower. But ultimately, we’re at war with ourselves. Instead of fruitlessly trying to conquer nature, we could be dancing with the biosphere.”
― Peter Kalmus, Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution

“I see Earth’s biosphere as a fragile and miraculous entity. It’s amazing to me that such a thing came to be: this extraordinarily rich but razor-thin layer of interdependent life surrounding a rock floating in the cold vastness of space. How strange! There’s no guarantee that Earth’s biosphere will remain so richly supportive of human life. The Earth system answers only to the laws of physics, not to the needs of humans.”
― Peter Kalmus, Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution

“This is one of the great benefits of slow travel: a visceral sense of connection, that everywhere is home. Everywhere I go, I’m home—the whole Earth is my home.”
― Peter Kalmus, Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution

“When temperature and precipitation regimes both change, there’s little in agriculture that isn’t affected. Here’s one example that might wake you up: by 2050, the area suitable for coffee production could be half as large as it was in 2016.”
― Peter Kalmus, Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution

“One person’s reduction is a tiny drop in a vast ocean of human greenhouse gas emissions. If directly reducing global emissions were my main motivation, I’d find it depressing, like trying to save the world all by myself. Instead, I reduce for three much better reasons.

First, I enjoy living with less fossil fuel. I love biking, I love growing food, and I love being at home with my family instead of away at conferences. Less fossil fuel has meant more connection with the land, with food, with family and friends, and with community. If through some magic spell, global warming were to suddenly and completely vanish, I’d continue living with far less fossil fuel.2

Second, by moving away from fossil fuel, I’m aligning my actions with my principles. Burning fossil fuel with the knowledge of the harm it causes creates cognitive dissonance, which can lead to feelings of guilt, panic, or depression. Others might respond to this cognitive dissonance with cynicism, or perhaps by denying that fossil fuels are harmful. But I find that a better option is simply to align action to principle.

Finally, I believe personal reduction does help, indirectly, by shifting the culture. I’ve had countless discussions about the changes I’ve made, and I’ve seen many people around me begin to make similar changes in their own lives. By changing ourselves, we help others envision change. We gradually shift cultural norms.”
― Peter Kalmus, Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution

“Our individual actions don’t make much of an immediate difference in the global response to our predicament, but they are pieces in a vast puzzle. As more pieces get added, more people will get excited by the emerging picture and begin to add their own pieces.”
― Peter Kalmus, Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution

“Climate change is now the primary driver for forest dryness and the longer fire season in the Western US, and has doubled the area that otherwise would have burned since 1984. Wildfire area increases exponentially with global warming, with each degree of warming leading to more fire than the last, at least while there are still trees left to burn.”
― Peter Kalmus, Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution

“The US spends more on its military than the next ten nations combined. This money causes great misery, largely for the sake of maintaining access to fossil fuels, and in my opinion could be better spent elsewhere—for example, transitioning to carbon-free energy.”
― Peter Kalmus, Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution

“For a given distance, carpooling four to a 50 mpg car emits less than taking the train, which emits less than a 50 mpg car (alone), which emits less than flying. Four people flying on a plane (in coach) emit 5 times the CO2 (and 14 times the short-term CO2e) as four people sharing a 50 mpg car.”
― Peter Kalmus, Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution

“The money system has many problems, but I especially dislike paying for war. About 45% of US income taxes are spent on the military. While I don’t mind paying taxes, I do mind that about half of what I pay funds institutionalized murder, which goes against my deepest principles. And in addition, the US military burns more fossil fuel than any other institution in the world.”
― Peter Kalmus, Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution

“Changing to a low-energy lifestyle has saved my family thousands of dollars. We spend less than one-half what we used to on food, we buy far less gasoline and diesel, we spend less than $20 per month on electricity, and we save on air travel. We also see indirect savings, for example, from staying healthier.”
― Peter Kalmus, Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution

“Our society is built around chasing happiness through consumption. But lasting happiness can never be found in this way.”
― Peter Kalmus, Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution

“Europe’s 2003 heat wave, which killed 70,000 people, was the first individual event statistically attributed to global warming. In 2014, heat waves were already ten times as likely as they were just ten years earlier, and this frequency is increasing.”
― Peter Kalmus, Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution

“Where do we get this strange notion that we can own land? Native Americans in the 19th century found it bizarre. What does it mean for a human to “own” a mountain? The mountain laughs at the notion.”
― Peter Kalmus, Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution

“Or, you could fully experience the simple miracle of being on this Earth: you could walk.”
― Peter Kalmus, Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution