Bill Mckibben Quotes

“Very few people on earth ever get to say: "I am doing, right now, the most important thing I could possibly be doing." If you'll join this fight that's what you'll get to say.”
― Bill McKibben

“I once asked Bill McKibben, after an energising speech to a capacity crowd, when – given that the situation is as urgent as he portrayed it and we all know it is – we escalate. He was visibly ill at ease. The first part of his response presented what we might call the objection from asymmetry: as soon as a social movement engages in violent acts, it moves onto the terrain favoured by the enemy, who is overwhelmingly superior in military capabilities. The state loves a fight of arms; it knows it will win. Our strength is in numbers. This is a pet argument for strategic pacifists, but it is disingenuous. Violence is not the sole field where asymmetry prevails. The enemy has overwhelmingly superior capabilities in virtually all fields, including media propaganda, institutional coordination, logistical resources, political legitimacy and, above all, money. If the movement should shun uphill battles, a divestment campaign seems like the worst possible choice: trying to sap fossil capital by means of capital.”
― Andreas Malm, How to Blow Up a Pipeline

“What the research is showing us is that the feeling of being in a collective is really an essential part of [social activism]. We have that famous quote from Bill McKibben when he's asked, what's the one thing I can do to solve this problem? What's one thing? And he says, stop being just I, stop just being you. Start to see yourself in this broader collective, start to plug in to a collective, because a collective actually has kind of the effects that are, the sum is greater than the parts. And I use the metaphor of the choir, right? When you're in a choir, and you're lots of people singing, and you need to catch your breath, or maybe you have a little frog in your throat or something, you can take a moment out and kind of settle your body again, get your voice back, knowing that the rest of the choir is carrying that song. Whereas if you feel like you're the only one singing, there's no space for that, right? And so you just keep singing, and you just sing through the suffering of it.”
― Sarah Jaquette Ray