Big problems, small solutions
If you Google “Bill,” the first hit you get is the phrase “Bill me later.” It’s an accidental tribute to the writer-turned-activist whom everyone calls by his first name: Bill McKibben ’82, who spoke at Harvard Tuesday. McKibben’s message for years has been that oil-based economies shelve the issue of the environmental costs of fossil fuels. When it comes to the natural systems that support humanity — clean air, fresh water, and pristine seas — the message from developing countries has been: Bill me later. Well, the bill is due, McKibben said, and it may be too late to pay. Seas are rising, temperatures climbing, storms intensifying, and floods and droughts worsening because of fossil fuel emissions, a statement with a 95 percent chance of certainty, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, up from 66 percent in 2001. “At the moment, physics is well ahead” of political action, McKibben told a...