Thread by @usacsmret

"The common enemy of humanity is man.
In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up
with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming,
water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these
dangers are caused by human intervention, ....

....and it is only through
changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome.
The real enemy then, is humanity itself."
- Club of Rome,
premier environmental think-tank,
consultants to the United Nations

"We need to get some broad based support,
to capture the public's imagination...
So we have to offer up scary scenarios,
make simplified, dramatic statements
and make little mention of any doubts....

...Each of us has to decide what the right balance
is between being effective and being honest."
- Prof. Stephen Schneider,
Stanford Professor of Climatology,
lead author of many IPCC reports

"We've got to ride this global warming issue.
Even if the theory of global warming is wrong,
we will be doing the right thing in terms of
economic and environmental policy."
- Timothy Wirth,
President of the UN Foundation

"No matter if the science of global warming is all phony...
climate change provides the greatest opportunity to
bring about justice and equality in the world."
- Christine Stewart,
former Canadian Minister of the Environment

“The data doesn't matter. We're not basing our recommendations
on the data. We're basing them on the climate models.”
- Prof. Chris Folland,
Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research

“The models are convenient fictions
that provide something very useful.”
- Dr David Frame,
climate modeler, Oxford University

"I believe it is appropriate to have an 'over-representation' of the facts
on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience."
- Al Gore,
Climate Change activist

"It doesn't matter what is true,
it only matters what people believe is true."
- Paul Watson,
co-founder of Greenpeace

"The only way to get our society to truly change is to
frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe."
- emeritus professor Daniel Botkin

"The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and
spiritual challenge to all of humanity. It is also our greatest
opportunity to lift Global Consciousness to a higher level."
- Al Gore,
Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech

"We are on the verge of a global transformation.
All we need is the right major crisis..."
- David Rockefeller,
Club of Rome executive member

"Humanity is sitting on a time bomb. If the vast majority of the world's scientists are right, we have just ten years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet's climate system into a tail-spin of epic destruction....

....involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heat waves beyond anything we have ever experienced - a catastrophe of our own making."
- Al Gore,
An Inconvenient Truth

"We are getting close to catastrophic tipping points,
despite the fact that most people barely notice the warming yet."
- Dr James Hansen,
NASA researcher

"By the end of this century climate change will reduce the human population to a few breeding pairs surviving near the Arctic."
- Sir James Lovelock,
Revenge of Gaia

"Climate Change will result in a catastrophic global sea level
rise of seven meters. That's bye-bye most of Bangladesh,
Netherlands, Florida and would make London the new Atlantis."
- Greenpeace International

"This planet is on course for a catastrophe.
The existence of Life itself is at stake."
- Dr Tim Flannery,
Principal Research Scientist

"Coal makes us sick. Oil makes us sick. It's global warming.
It's ruining our country. It's ruining our world."
- Harry Reid,
U.S. Senate majority leader

"Climate Change is the greatest threat that
human civilization has ever faced."
- Angela Merkel,
German Chancellor

"Climate change is real. Not only is it real, it's here,
and its effects are giving rise to a frighteningly new
global phenomenon: the man-made natural disaster."
- Barack Obama,
US President

"We simply must do everything we can in our power to
slow down global warming before it is too late."
- Arnold Schwarzenegger,
Governor of California

"Climate change should be seen as the
greatest challenge to ever face mankind."
- Prince Charles

"Climate change makes us all global citizens,
we are truly all in this together."
- Gordon Brown,
British Prime Minister

"We have reached the critical moment of decision on climate change.
Failure to act to now would be deeply and unforgivably irresponsible.
We urgently require a global environmental revolution."
- Tony Blair,
former British PM

"We are close to a time when all of humankind
will envision a global agenda that encompasses
a kind of Global Marshall Plan to address the
causes of poverty and suffering and
environmental destruction all over the earth."
- Al Gore,
Earth in the Balance

"In Nature organic growth proceeds according
to a Master Plan, a Blueprint. Such a ‘master plan’ is
missing from the process of growth and development of
the world system. Now is the time to draw up a master plan for sustainable growth and world development....

...based on global allocation of all resources and a new global economic system. Ten or twenty years form today it will probably be too late."
- Club of Rome,
Mankind at the Turning Point

"We need a new paradigm of development in
which the environment will be a priority.
World civilization as we know it will soon end.
We have very little time and we must act.
If we can address the environmental problem,....

...it will have to be done within a new system, a
new paradigm. We have to change our mindset,
the way humankind views the world."
- Mikhail Gorbachev,
founder of Green Cross International

"The concept of national sovereignty has been immutable,
indeed a sacred principle of international relations.
It is a principle which will yield only slowly and reluctantly to
the new imperatives of global environmental cooperation."
- UN Commission on Global Governance report

"Democracy is not a panacea. It cannot organize everything and it is unaware of its own limits. These facts must be faced squarely. Sacrilegious though this may sound, democracy is no longer well suited for the tasks ahead. ....

....The complexity and the technical nature of many of today’s problems do not always allow elected representatives to make competent decisions at the right time."
- Club of Rome,
The First Global Revolution

"The emerging 'environmentalization' of our civilization
and the need for vigorous action in the interest of the entire global community will inevitably have multiple political consequences. ....

....Perhaps the most important of them will be a gradual change in the status of the United Nations. inevitably, it must assume some aspects of a world government."
- Mikhail Gorbachev,
State of the World Forum

"I envisage the prinicles of the Earth Charter to
be a new form of the ten commandments.
They lay the foundation for a sustainable
global earth community."
- Mikhail Gorbachev,
co-author of The Earth Charter

"In my view, after fifty years of service in the United Nations system, I perceive the utmost urgency and absolute necessity for proper Earth government. ....

....There is no shadow of a doubt that the present political and economic systems are no longer appropriate
and will lead to the end of life evolution on this planet.
We must therefore absolutely and urgently look for new ways."
- Dr Robert Muller,
UN Assistant Secretary General

"Nations are in effect ceding portions of their sovereignty
to the international community and beginning to create a
new system of international environmental governance
as a means of solving otherwise unmanageable crises."
- Lester Brown,
WorldWatch Institute

"Regionalism must precede globalism.
We foresee a seamless system of governance from
local communities, individual states, regional unions
and up through to the United Nations itself."
- UN Commission on Global Governance

"A keen and anxious awareness is evolving to suggest that
fundamental changes will have to take place in the world order and its power structures, in the distribution of wealth and income....

....Perhaps only a new and enlightened humanism
can permit mankind to negotiate this transition."
- Club of Rome,
Mankind at the Turning Point

"The alternative to the existing world order can only
emerge as a result of a new human dimension of progress.
We envision a revolution of the mind, a new way of thinking."
- Mikhail Gorbachev,
State of the World Forum

"We require a central organizing principle - one agreed to voluntarily. Minor shifts in policy, moderate improvement in laws and regulations, rhetoric offered in lieu of genuine change - ....

....these are all forms of appeasement, designed to satisfy the public’s desire to believe that sacrifice, struggle and a wrenching transformation of society will not be necessary."
- Al Gore,
Earth in the Balance

"Adopting a central organizing principle...
means embarking on an all-out effort to use every
policy and program, every law and institution...
to halt the destruction of the environment."
- Al Gore,
Earth in the Balance