Bill McKibben

Climate movement leader Bill McKibben has visited The Progressive Forum three times. The latest on September 15, 2019, at Congregation Emanu El in Houston, Texas, featured McKibben addressing the climate crisis from a worldwide standpoint as well as at the local level, including a Q&A with Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner on the city’s developing Climate Action Plan. On April 12, 2014, at the Wortham Center in Houston, McKibben discussed the climate crisis movement on the closing night of The Progressive Forum’s three-and-a-half-year hiatus. On April 21, 2014, at the Wortham Center, McKibben discussed his book, Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future.   

 

SHORT. Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner and Bill McKibben answer questions on the city’s developing Climate Action Plan. What should go into the plan, how will it measure results? The city doesn’t regulate much, what can you do with pure leadership? (25:10)

More Bill McKibben Videos

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Introduction of Bill McKibben and Mayor Sylvester Turner by Progressive Forum President Randall Morton. (2:13)

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Remarks by Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner on the city’s Climate Action Plan. (5:17)

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Bill McKibben’s presentation includes remarks by youth leaders Sarah Greenberg, hub coordinator of the SunRiseMovement Houston, and Bryan Parras, cofounder of TEJAS. Climate moment now may be our last chance. (45:33)

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Q&A with Bill McKibben. Democratic presidential candidates and national plan, smart money leaving oil and Houston diversification, climate anxiety, career advice for young people. (15:09)

climate-movement-leader-bill-mckibben

Background

Bill McKibben is widely acclaimed as the world’s most famous environmentalist and a principal founder of the climate movement. He’s an author and activist who wrote the first book for a general audience about climate change, The End of Nature (1989), which has been translated into 24 languages. He went on to write a dozen more books including his latest, Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out, which was published in May 2019. Two of his bestsellers include Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet (2010) about the rapid onset of climate change, which was excerpted in Scientific American, as well as Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future (2007) about the shortcomings of the growth economy and a transition to more local scale enterprise. In 2007, McKibben co-founded 350.org, which is named after the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide deemed safe by scientists (350 parts per million). It’s the first organization to launch a planet-wide, grassroots climate movement, which has organized 20,000 rallies around the world in every country except North Korea. His organization has also spearheaded resistance to the Keystone Pipeline and the fast-growing fossil fuel divestment movement. In 2012, leading the campaign against Keystone, McKibben spent three days jailed in Washington, D.C. Two weeks later, he was inducted into the literature section of the American Academy of Arts and Science. Foreign Policy magazine named him to its inaugural list of the world’s most important global thinkers. Time magazine called him “the world’s best green journalist.” The Boston Globe proclaimed he’s “probably the nation’s leading environmentalist.” After earning a degree from Harvard, he launched his writing career as a staff reporter for The New Yorker. He is the Schuman Distinguished Scholar in Environmental Studies at Middlebury College in Vermont and was the 2013 winner of the Gandhi Prize and the Thomas Merton Prize.

 

 

Thanks to videographer: Ruben Duran

For citing this website as a source: ProgressiveForumHouston.org

Thanks to Bill McKibben for permission to post the video contents of all the events on this page. We welcome visitors to share this exciting educational material.