 Bill McKibben |
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Bill McKibben knows more about environmentalism, genetic engineering and climate change than you and me. A lot more. In fact, as noted in an article about him by The Nation, he’s the go-to guy for keynote speeches, forewords, blurbs and anthologies. He has been writing about these topics since the ‘80s and has written a long list of well-respected books including The End of Nature, The Age of Missing Information, Maybe One, Enough and Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future.
In 2006, McKibben led the organization of one of the largest demonstrations to raise awareness about global warming in history, cementing his already admirable reputation as a leading American environmentalist. Al Gore has said that McKibben’s descriptions of the problem of climate change made a huge impression on him as a senator, helping to shape his revolutionary work in environmentalism.
You may have already seen McKibben’s writing at Grist, where he’s a frequent guest author and is also on the board of directors. He also contributes to The New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, Mother Jones, The National Geographic, Rolling Stone and Outside.
He’s been honored with both the Guggenheim and the Lyndhurst fellowships, won a Lannan Literary Award and has been given honorary degrees from a variety of colleges including Green Mountain College and the State University of New York. He’s currently a scholar in residence at Middlebury College in Vermont, where he also directs the Middlebury Fellowships in Environmental Journalism.
McKibben is also co-founder of 350.org, an international grassroots campaign to spread awareness of the need to keep CO2 levels in the atmosphere at 350 parts per million or lower. The idea sprang from a speech given by NASA climate scientist James Hansen, in which he said that levels above 350ppm were too high, at least “if humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted.”
McKibben also founded StepItUp07.org, an online organizing hub for a National Day of Climate Action, April 14th, 2007. On that day, people gathered for hundreds of rallies around the world to ask Congress to cut carbon by 80% by 2050. McKibben himself led a 5-day walk across Vermont to demand action on global warming, and Step it Up 07 has been described as the largest day of protest about climate change in the nation’s history.
Many people credit McKibben with bringing the concept of climate change to the masses, making it easy to understand in his book, ‘End of Nature’. That was obviously just the beginning, as McKibben makes it his life’s work to make sure people understand just how important of an issue climate change really is, and continues to inspire people to act every day, all around the world.
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