FossilFreeUMC

Bill McKibben, world-renowned climate educator, organizer, and longtime United Methodist, calls on his denomination to “do the right thing” and divest from fossil fuels “while it still matters” as General Conference meets in Charlotte, North Carolina. Delegates will discuss and decide on this issue within the next few days.

See Bill’s bio below. Watch Bill’s address on youtube here:

Bill McKibben addresses General Conference of The United Methodist Church (8.38 minutes) “We can save 9 million people a year, one death in five.”

More Clips of Bill McKibben addressing United Methodists about divestment:

We’re running Genesis in reverse. We’re running a rapid course of de-creation.

Bill McKibben

Engagement vs. Fossil Fuel Divestment  (1 minute) Oil and gas companies “have made it abundantly clear that they will not come around.” Bill McKibben speaks to the ‘engagement or divestment’ debate to United Methodists as they consider divestment.

Moral Implications of Divesting from Fossil Fuels  (3½ minutes) “We’re in a lot of trouble… nothing that we would recognize as civilization has ever existed on the planet with temperature as hot as the one we are now producing, and the results of that are terrifying.” Bill McKibben speaks to the reality of the impacts of rising heat, floods, and other climate impacts, as well as the moral implications–those who did the least to bring about this crisis suffer the most. Learn more at fossilfreeUMC.net.

The Urgency of Climate Change (3:06 minutes) “We have to do this fast if it’s going to matter.” McKibben speaks to the urgency of addressing the climate crisis now, speaking to United Methodists considering divestment.

Our Responsibility for Stewardship (1:11 minutes) “We’re called upon to protect creation, that was the first thing we were asked to do! I mean, even us Sunday School teachers have read the bible through the first page, so we have a pretty good sense that that was the original ask, and, man! have we done it poorly!” Bill McKibben speaks about care of creation and stewardship in a conversation about divestment with United Methodists on the occasion of General Conference.

For more information see FossilFreeUMC.net and sign on to our Call to Divestment.

Bill McKibben is founder of Third Act, which organizes people over the age of 60 for action on climate and justice. His 1989 book The End of Nature is regarded as the first book for a general audience about climate change, and has appeared in 24 languages. He’s gone on to write 20 books, and his work appears regularly in periodicals from the New Yorker to Rolling Stone. He serves as the Schumann Distinguished Scholar in Environmental Studies at Middlebury College, as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he has won the Gandhi Peace Prize as well as honorary degrees from 20 colleges and universities. He was awarded the Right Livelihood Award, sometimes called the alternative Nobel, in the Swedish Parliament. Foreign Policy named him to its inaugural list of the world’s 100 most important global thinkers.

McKibben helped found 350.org, the first global grassroots climate campaign, which has organized protests on every continent, including Antarctica, for climate action. He played a leading role in launching the opposition to big oil pipeline projects like Keystone XL, and the fossil fuel divestment campaign, which has become the biggest anti-corporate campaign in history, with endowments worth more than $40 trillion stepping back from oil, gas and coal. He stepped down as board chair of 350 in 2015, and left the board and stepped down from his volunteer role as senior adviser in 2020, accepting emeritus status. He lives in the mountains above Lake Champlain with his wife, the writer Sue Halpern, where he spends as much time as possible outdoors. In 2014, biologists credited his career by naming a new species of woodland gnat—Megophthalmidia mckibbeni–in his honor.