Bill McKibben

Bill McKibben is an American environmentalist and writer who co-founded 350.org. In 2013, he was awarded the Sophie Prize for his mobilizing efforts in the fight against global warming.

Biography
McKibben "frequently writes about global warming, alternative energy, and the risks associated with human genetic engineering. Beginning in the summer of 2006, he led the organization of the largest demonstrations against global warming in American history. McKibben is active in the Methodist Church, and his writing sometimes has a spiritual bent.

"Bill grew up in suburban Lexington, Massachusetts. He was president of the Harvard Crimson newspaper in college. Immediately after college he joined the New Yorker magazine as a staff writer, and wrote much of the "Talk of the Town" column from 1982 to early 1987. He quit the magazine when its longtime editor William Shawn was forced out of his job, and soon moved to the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York.

"His first book, The End of Nature, was published in 1989 by Random House after being serialized in the New Yorker. It is regarded as the first book for a general audience about climate change, and has been printed in more than 20 languages. Several editions have come out in the United States, including an updated version published in 2006...

"His most recent book, Deep Economy: the Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future, was published in March 2007. It addresses what the author sees as shortcomings of the growth economy and envisions a transition to more local-scale enterprise...

"Bill is a frequent contributor to various magazines including The New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, Orion Magazine, Mother Jones, The New York Review of Books, Granta, Rolling Stone, and Outside. He is also a board member and contributor to Grist Magazine.

"Bill has been awarded Guggenheim and Lyndhurst Fellowships, and won the Lannan Prize for nonfiction writing in 2000. He has honorary degrees from Green Mountain College, Unity College, Lebanon Valley College and Sterling College.

"Bill currently resides with his wife, writer Sue Halpern, and his daughter, Sophie, who was born in 1993, in Ripton, Vermont. He is a scholar in residence at Middlebury College."

Affiliations

 * Founder, 350.org
 * Trustee, Schumann Center for Media and Democracy
 * Director, 1Sky
 * Advisory Board, Center for a New American Dream
 * Advisory Board, Mesa Refuge
 * Advisory Board, New Economics Institute
 * Advisory Board, Orion Magazine
 * Former Teacher, Center for Whole Communities
 * Member, Alliance for Wild Ethics
 * Advisory Board, SumOfUs
 * Editorial Board, Solutions Journal
 * Faculty, Sophia Institute
 * Global Advisory Committee, Earth Day Network

Articles

 * November/December 2012, Bill McKibben, Orion, "Which Side Are You On?"
 * August 16, 2012, Bill McKibben, Rolling Stone, "The Arctic Ice Crisis"
 * July 19, 2012, Bill McKibben, Rolling Stone, "Global Warming's Terrifying New Math"
 * September 28, 2011, Bill McKibben, Rolling Stone, "The Keystone Pipeline Revolt: Why Mass Arrests are Just the Beginning"
 * August 18, 2010, Bill McKibben, The Guardian, "Why has extreme weather failed to heat up the climate debate?"
 * August 4, 2010, Bill McKibben, TomDispatch.com, "We're hot as hell and we're not going to take it any more."
 * August 4, 2010, Bill McKibben, LA Times, "It's time to talk, and act, tough."
 * February 24, 2010, Bill McKibben, LA Times, "The O.J. tactic."
 * October 19, 2009, Bill McKibben and Chip Giller, Grist, "Day of Climate Action Shows Power of Web Organizing"
 * September 9, 2009, Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr. & Bill McKibben, The Nation, “People, Let's Get Our Carbon Down”
 * November 6, 2008, Bill McKibben, The Guardian, "Welcome to Reality, Mr. President Elect"
 * June 23, 2008 Bill McKibben, Washington Post "End of the Open Road"
 * May 11, 2008, Bill McKibben, LA Times, "Civilization's Last Chance"

Campaigns
MicKibben is the United States' top environmentalist and one of the world's leading campaigners on the climate change crisis.

Resistance to the Construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline
McKibben has been an active voice against the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline. As he stated in an interview with CMD, "The pipeline runs through sensitive territory and requires people to give up farms and ranches. The good people in Texas right now are fighting hard to block construction of the southern leg that would run through their homes and farms." McKibben also warns of the dangers from burning the tar sands in Canada, which is the second largest pool of carbon on earth. According the James Hansen of NASA, it would lead to extraordinary levels of carbon dioxide resulting in disintegration of the ice sheets, rising sea levels, intolerable global temperatures, and the extinction of twenty to 50 percent of the planet's species.

Against Hydraulic Fracturing
McKibben has also spoken out against hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking." In an interview with CMD, McKibben explained that this issue was an environmental priority.
 * "Fracking is really important because it's this discovery of a new wave of carbon-based energy forms at a time when we already have far more than scientists say we can safely burn. Knowing that, it makes no sense to go out and rip apart the countryside looking for more. Natural gas is a great danger because of the methane leaks in the course of producing it. That methane is 23 times more greenhouse gas intensive, molecule per molecule, than even the carbon dioxide that we worry about so much. Burning this cheap natural gas seems to displace lots of renewable energy, even more than it replaces coal. The net effect seems to be, if anything, it makes climate change worse off than it was before."

Fossil Fuel Divestment Campaign
Through his work with 350.org, McKibben campaigns to convince universities and municipalities to "divest" from fossil fuels. McKibben asks "ethical investors to freeze new investments in fossil fuel companies and divest from direct ownership or commingled funds, which include public equities and corporate bonds." The top 500 colleges and universities alone hold endowments worth an estimated $400 billion.

Criticism

 * Scott McLarty, "McKibben's Political Blind Spit: The Tar Sands Pipeline and Independent Eco-Politics", Counterpunch, April 18, 2013.
 * Jeffrey St. Clair, The Post-Modern Protest Blues, Designer Protests and Vanity Arrests in DC, CounterPunch, April 12, 2013.
 * John Stauber, The Progressive Movement is a PR Front for Rich Democrats, March 15, 2013, CounterPunch.
 * Mickey Z, "Interview With Bill McKibben And Gregory Vickrey", Countercurrents, 27 February, 2011.

Related Sourcewatch articles

 * 99% Spring