Quotes on climate change

What are you doing to combat the adverse effects of climate change? Here are some famous quotes on climate change that help motivate people to act on this issue.

Leaders all over the globe, scientists, as well as a good number of the world’s population have realized the need to talk and act upon this issue.

Brilliant minds have come up with incredible quotes on climate change that may help people to understand the need for change.

List of best quotes about climate change and the environment

If we don’t take charge of our actions and continue destroying our environment, nature will surely hit back. That’s not a secret anymore.

We need to find sustainable ways to save nature. Here are some quotes about climate change written by various individuals from all corners of this beautiful planet.

Inspirational quotes about climate change

This section will include some of the most inspirational quotes on how to save the environment and combat climate change.

Albert Einstein quote on climate change

1. “Even if you never have the chance to see or touch the ocean, the ocean touches you with every breath you take, every drop of water you drink, every bite you consume. Everyone everywhere is inextricably connected to and utterly dependent upon the existence of the sea.”

– Sylvia Earle

2. “If you really think that the environment is less important than the economy, try holding your breath while you count your money.”

– Guy McPherson

3. “The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.”

– Albert Einstein

4. “One of the biggest obstacles to making a start on climate change is that it has become a cliché before it has even been understood.”
Tim Flannery

5. “Twenty-five years ago, people could be excused for not knowing much, or doing much, about climate change. Today we have no excuse.”

– Desmond Tutu

6. “Climate change is the environmental challenge of this generation, and it is imperative that we act before it’s too late.”

– John Delaney

Quotes on saving our planet

These quotes are directly related to how to save our planet.

Franklin Roosevelt quote on climate change

7. “Saving our planet, lifting people out of poverty, advancing economic growth… these are one and the same fight. We must connect the dots between climate change, water scarcity, energy shortages, global health, food security, and women’s empowerment. Solutions to one problem must be solutions for all.”

– Ban Ki-moon

8. “We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors. We borrow it from our children.”

– Native American Proverb

9. “We are the first generation to feel the sting of climate change, and we are the last generation that can do something about it.”

– Jay Inslee

10. “All things share the same breath – the beast, the tree, the man. The air shares its spirit with all the life it supports.”

– Chief Seattle

12. “Climate change is happening, humans are causing it, and I think this is perhaps the most serious environmental issue facing us.”
– Bill Nye

11. “We must face up to an inescapable reality: the challenges of sustainability simply overwhelm the adequacy of our responses. With some honorable exceptions, our responses are too few, too little, and too late.”

– Kofi A. Annan

13. “Climate change is sometimes misunderstood as being about changes in the weather. In reality, it is about changes in our very way of life.”

– Paul Polman

14. “A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people.”

– Franklin D. Roosevelt

15. “Climate change does not respect border; it does not respect who you are – rich and poor, small and big. Therefore, this is what we call ‘global challenges,’ which require global solidarity.”
Ban Ki-moon

16. “Wind and other clean, renewable energy will help end our reliance on fossil fuels and combat the severe threat that climate change poses to humans and wildlife alike.”

– Frances Beinecke

17. “If we pollute the air, water and soil that keep us alive and well, and destroy the biodiversity that allows natural systems to function, no amount of money will save us.”

– David Suzuki

18. “We can be thankful President Barack Obama is taking aim at one of the prime causes of climate change and extreme weather: air pollution. The EPA’s carbon pollution standards are the most significant step forward our country has ever taken to protect our health by addressing climate change.”

– Donna Brazile

Real but shocking quotes on climate change

Although many people don’t take climate change seriously, there is a significant portion of the population who know and realize its devastating effects.

Here are some famous quotes on climate change said by great minds and which may help us realize what our actions affect our existence.

Abhijit Naskar quotes on climate change

19. “The cost of our success is the exhaustion of natural resources, leading to energy crises, climate change, pollution, and the destruction of our habitat. If you exhaust natural resources, there will be nothing left for your children. If we continue in the same direction, humankind is headed for some frightful ordeals, if not extinction.”

– Christian de Duve

20. “Climate change, in some regions, has aggravated conflict over scarce land, and could well trigger large-scale migration in the decades ahead. And rising sea levels put at risk the very survival of all small island states. These and other implications for peace and security have implications for the United Nations itself.”

– Ban Ki-moon

21. “When all the world appears to be in a tumult, and nature itself is feeling the assault of climate change, the seasons retain their essential rhythm. Yes, fall gives us a premonition of winter, but then, winter will be forced to relent, once again, to the new beginnings of soft greens, longer light, and the sweet air of spring.”

– Madeleine M. Kunin

22. “If you don’t act against climate change, then no matter how much money you leave for your children, it’ll not even cover their healthcare bills, due to living in an unhealthy planet.”

– Abhijit Naskar

23. “I have long understood that climate change is not only an environmental issue – it is a humanitarian, economic, health, and justice issue as well.”
Frances Beinecke

24. “As human beings, we are vulnerable to confusing the unprecedented with the improbable. In our everyday experience, if something has never happened before, we are generally safe in assuming it is not going to happen in the future, but the exceptions can kill you, and climate change is one of those exceptions.”

– Al Gore

25. “Climate change is a global problem. The planet is warming because of the growing level of greenhouse gas emissions from human activity. If this trend continues, truly catastrophic consequences are likely to ensue from rising sea levels to reduced water availability, to more heat waves and fires.”

– Malcolm Turnbull

26. “There is no question that climate change is happening; the only arguable point is what part humans are playing in it.”

– David Attenborough

27. “The shift to a cleaner energy economy won’t happen overnight, and it will require tough choices along the way. But the debate is settled. Climate change is a fact.”
Barack Obama

28. “The world that you and I live in is increasingly challenged. Population growth, pollution, over-consumption, unsustainable patterns, social conflict, climate change, loss of nature… these are not good stories.”

– Jack Dangermond

29. “Climate change is destroying our path to sustainability. Ours is a world of looming challenges and increasingly limited resources. Sustainable development offers the best chance to adjust our course”.

– Ban Ki-moon

Horrifying but true climate change quotes

These are some climate change quotes that are truly eye-opening.

Leonardo DiCaprio quotes on climate change

30. “Anybody who doesn’t see the impact of climate change is really, and I would say, myopic. They don’t see the reality. It’s so evident that we are destroying Mother Earth. This is not the problem of one country or a few countries: it is the problem of mankind. We need to work together to stop this. Otherwise, our future generations will simply disappear.”

– Juan Manuel Santos

31. “The warnings about global warming have been extremely clear for a long time. We are facing a global climate crisis. It is deepening. We are entering a period of consequences.”

– Al Gore

32. “We are all living together on a single planet, which is threatened by our own actions. And if you don’t have some kind of global cooperation, nationalism is just not on the right level to tackle the problems, whether it’s climate change or whether it’s technological disruption.”

– Yuval Noah Harari

33. “The clear and present danger of climate change means we cannot burn our way to prosperity. We already rely too heavily on fossil fuels and we need to find a new, sustainable path to the future we want. We need a clean industrial revolution.”

– Ban Ki-moon

34. “Climate change, if unchecked, is an urgent threat to health, food supplies, biodiversity, and livelihoods across the globe.”
John F. Kerry

35. “Climate change is a result of the greatest market failure the world has seen We risk damages on a scale larger than the two world wars of the last century.”

– Sir Nicholas Stern

36. “By the time we see that climate change is really bad, your ability to fix it is extremely limited… The carbon gets up there, but the heating effect is delayed. And then the effect of that heat on the species and ecosystem is delayed. That means that even when you turn virtuous, things are actually going to get worse for quite a while.”

– Bill Gates

37. “I play fictitious characters often solving fictitious problems. I believe mankind has looked at climate change in the same way, as if it were fiction.”

– Leonardo DiCaprio

38. “We can’t take climate change and put it on the back burner. If we don’t address climate change, we won’t be around as humans.”
Conrad Anker

39. “We cannot compromise with the earth; we cannot compromise with the catastrophe of unchecked climate change, so we must compromise with one another.”

– Gordon Brown

40. “To put it in more shocking terms, it doesn’t matter if the skeptics are right or not, because the assumptions on which the debate is based are already enough to doom us to a dystopian future.”

– Charles Eisenstein

41. “The general population doesn’t know what’s happening, and it doesn’t even know that it doesn’t know.”

– Noam Chomsky

Short thought-provoking quotes on climate change

Lastly, here are some intriguing short quotes on climate change.

Pope Francis quotes on climate change pope francis

42. “The Earth is a fine place and worth fighting for.”

– Ernest Hemingway

43. “We are living on this planet as if we had another one to go to.”

– Terri Swearingen

44. “I’d be stunned, shocked, and amazed if there were a human being on the planet in 2030.”

– Guy R. McPherson

45. “The Earth should not be a worse place after my life than it was when I was born here.”
Rob Stewart

46. “God gave us the earth, to till and to keep in a balanced and respectful way.”

– Pope Francis

47. “Climate change is the most severe problem that we are facing today, more serious even than the threat of terrorism.”

– David King

48. “A planet being pushed to the edge will eventually turn on us.”

– Marco Lambertini

49. “The planet will continue to cook.”
Paul Krugman

50. “Climatism is the belief that man-made greenhouse gases are destroying Earth’s climate.”

– Steve Goreham

51. “The facts are there that we have created, man has, a self-inflicted wound that man has created through global warming.”

– Arnold Schwarzenegger

52. “We are running out of time, and we must have a planetary solution to a planetary crisis.”

– Al Gore

53. “The future will be green or not at all.”

– Jonathon Porritt

54. “There is no such thing as ‘away’. So, when we throw anything away, it must go somewhere.”

– Annie Leonard

See Related: Best Books on Renewable Energy

Conclusion on quotes on climate change

To sum up the list of quotes on climate change we can only say that, there is much that has been said about climate change, but less has been done.

Therefore, I believe there is still much to do, and these quotes on climate change will help us all take nature with the seriousness it deserves. Move to wind and solar energy for free?

Like these quotes? Check out our favorite quotes about sustainability.

What are you doing to help save our planet? Please let us know in the comments below. We’d love to hear from you.

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