Bill McKibben

Bill McKibben
BornWilliam Ernest McKibben
(1960-12-08) December 8, 1960 (age 63)
Palo Alto, California, U.S.
EducationHarvard University (BA)
Notable awardsGandhi Peace Award
Right Livelihood Award
SpouseSue Halpern
Children1
Website
Official website

William Ernest McKibben (born December 8, 1960)[1] is an American environmentalist, author, and journalist who has written extensively on the impact of global warming. He is the Schumann Distinguished Scholar at Middlebury College[2] and leader of the climate campaign group 350.org. He has authored a dozen books about the environment, including his first, The End of Nature (1989), about climate change, and Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out? (2019), about the state of the environmental challenges facing humanity and future prospects.[3]

In 2009, he led 350.org's organization of 5,200 simultaneous demonstrations in 181 countries. In 2010, McKibben and 350.org conceived the 10/10/10 Global Work Party, which convened more than 7,000 events in 188 countries,[4][5] as he had told a large gathering at Warren Wilson College shortly before the event. In December 2010, 350.org coordinated a planet-scale art project, with many of the 20 works visible from satellites.[6] In 2011 and 2012 he led the environmental campaign against the proposed Keystone XL pipeline project[7] and spent three days in jail in Washington, D.C. Two weeks later he was inducted into the literature section of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.[8]

He was awarded the Gandhi Peace Award in 2013.[9] Foreign Policy magazine named him to its inaugural list[10] of the 100 most important global thinkers in 2009 and MSN named him one of the dozen most influential men of 2009.[11] In 2010, the The Boston Globe called him "probably the nation's leading environmentalist"[12] and Time magazine book reviewer Bryan Walsh described him as "the world's best green journalist".[13] In 2014, he was awarded the Right Livelihood Award for "mobilizing growing popular support in the USA and around the world for strong action to counter the threat of global climate change."[14] He has been mentioned as a possible future Secretary of the Interior or Secretary of Energy should a progressive be elected President.[15]

  1. ^ "Bill Ernest McKibben." Environmental Encyclopedia. Edited by Deirdre S. Blanchfield. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, 2009. Retrieved via Biography in Context database, December 31, 2017.
  2. ^ "Author and environmentalist Bill McKibben appointed Schumann Distinguished Scholar at Middlebury College | Middlebury". Middlebury.edu. November 9, 2010. Archived from the original on June 14, 2011. Retrieved May 9, 2011.
  3. ^ McKibben, Bill (2019). Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out? Description & arrow/scrollable preview. Henry Holt and Co. Retrieved 2022-03-07.
  4. ^ Revkin, Andrew C. (October 10, 2010). "A Global Warming 'Work Party'". The New York Times. Retrieved May 9, 2011.
  5. ^ "Global Work Party: 10/10/10 day of climate action". The Guardian. theguardian.com. October 11, 2010. Retrieved December 31, 2017.
  6. ^ Revkin, Andrew C. (November 23, 2010). "Art on the Scale of the Climate Challenge". The New York Times. Archived from the original on April 12, 2011. Retrieved May 9, 2011.
  7. ^ Moran, Barbara (January 22, 2012). "The man who crushed the Keystone XL pipeline". The Boston Globe. Retrieved December 31, 2017.
  8. ^ Remsen, Remsen (August 23, 2011). "McKibben out of jail; encourages more protests". Burlington Free Press. Archived from the original on July 21, 2012. Retrieved February 22, 2012.
  9. ^ "Bill McKibben 2013 Gandhi Peace Award Laureate". Promoting Enduring Peace. pepeace.org. April 18, 2013. Archived from the original on September 27, 2013.
  10. ^ "The FP Top 100 Global Thinkers". Foreign Policy. December 2009. Archived from the original on December 3, 2009. Retrieved December 31, 2017.
  11. ^ "MSN Lifestyle's Most Influential Men of 2009". MSN. Archived from the original on December 16, 2009. Retrieved May 9, 2011.
  12. ^ Shivani, Anis (May 30, 2010). "Facing cold, hard truths about global warming". The Boston Globe. Retrieved May 9, 2011.
  13. ^ Walsh, Bryan (April 26, 2010). "The Skimmer". Time. Archived from the original on April 23, 2010. Retrieved May 9, 2011.
  14. ^ Cite error: The named reference rla was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  15. ^ Smith, Aidan (April 10, 2019). "What Would A Left Cabinet Look Like?". Current Affairs. Retrieved March 24, 2020.