Environmental activist and best-selling author Bill McKibben spoke highly of UC Davis and the Davis community in an April 13 talk: “This place has done more than almost anywhere else in the country to rise to the challenges we face.”

But McKibben, hosted by UC Davis' John Muir Institute of the Envionment and Capital Public Radio, did not come here to sugar-coat.

In his hourlong presentation to some 300 people in the UC Davis Conference Center, McKibben described how human activity has raised the planet’s temperature by 1 degree. That seemingly small number has “loaded the dice” for increased flooding, drought, poverty and disease, all of which we are seeing today, he said. He deliberately misspelled the title of his latest book, Eaarth, to reflect a planet nearly unrecognizable, so warped by climate change.

McKibben named record-breaking, extreme weather events in all parts of the globe — from droughts in Texas and Oklahoma, to deadly floods in Pakistan.

“We’re on a different planet than those old records were set on,” he said.

Particularly upsetting, he said, is that “the places getting hammered have done little to cause the problem.”

McKibben described an experience in Thailand, where he contracted the potentially fatal dengue fever, amid an outbreak fueled by an increase in the mosquito population, who love the wetter atmosphere enabled by a warming planet.

While in a health clinic in Thailand, he saidthought to himself, “This is unfair.” He recognized that the people most affected did not create the problem. They had few, if any, cars, and most people’s homes were not connected to the electrical grid. Their carbon footprint was negligible compared to richer countries, like the United States, which contributes about one-third of the carbon in the atmosphere, McKibben said.

“We can’t let it go on,” he said. “We have to stop it.”

He said he assumes that most people who care about the environment have reduced their carbon footprints, by making changes to their homes, modes of transportation and lifestyles. Now, he is intent on broader action.

He founded 350.org, which has coordinated 15,000 rallies since 2009. In 2011, he led a grass-roots movement against the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, which if approved, would have brought Canadian oil through the Midwest to U.S. refineries. He led thousands of protesters to the White House, getting himself and about 1,200 others arrested in the process, to pressure President Obama to reject the pipeline, which Obama did.

On that note, McKibben, a distinguished scholar at Middlebury College in Vermont, had a special message for college students, who may view themselves as being on the frontlines of the environmental movement.

College kids as cannon fodder

“We don’t think college kids should be the cannon fodder for this,” he said, noting the difficulty a young person may have in have in getting a job, when saddled by a record. He said older, established people have less to lose.

“Young people should take heart that some of your elders are stepping up to follow your leadership and do their part,” he said.

McKibben acknowledged that the Keystone victory may be temporary, and that stopping a pipeline will not stop climate change.

“The idea that this is an environmental problem like smog is wrong,” he said. “This we can’t solve without changing some of the fundamental parts of our system.”

That requires a political will that is often dissuaded by extremely powerful lobbyists in the fossil fuel industry. (Half-jokingly, he said politicians should have to wear their “sponsorships” like NASCAR drivers.)

McKibben said he is intent on developing a grass-roots power that will match the financial power of the fossil fuel industry.

“I can’t promise you anything,” he said. “I can tell you we’re evolving the ideas and skills that will at least make it a fight.”

Kat Kerlin is a senior public information officer with the UC Davis News Service.