Palm of Our Hands: Climate Apocalypse Quotes

Inspired by artist, Madjeen Isaac’s painting, “In the Palm of Our Hands,” (bottom) a list of quotes for a Public Climate Liturgy.

Because I am writing an essay right now on the modern “Climate Apocalypse,” (and because “biblical bodies” are prominently featured in every ancient Jewish and Christian apocalypse) – I decided to publish something I prepared. Over the past several weeks, I have collected (and curated) several pages of quotes by people talking about the threat of climate change. What follows is a long list of voices.

It is a long list because the climate apocalypse has, so far, both revealed and energized numerous lines of division among our voices, many of them battle lines. So, I decided to hold more of us together. My selection is imperfect. It skews American. The essay I am writing deals with religious, scientific, and some political themes, so those themes played a large role in my collection. I have been coming to terms with my past formation in evangelical Christianity as a way to help me grow — you cannot pretend that your past did not form you, even as I no longer identify as a Christian. In honor of my background and love affair with science, which is what “saved me” or rather “survived me” I am also dipping back trying to build a bridge over a seemingly impassable chasm between evangelical Christianity and science. All that is certainly part of what sensitized me to make this particular collection. Indeed, the sequence of my list is intentional — I wanted to craft an experience — to set these quotes into a temporal arrangement based on the vibes I sensed. It is basically a liturgy. I personally found it quite profound to sit back and listen to the poetics of each statement one after the other – I recommend reading it aloud. Can we hear more than ourselves talk …

…on climate change…

“Nature cannot wait any longer. The ecological question is the central issue of the survival of mankind.” — Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism. Franz Alt (2011). 

“Scientific evidence continues to show that human activities (primarily the human burning of fossil fuels) have warmed Earth’s surface and its ocean basins, which in turn have continued to impact Earth’s climate. This is based on over a century of scientific evidence forming the structural backbone of today's civilization.” – National Aeronautics and Space Administration website (NASA). “Scientific Consensus” (last updated, 2024).

“The problem is the speed at which things are changing. We are inducing a sixth mass extinction event, kind of by accident, and we don’t want to be the ‘extinctee.’” — Bill Nye, ‘The Science Guy.’ Big Think (2014). 

“The fact of the matter is that today’s world leaders have thus far failed miserably by putting selfish national interests ahead of urgent global needs…They have failed to see the big picture—that the world will sink or swim together.” Ban Ki-moon, Former Secretary-General of the United Nations. Harvard Kennedy School Graduation Speech (2023). 

“It’s a father and son story but it also serves as a cautionary tale that recognizes that our planet is in serious danger from climate change and that humanity is in serious danger because we’ve turned a blind eye to what doesn’t immediately affect us.” — Oprah, media producer and philanthropist. Post about her book club on X (2021).

“This sister now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her. We have come to see ourselves as her lords and masters, entitled to plunder her at will. The violence present in our hearts, wounded by sin, is also reflected in the symptoms of sickness evident in the soil, in the water, in the air and in all forms of life.” — Pope Francis, Leader of the Catholic church. Laudato Si': On Care for Our Common Home (2015). 

“I’ve starred in a lot of science fiction movies and, let me tell you something, climate change is not science fiction. This is a battle in the real world, it is impacting us right now.” — Arnold Schwarzenegger, Actor & Former Governor of California. Summit of Conscience for the Climate (2015). 

"Global warming is real. It is threatening. …So we have to do everything humanly possible to overcome this human challenge. …At 65, I am at an age at which I personally will no longer experience all the consequences of climate change that will occur if politicians do not act. …It will be our children and grandchildren who have to live with the consequences of what we do or refrain from doing today. That is why I use all my strength.” — Angela Merkel, German Chancellor. New Year’s message (2019).  

“Climate change is real, it is happening right now. It is the most urgent threat facing our entire species and we need to work collectively together and stop procrastinating.” — Leonardo DiCaprio, Actor. Oscar Acceptance speech (2016)

"I should have recognized the deficiencies sooner and intervened faster…The problem was not that I made the wrong decisions; it was that I took too long to decide." — George W. Bush, 43rd President of the United States. Writing about Hurricane Katrina in presidential memoir, Decision Points (2010). 

“Look! He is coming with the clouds.” — John the Elder, Ephesian displaced on the Island of Patmos. The Apocalypse of John (96 C.E.)

“Photographers know that a place is utterly transformed by its light, that everything earthly depends on the sky … If the earth is the record of what has happened, the sky is the realm of portents and prophecies, from the practical stuff of incoming weather to the apparitions of deities and omens.” — Rebecca Solnit, author. Storming the Gates of Paradise (U.C. Press, 2007).

“The Earth is in a death spiral.” — George Monbiot, Journalist. Reporting on press conference with Extinction Rebellion (2018).

“Connect the dots to your heart so you don’t see climate change as a separate bucket but rather as a hole in the bucket of every other thing that you already care about in your life.” — Katherine Hayhoe, chief scientist for the Nature Conservancy and evangelical Christian. NYTimes interview (2021). 

“The need to act now is urgent. Governments, businesses, churches, and individuals all have a role to play in addressing climate change -- starting now.” — 85 influential evangelical leaders including the president of World Vision, the national commander of The Salvation Army, the president of Wheaton College, the executive editor of Christianity Today, the Senior Pastor of Saddleback Church, and denominational leaders in Foursquare Gospel, the Christian Reformed Church, Vineyard. “Climate Change: An Evangelical Call to Action” (2006).

“I am pretty sure that only Earth has incubated a creature capable of knowing the cosmos. But I am equally sure that the existence of that creature is imperiled. We are unique, privileged beings and, for that reason, we should cherish every moment of our awareness. We should now be cherishing those moments even more because our supremacy as the prime understanders of the cosmos is rapidly coming to end.” — James Lovelock, scientist, inventor of the Gaia Hypothesis. Novacene (MIT Press, 2019).

“Or how many people, Krista, especially young people, are into burnout because they are so pained, and they go into freeze mode because they can’t act. They pull the covers over themselves because of the burnout, because of the fear and the pain and the grief and the loss that they cannot manage. And so they just go into burnout, and they freeze. Or the others — those who fight — they go out there and start blaming people for things that are sometimes justified and sometimes not. The question for me is, how do we get out of this flight, freeze, fight triangle that we have developed as a species for thousands of years? How do we manage our emotions better?” — Christiana Figueres, UN Climate leader responsible for the Paris Agreement, the most meaningful international accord on climate policy to date. On Being (2023).

“This beautiful, bounteous, life-giving planet we call Earth has given birth to each one of us, and each one of us carries the Earth within every cell of our body. … Once we can accept the impermanence of our civilization with peace, we will be liberated from our fear. Only then will we have the strength, awakening and love we need to bring us together. Cherishing our precious Earth–falling in love with the Earth–is not an obligation. It is a matter of personal and collective happiness and survival.” — Thich Nhat Hanh, Buddhist monk. Statement on climate change (2015)

“We are called to metanoia and a renewed and just relationship with Creation that expresses itself in our practical life. We are running out of time for this metanoia to take place.” — World Council of Churches, religious organization representing 580 million Christians from more than 120 countries. “The Living Planet” (2022). 

“We are running the most dangerous experiment in history right now, which is to see how much carbon dioxide the atmosphere can handle before there is an environmental catastrophe.” — Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla & SpaceX. Interview with USA Today (2013).

“What if the future is soft? — The future frolics about, promised to no one, as is her right — Been born from so many apocalypses, what’s one more? — [Love] grows each time the earth is set on fire. But for what it’s worth, I’d do this again. Gamble on humanity one hundred times over. Commit to life unto life, as the trees fall and take us with them. I’d follow love into extinction.” – Ayisha Siddiqa, American environmentalist. Excerpts, ”ON ANOTHER PANEL ABOUT CLIMATE, THEY ASK ME TO SELL THE FUTURE AND ALL I’VE GOT IS A LOVE POEM” (2021).

“You say nothing in life is black or white. But that is a lie. A very dangerous lie. … Adults keep saying we owe it to the young people to give them hope, but I don’t want your hope. I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. I want you to act. I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if the house is on fire because it is.” — Greta Thunberg, 17-year-old Swedish Activist. World Economic Forum (2019). 

“A future that would not be monstrous would not be a future; it would already be a predictable, calculable, and programmable tomorrow. — Jacques Derrida, French philosopher. "Passages” (1974) 

Madjeen Isaac, “In the Palm of Our Hands” (2020)

Madjeen Isaac’s website and the first paragraph of her bio: “Madjeen Isaac is a first generation Haitian-American artist whose practice is rooted in home, communality and belonging. Isaac reimagines and hybridizes landscapes to center boundless Black and Caribbean existences that depict joy, leisure, and liberation. Ultimately, she challenges ideas around liminal spaces and the constraints of reality. She is heavily influenced by her upbringing in Brooklyn, surrounded by Caribbean culture, and especially informed by her observations that both are strongly family- and community-centered. Isaac aims to develop work that serve as blueprints to guide, metamorphose, and upheave society. By reimagining and suggesting ideal worlds of access and autonomy, she inspires viewers to internalize and claim their right to a better reality.”