Top 50 Fossil Fuels Quotes

Our insatiable appetite for fossil fuels and the corporate mandate to maximize shareholder value encourages drilling without taking into account the costs to the ocean, even without major spills.

There is nothing efficient about destroying the planet as we know it because vested interests want to keep us addicted to fossil fuels.

Fossil fuels are – they’re inherently centralized. And you need a lot of infrastructure to get them out, and you need a lot of infrastructure to transport it, as Obama was explaining in front of all that pipe, right? Whereas renewable energy is everywhere.

The scientists who do climate research understand that much of the ever increasing concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere since 1850 must be attributed to burning those fossil fuels to produce the energy that drives industrialization.

Coal is responsible for as much atmospheric carbon dioxide as other fossil fuels combined and it still has far greater reserves. We must stop using it.

Fossil fuels powered the U.S. into the industrial age and replaced windmills and wood burning, which were inefficient, as the primary sources of electricity.

For people who currently have to burn fossil fuels to produce meager, polluting light, LED lighting is a game changer.

Enzymes – plainly the most important biotechnology of our era – already permeate many industrial processes. Unlike fossil fuels, they carry chemical programming which drives complex reactions, are renewable, and work at ordinary pressures and temperatures.

The idea that human beings have changed and are changing the basic climate system of the Earth through their industrial activities and burning of fossil fuels – the essence of the Greens’ theory of global warming – has about as much basis in science as Marxism and Freudianism.

Ending our reliance on fossil fuels was never going to be easy.

Fossil fuels will run out not because of limited resources but because of the environmental impact. If I can solve that impact, I have basically increased the resource base by a vast amount.

The atmospheric CO2 concentration is rising – mainly due to the burning of fossil fuels. It’s agreed that this build-up will, in itself, induce a long-term warming trend, superimposed on all the other complicated effects that make climate fluctuate.

A majority of American citizens are now becoming skeptical of the claim that our carbon footprints, resulting from our use of fossil fuels, are going to lead to climatic calamities. But governments are not yet listening to the citizens.

Yet, despite our many advances, our environment is still threatened by a range of problems, including global climate change, energy dependence on unsustainable fossil fuels, and loss of biodiversity.

It is very possible to have lives that are just as prosperous, and nicer, that use 5 percent of the fossil fuels and virgin materials we do now. But if we’re living anything like the average McMansion-ite, SUV-driving suburbanites, there’s simply no way that can be powered in a climate-friendly way.

I have heard somewhere an argument that if the Industrial Revolution – economic development – had started in Africa rather than Europe, then sun and wave technology would now be at the forefront, not the old fossil fuels.

Making a paper straw requires growing a tree, cutting it down, and pulping and pressing it into a tube. Manufacturers then use fossil fuels to ship the straws to stores and cafes. Many paper straws on the market are not even compostable or recyclable, as promised.

Our wisest long-term investment is not in the dirty polluting fossil fuels from the past, but in the clean energy of the future.

Since 1850, burning of fossil fuels, coal, oil and natural gas has increased 100 times to produce energy as the world has industrialized to serve the world’s more than 6 billion and growing population.

We must get rid of fossil fuels by developing injection systems for automobiles, which can run on bio-fuel.

It’s as certain that as long as fossil fuels are the cheapest energy, we will just keep burning them.

One of the things that we have to realize is we cannot get off gas, we cannot get off oil, fossil fuels tomorrow – it’s going to take a few decades. Maybe we can shorten it, but there’s going to have to be a transition time.

If you had no new technology, and you powered society as we do today – mostly by fossil fuels – you’d have only two choices: Doom yourself to horrific climate change by burning all that carbon and releasing all that CO2. Or power down society, reducing total energy usage around the planet.

Behind every morsel of bread, fruits, or meat is a large amount of transformed fossil fuels.

We need to stop being so profligate with fossil fuels, to rein back climate change and protect biodiversity. We need to work together, globally, and I’m optimistic that we will.

Japan is a model already to the lie that economic growth is the key to our future. If they can really show an alternative to nukes and fossil fuels, then they will be the poster boy for the renewable energy for the future.

The biggest tab the public picks up for fossil fuels has to do with what economists call ‘external costs,’ like the health effects of air and water pollution.

As Governor of Colorado, I will continue to transition our state away from fossil fuels to more clean, renewable sources of energy.

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.

As investments and as an energy source, fossil fuels have nowhere to go but down.

For as long as we’re using fossil fuels at all, globally, Canadians should be using Canadian sources.

We must move away from our dependency on fossil fuels, and I am glad that GM has invested over $1 billion in hydrogen fuel cells cars to meet this goal.

The burden of high energy costs is felt disproportionately by low-income and Black and brown families. Every person has the right to these basic services and by making them public goods, we can unburden families and reduce our country’s dependence on fossil fuels.

Both the United States and the world economy have already reached – and surpassed – their sustainable physical limits. Ground water is being drawn down, soils eroded, forests cut faster than they grow, fish caught faster than they reproduce, non-renewable fossil fuels burnt without developing substitutes.

The source of all the energy is the sun. The big challenge is, how do you use all of that energy? Solar power has to fascinate you. There have been strides to get the costs down, and if this will work, you have to get costs down so it is competitive with fossil fuels.

I actually argue that renewables are worse than fossil fuels. It’s a physical manifestation of lower power densities. More land, more materials, more mining, more metals, more waste.

I think so long as fossil fuels are cheap, people will use them and it will postpone a movement towards new technologies.

Because fossil fuels are not only a finite resource but hazardous to the environment, it is imperative that we diversify the resources used in generating electricity.

The process to generate energy using the Canadian tar sands is particularly dirty, producing one of the most noxious fossil fuels on the planet and leaving a devastated landscape in its wake.

We import a lot of oil, particularly to eastern Canada, from Saudi Arabia, Kazakhstan, Venezuela, a lot from the U.S. So if we’re looking at how do we phase out fossil fuels in the period in which we’re phasing them out, let’s only use Canadian.

It seems to me like Mother Nature’s mercy and forgiveness have run dry, as we ceaselessly abuse her and take her for granted in order for us to continue our addiction to using fossil fuels. I’ve gotta say, I don’t blame her. Not one bit.

The high prices also highlight the fact that the U.S. is too heavily dependent on fossil fuels that we import from unstable parts of the world. To protect our national security, we must become more energy secure.

Despite all the progress climate scientists have made in understanding the risks we run by loading the atmosphere with CO2, the world is still as addicted to fossil fuels as ever.

As long as we’re dependent on those fossil fuels, we’re dependent on the Middle East. If we are not victims, we’re certainly captives.

There has always been enough fossil fuels to power human civilization for hundreds and perhaps thousands of years, and nuclear energy is effectively infinite.

World leaders need to realize that the cost of transforming the global energy system is far less than coping with the consequences of burning the planet’s remaining fossil fuels.

Fire made us human, fossil fuels made us modern, but now we need a new fire that makes us safe, secure, healthy and durable.

Practically every environmental problem we have can be traced to our addiction to fossil fuels, primarily oil.

Fossil fuels, including oil, are running out and supplies are getting harder to find. If we do nothing, prices will continue to rise and our reliance on oil will come to an abrupt and tumultuous end, causing global economic and social turmoil.