Bill McKibben Steps-down from 350.org Board

First of all, enormous thanks for being part of 350.org’s family over the years. We’ve all depended on you, and I think together we’ve done useful work.

As 2020 ends I will transition from active to emeritus status in my work at 350.org, both in my role as ‘senior advisor’ and as a member of the board. Please read my full letter about this transition.

Second of all, I’m still going to be doing what I can to help 350.org, and to back up the climate fight. I’ve known from the very start that one of my jobs was to train the next generations of climate fighters, because this is going to be a struggle that takes place over decades. I’m proud of the people running 350.org these days, and know that with the proper support they will make enormous progress. It’s especially clear in their decisive embrace of the idea that we need to think about a just world even as we think about a safe and working one; the fusion of these ideas will produce enormous changes.

I won’t tell you we’re winning this battle: it now looks like 2020 will turn out to be the hottest year in the earth’s history. But I will say that, with your great help, we’ve accomplished at least a little of what I set out to do. The fossil fuel industry is no longer the colossus it was a decade ago, capable of blocking change. Increasingly we have it on the defensive, which means there may finally be room to start making the changes we should have embarked on three decades ago. The young people now leading 350.org will help make those changes happen!

The main thing I’d like to say is: thanks. These have not always been easy years for me—though it’s nothing compared to the violence experienced by environmentalists elsewhere. At times, the counter-attack by the fossil fuel industry has felt almost unbearably fierce, especially since they also went after my family. I’m truly grateful for the support of my wife and my daughter. And I’m truly grateful for the friends that I have made these past decades in this fight—they are so many in number, and spread so widely across the earth, that I can’t begin to list them. But they know who they are, the companions in this fight who have done so much, against such great odds. I look forward to supporting them, and those who will emerge, in every way possible in the years ahead.

Onward,
Bill McKibben

P.S. Please read more about 350.org’s new board members here.