The Northwest and Vancouver could emerge as key tipping points in the global fight against climate change, nationally known environmental activist and author Bill McKibben told a capacity crowd at Clark College on Wednesday night.

As controversy swirls around plans for new fossil fuel terminals, the region has an opportunity, McKibben said to an audience of about 400 people in Gaiser Hall. Given the geography of the resources, the proposed facilities and the markets they’d connect to, stopping them in the Northwest would mean stopping them entirely, he said. Doing that would mark a victory in a much larger effort to reduce or reverse the catastrophic effects of climate change, he said.

“This area has emerged as this great choke point,” McKibben said. “If it doesn’t happen here … it doesn’t happen anywhere” — at least not on the same scale, he added.

Vancouver has become a focal point in its own right in the fight over fossil fuels and climate change. McKibben’s visit only raises the profile of the issue locally. On July 27, demonstrators plan to stage a protest by land and water on the Columbia River in a show against fossil fuels.

The debate has largely centered around plans to ship coal through the Northwest by train and barge on its way to energy-hungry markets in Asia. Three proposed terminals remain on the table, including a large facility in Longview. Much of the coal would pass through the Columbia River Gorge and Vancouver on its way to market.