top of page
.png){kind=small}
Quotes by Environmentalist
"I will say this, - though: If it is true that fusion will put unlimited amounts of energy into our hands, then I'm worried. Our record on this score is extremely poor."
22
"I consider myself to have been the bridge between the shotgun and the binoculars in bird watching. Before I came along, the primary way to observe birds was to shoot them and stuff them."
22
"We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect."
22
"Algebra is the metaphysics of arithmetic."
22
"The parental, and filial affections seem to be as ardent, their sensibility and attachment, as active and faithful, as those observed to be in human nature."
22
"The Universal Declaration of Human Rights describes the family as the natural and fundamental unit of society. It follows that any choice and decision with regard to the size of the family must irrevocably rest with the family itself, and cannot be made by anyone else."
22
"Some otherwise sane scientists have seriously proposed that we tuck this deadly garbage under the edges of drifting continents but how can they be sure the moving land masses will climb over the waste and not just push it forward?"
22
"It is sometimes easier to head an institute for the study of child guidance than it is to turn one brat into a decent human being."
21
"We've got to search back to our last known safe landmark. I can't say exactly where, but I think it's back there at the start of the Industrial Revolution, we began applying energy in vast amounts to tools with which we began tearing the environment apart."
21
"When a man wantonly destroys one of the works of man we call him a vandal. When he destroys one of the works of god we call him a sportsman."
21
"In an approximate way, the logic of commons has been understood for a long time, perhaps since the discovery of agriculture or the invention of private property in real estate."
21
"If we bestow but a very little attention to the economy of the animal creation, we shall find manifest examples of premeditation, perseverance, resolution, and consumate artifice, in order to effect their purpose."
21
"I believe that the average guy in the street will give up a great deal, if he really understands the cost of not giving it up. In fact, we may find that, while we're drastically cutting our energy consumption, we're actually raising our standard of living."
21
"Calculating how much carbon is absorbed by which forests and farms is a tricky task, especially when politicians do it."
21
"To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering."
21
"Once we open the door to the plutonium economy, we expose ourselves to absolutely terrible, horrifying risks from these people."
21
"Education can counteract the natural tendency to do the wrong thing, but the inexorable succession of generations requires that the basis for this knowledge be constantly refreshed."
21
"It's very hard for me to know what to say about fusion right now, inasmuch as it is not yet scientifically feasible. I just can't understand how so many people are able to predict so much about something that still isn't scientifically possible."
21
"Bring diversity back to agriculture. That's what made it work in the first place."
21
"It may be proper to observe, that I had now passed the utmost frontier of the white settlements on that border."
21
"We can no longer prosper by increasing human productivity. The more we try to do, the more poverty we will create."
21
"Even if you build the perfect reactor, you're still saddled with a people problem and an equipment problem."
20
"The poor monkey, quietly seated on the ground, seemed to be in sore trouble at this display of anger."
20
"In a finite world this means that the per capita share of the world's goods must steadily decrease."
20
"Their elegant shape, showy colours, and slow, sailing mode of flight, make them very attractive objects, and their numbers are so great that they form quite a feature in the physiognomy of the forest, compensating for the scarcity of flowers."
20
"Who knows but that England may revive in New South Wales when it has sunk in Europe."
20
"We are at the edge of an abyss and we're close to being irrevocably lost."
20
"Animal substance seems to be the first food of all birds, even the granivorous tribes."
20
"Always leave enough time in your life to do something that makes you happy, satisfied, even joyous. That has more of an effect on economic well-being than any other single factor."
20
"But it is no good using the tongs of reason to pull the Fundamentalists' chestnuts out of the fire of contradiction. Their real troubles lie elsewhere."
20
"Thus, the forces and value systems that are most threatened by this shift are becoming the most coherent and are rising to the top as minority or plurality powers. But they do not represent either the shift, the change, or the future."
19
"We are now heading down a centuries-long path toward increasing the productivity of our natural capital - the resource systems upon which we depend to live - instead of our human capital."
19
"Information from destructive activities going back a hundred years right up until today is being incorporated into the system. And as that happens the underlying framework of industrialism is collapsing and causing disintegration."
19
"My progress was rendered delightful by the sylvan elegance of the groves, chearful meadows, and high distant forests, which in grand order presented themselves to view."
19
"Why are ecologists and environmentalists so feared and hated? This is because in part what they have to say is new to the general public, and the new is always alarming."
19
"They took their meals together; and it was remarked on such occasions, when the friendship of animals is put to a hard test, that they never quarrelled or disputed the possession of a favourite fruit with each other."
19
"The city and province were given up to anarchy; the coloured people, elated with victory, proclaimed the slaughter of all whites, except the English, French, and American residents."
19
"A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise."
19
"Heredity is nothing but stored environment."
19
"Fundamentalists are panicked by the apparent disintegration of the family, the disappearance of certainty and the decay of morality. Fear leads them to ask, if we cannot trust the Bible, what can we trust?"
19
"Interestingly, the oil companies know very well that in less than 30 years they will not only be charging very high prices, but that they will be uncompetitive with renewables."
19
"It was with deep interest that my companion and myself, both now about to see and examine the beauties of a tropical country for the first time, gazed on the land where I, at least, eventually spent eleven of the best years of my life."
18
"Is the minor convenience of allowing the present generation the luxury of doubling its energy consumption every 10 years worth the major hazard of exposing the next 20,000 generations to this lethal waste?"
18
"People are naming it the Third Wave, the Information Age, etc. but I would say those are basically technological descriptions, and this next shift is not about technology - although obviously it will be influenced and in some cases expressed by technologies."
18
"If, as is natural, you focus on the corruption and on those threatened institutions that are trying to prevent change - even though they don't really know what they're trying to prevent - then you can get pessimistic."
18
bottom of page