“If
we have a hope of really understanding our place in nature and of carving out
a place for ourselves that is sustainable, it’s primarily because of the new level
of communication. It used to be, ‘What you don’t have in your mind, you have on
your shelf.’ But now we have the Web.”
~ Sylvia
Earle
| |
*
We are all together in this, we are all together in this single living ecosystem
called planet earth. As we learn how we fit into the greater scheme of things,
and begin to understand how the system works, we can plan ahead, we can use the
resources responsibly, to show some respect for this inheritance that goes back
4.6 billion years.
~ Sylvia
Earle *
We are all together in this, we are all together in this single living ecosystem
called planet earth.
~ Sylvia
Earle |
We
are in trouble now, unless we deliberately take actions to take care of the sea,
and make sure these systems continue to operate as they have for millions of years.
~ Sylvia Earle
"I'd put my
money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have
to wait 'til oil and coal run out before we tackle that."
~ Thomas Edison
(1847–1931)
 |
Those
of you who have been fighting, racism, sexism, religious
prejudice, gross economic inequality, and similar
horrors, have also, in effect, been working at the
same time to solve the environmental crisis endangered
by population explosion. And since environmental
issues and traditional security matters are interconnected,
those of you fighting for social justice have also
been working indirectly to solve the problem of
warfare."
-- Paul Ehrlich
|
Finally
not only economists and ecologists are talking together,
but people who are interested in peace are beginning to
understand that the environment is a big chunk of [international]
security, that population is a big chunk of security.
-- Paul Ehrlich
Each
person we add now disproportionately impacts on the environment
and life-support systems of the planet."
-- Paul Ehrlich
"Since
natural resources are finite, increased consumption must
inevitably lead to depletion and scarcity."
-- Paul Ehrlich
"If
you look at it historically, the rise of environmental
consciousness has been extremely rapid. We're only 40
years into it. The trouble is, the environment has been
going downhill far faster."
-- Paul Ehrlich
| |
A human being
is part of the whole, called by us "Universe," a part limited in time and space.
He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from
the rest - a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a
kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection
for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this
prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and
the whole [of] nature in its beauty.
~ Albert
Einstein |
"The
use of sea and air is common to all; neither can a title to the ocean belong to
any people or private persons, forasmuch as neither nature nor public use and
custom permit any possession therof."
~ Elizabeth I of England
| "To
speak truly, few adult persons can see nature. Most persons do not see the sun.
At least they have a very superficial seeing. The sun illuminates only the eye
of the man, but shines into the eye and heart of the child. The lover of nature
is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other;
who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood."
~ Ralph
Waldo Emerson |  |
"In
the presence of nature, a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real
sorrows."
~ Ralph
Waldo Emerson
"The
earth will continue to regenerate its life sources only as long as we and all
the peoples of the world do our part to conserve its natural resources. It is
a responsibility which every human being shares. Through voluntary action, each
of us can join in building a productive land in harmony with nature."
~ Gerald
Ford
| *
"When we protect the places where the processes of life can flourish, we strengthen
not only the future of medicine, agriculture and industry, but also the essential
conditions for peace and prosperity."
~ Harrison
Ford |  |
"Our
health relies entirely on the vitality of our fellow species on Earth."
~
Harrison Ford
Zoos are becoming facsimiles - or perhaps caricatures - of how animals once were
in their natural habitat. If the right policies toward nature were pursued, we
would need no zoos at all.
~ Michael Fox
| *
Pollution is nothing but the resources we are not harvesting. We allow them to
disperse because we've been ignorant of their value.
~ R.
Buckminster Fuller *
We are not going to be able to operate our Spaceship Earth successfully nor for
much longer unless we see it as a whole spaceship and our fate as common. It has
to be everybody or nobody.
~ R.
Buckminster Fuller |  |
Our connection to
nature grounds us, it makes us more spiritually aware. We must keep the legacy
of nature materially alive for future generations.
-- Nelly Furtado
| |
*
There's enough on this
planet for everyone's needs but not for everyone's greed.
~ Mohandas
Gandhi |
| "The
main lesson to be learned from the Love Canal crisis is that in order to protect
public health from chemical contamination, there needs to be a massive outcry--a
choir of voices--by the American people demanding change."
~ Lois
Gibbs |  |
"The
citizens of Love Canal provided an example of how a blue-collar community with
few resources can win against great odds (a multi-billion-dollar international
corporation and an unresponsive government), using the power of the people in
our democratic system."
~ Lois
Gibbs
"It
will take a massive effort to move society from corporate domination, in which
industry's rights to pollute and damage health and the environment supersede the
public's right to live, work, and play in safety. This is a political fight. The
science is already there, showing that people's health is at risk. To win, we
will need to keep building the movement, networking with one another, planning,
strategizing, and moving forward. Our children's futures, and those of their unborn
children, are at stake."
~ Lois
Gibbs
| 
|
*
If we talk about the environment, for example, we have to talk about environmental
racism - about the fact that kids in South Central Los Angeles have a third of
the lung capacity of kids in Santa Monica.
-- Danny
Glover |
| |
*
You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around
you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference
you want to make.
~ Jane
Goodall There
would be very little point in my exhausting myself and other conservationist themselves
in trying to protect animals and habitats if we weren’t at the same time raising
young people to be better stewards.
~ Jane
Goodall |
| |
*
"We need a new environmental
consciousness on a global basis. To do this, we need to educate people."
~ Mikhail Gorbachev
|
| *
"The key.. will be a new public awareness of how serious is the threat to the
global environment. Those who have a vested interest in the status quo will probably
continue to be able to stifle any meaningful change until enough citizens.. are
willing to speak out."
~ Al
Gore |  |
The
struggle to save the global environment is in one way much more difficult than
the struggle to vanquish Hitler, for this time the war is with ourselves. We are
the enemy, just as we have only ourselves as allies.
~ Al
Gore
"We
cannot win this battle to save species and environments without forging an emotional
bond between ourselves and nature as well - for we will not fight to save what
we do not love."
~ Stephen Jay Gould
 |
*
We are eternally linked
not just to each other but our environment.
-- Herbie
Hancock |
|
*
"People have to know that there are options available to us today. There is another
way, and it is practical and applicable now."
-- Daryl
Hannah *
It's really important to me to show the interconnectedness of things. I always
try to illustrate how environmentalism, humanitarianism, animal rights -- all
those things -- are one and the same.
-- Daryl
Hannah | 
|
"I never had come
up with a really profound and strong gesture -- nothing like Julia Butterfly's.
So I figured the best thing I could do was live by my beliefs. That's probably
the most profound thing that anybody can do."
-- Daryl
Hannah
Anything
you do sustainably feels so good that you're a full-on addict as soon as you try
it. If you eat only vegetables and fruits that you grow yourself from your garden,
or organic food, it tastes so much better and is so much better for you, you can't
really go back."
-- Daryl
Hannah
| *
"The future belongs to those who understand that doing more with less is
compassionate, prosperous, and enduring, and thus more intelligent, even competitive."
~ Paul Hawken *
If there is to be an ecologically sound society, it will have to come from the
grass roots up, not from the top down.
~ Paul
Hawken |  |
| |
*
"I feel more confident than ever that the power to save the planet rests with
the individual consumer."
~ Denis
Hayes |
*
"The sunshine that strikes American roads each year contains more energy than
all the fossil fuels used by the entire world."
~ Denis
Hayes
"An
acre of windy prairie could produce between $4,000 and 10,000 worth of electricity
per year – which is far more than the value of the land’s crop of corn or wheat."
~ Denis Hayes
"America has the technology
and resources to meet all its energy needs while safeguarding the earth's climate.
The urgent question now is, 'Do we have the will?' At least one city does, and
I'm proud to live in it."
~ Denis
Hayes
"Listen
up, you couch potatoes: each recycled beer can saves enough electricity to run
a television for three hours."
~ Denis
Hayes
| |
*
We can dream together a dream of a better world, an ever-renewing, organic-based
earth-community. I believe we can achieve a large part of it in our lifetime.
~ Randy Hayes *
Economic policy turns out to be the most important environmental policy.
~
Randy Hayes I
think our main foreign policy is economic policy but to think that economic policy
is not environmental policy is to sort of, miss the point. You know you can't
have economic development without impact on the biosphere.
~
Randy Hayes |
| *
"I wake up in the morning asking myself what can I do today, how can I help the
world today."
-- Julia
Butterfly Hill |  |
"Where
the quality of life goes down for the environment, the quality of life goes down
for humans."
~ George Holland
"The
ecological crisis is doing what no other crisis in history has ever done - challenging
us to a realization of a new humanity."
~ Jean Houston
 | *
"Modern man no longer regards Nature as in any sense divine and feels perfectly
free to behave toward her as an overweening conqueror and tyrant."
~ Aldous
Huxley |
| "While
the farmer holds the title to the land, actually, it belongs to all the people
because civilization itself rests upon the soil."
~ Thomas
Jefferson |  |
"The
American people have a right to air that they and their children can breathe without
fear."
~ Lyndon Johnson
If future generations are to remember us with gratitude rather than contempt,
we must leave them more than the miracles of technology. We must leave them a
glimpse of the world as it was in the beginning, not just after we got through
with it."
~ President Lyndon B. Johnson
"No
one has the right to use America's rivers and America's
Waterways, that belong to all the people. as a sewer.
The banks of a river may belong to one man or one industry
or one State, but the waters which flow between the banks
should belong to all the people."
~ Lyndon B. Johnson
|
|
A
family-friendly “eco-populism” can mobilize and
unite millions who, at this point, would be turned
off by a more extreme set of demands. The momentum
will build, through these early efforts, for more
comprehensive solutions.
-- Van Jones
|
