Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.- Martin Luther King Jr.
We need to admit we love ourselves and our standard of living. We need to admit we want to extend our economic system throughout the world. We need to admit we want to exploit the world's natural resources to meet the unceasing demand of our conspicuous consumption. We need to admit that we love our free and easy entertainments. That we love to laugh when our comedians, that we love to laugh when our comedians poke fun at and demean the beliefs that some others may still regard as sacred.We need to admit that we are proud of our civil liberties which, among many freedoms, permits a mother to kill a life growing within her own body. We need to admit that we wish those suffering want in the world to be well and ahppy while we feast on plenty and grow so fat our obesity is a national health crisis. We need to admit we don't want anyone second-guessing the levels of enivronmental pollution we believe are safe. We need to admit to the world that our own GNP and our level of empoloyment are what really mateers to us. We need to admit we want free trade so we can become richer and fatter and better off than any other peoples on the globe. We need to admit we will spend as many billion dollars as it takes to build a shield over our own paradise to isolate ourselves from the rest of the world's woes. We need to admit we'll obnly give others aid if and whie they button their lips against protesting our extravagance and greed.
We need to admit we love ourselves and our kids and the rest of the world can tough it in our wake.
- Tony Hearn (2001)
Someday after mastering the wind, the waves, the tides, and gravity, we shall harness the energies of love. And then, for the second time in the history of the world, we will have discovered fire.- Teilhard de Chardin
... regions, countries, and groups feeling left behind will face deepening economic stagnation, political instability, and cultural alienation. They will foster political, ethnic, ideological, and religious extremism, along with the violence that often accompanies it.- Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) report (January 2001)
Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never-haves, Then listen close to me: Anything can happen, child, anything can be.- Shel Silverstein, "Where The Sidewalk Ends"
The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live. Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.- Martin Luther King Jr.
The more you want, the less you'll like what you get.- Mike "Moby" Theobald, homeless cartoonist of "Down and Out in Berkeley" (1997)
When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.- John Muir, American conservationist (1894)
Rats and roaches live by competition under the laws of supply and demand; it is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy.- Wendell Barry, farmer, author, environmentalist (1990)
After all, what's the use of having developed a science well enough to make predictions, if in the end all we're willing to do is stand around and wait for them to come true.- Sherwood Rowland (1974)
The world, we are told, was made especially for man, a presumption not supported by all the facts. A numerous class of men are painfully astonished whenever they find anything, living or dead, in all God's universe, which they cannot eat or render in some way what they call useful to themselves.- John Muir (1916)
We often hear lamentations that the coal stored up in the earth is wasted by the present generation without any thought of the future, and we are terrified by the awful destruction of life and property which has followed the volcanic eruptions of our days. We may find a kind of consolation in the consideration that here, as in every other case, there is good mixed with the evil. By the influence of the increasing percentage of carbonic acid in the atmosphere, we may hope to enjoy ages with more equable and better climates, especially as regards the colder regions of the Earth, ages when the Earth will bring forth much more abundant crops than at present, for the benefit of rapidly propagating mankind.- Svante Arrhenius, Swedish chemist (1906)
Even on the eve of the end of the world, plant a tree.- The Koran
If I had to choose, I would rather have birds than airplanes.- Charles Lindbergh, legendary aviator (1974)
A few years ago, as I was turning out the light in an apartment in Manhattan, I saw a great orange flash of light in the sky in the direction of the East River. I sat straight up in bed. A pillar of fire lit the sky over Staten Island. Without even thinking, I waited to see if this pillar would be joined by another and another - if it was the first light of the nuclear holocaust.Within minutes radio announcers were explaining that the pillar of light came from an explosion in a chemical plant in New Jersey. It was a big explosion, but not the end of the world. Afterward, I was more disturbed by my first reaction than by the fire itself. Though the thought is seldom at the surface, it is seldom far below. We all live braced for the sight of that mushroom cloud.
So it is with the thought of environmental apocalypse, although here our anticipations are more confused. Here most of us do not know of any single threat to brace for; we do not fear a mushroom cloud, but rather a fusion of a thousand threats. With each headline about a planetary fever, poisoned seas, tainted air, radioactive soil, lost soil, spilled oil, the Ozone Hole over the South Pole, we sometimes wonder, "Is this it?"
- Jonathan Weiner, The Next One Hundred Years (1990)
In our view, the application of a modicum of intelligence and good management in dealing with current problems can enable economic growth to continue for a considerable period of time, to the benefit, rather than the detriment, of mankind. We argue that without such growth the disparities among nations so regretted today would probably never be overcome, that "no growth" would consign the poor to indefinite poverty and increase the present tensions between "haves" and "have nots." Nevertheless, we do not expect economic growth to continue indefinitely; instead, its recent exponential rate will probably slow gradually to a low or zero rate. Our differences with those who advocate limits to growth deal less with the likelihood of this change than with the reasons for it.- Herman Kahn, The Next 200 Years (1976)
We brought nothing into this world, nor have we the power to take anything out... Those who want to be rich are falling into temptation and a trap. They are letting themselves be captured by foolish and harmful desires which drag men down to ruin and destruction. The love of money is the root of all evil.- St. Paul (I Timothy 6:7-10)
Those with a vested interest in economic growth will probably build a strawman of the steady state revolution, portraying it as an emotionally driven attempt to enforce one set of morals on the rest of society. Such a portrayal will be a transparent attempt to buy time for economic growth and the attendant profits for some, and its transparency will increase as the economy congests and the environment degrades. In a concurrently increasing fashion, the steady state revolution will be seen by objective observers as a logical attempt to debunk a harmful myth that has been perpetuated by a cadre of professionals who serve (more or less wittingly) powerful economic interests.- Brian Czech, Shoveling Fuel for a Runaway Train (2000)
It would be naive to believe that entire populations will suddenly experience a moral awakening, renouncing greed, envy, and avarice. What can be hoped for is a gradual weakening of the consumerist ethos of affluent societies. The challenge before humanity is to bring environmental matters under cultural controls, and the goal of creating a sustainable culture - a culture of permanence - is a task that will occupy several generations. Just as smoking has lost its social cachet in the United States in the space of a decade, conspicuous consumption of all types may be susceptible to social pressure over a longer period. Ultimately, personal restraint will do little, though, if not wedded to bold political steps against the forces promoting consumption. In addition to the oft-repeated agenda of environmental and social reforms necessary to achieve sustainability, such as overhauling energy systems, stabilizing population, and ending poverty, action is needed to restrain the excesses of advertising, to curb the shopping culture, to abolish policies that push consumption, and to revitalize household and community economies as human-scale alternatives to the high-consumption life-style. Such changes promise to help both the environment, by reducing the burden of overconsumption, and our peace of mind, by taming the forces that keep us dissatisfied with our lot.- Alan Durning (1991)
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.- Dwight D. Eisenhower (1960)
It is far from easy to determine whether she [Nature] has proved to man a kind parent or a merciless stepmother.- Pliny the Elder
The enormity of ecological change in the twentieth century strongly suggests that history and ecology, at least in modern times, must take one another properly into account. Modern history written as if the life-support systems of the planet were stable, present only in the background of human affairs, is not only incomplete but is misleading. Ecology that neglects the complexity of social forces and dynamics of historical change is equally limited. Both history and ecology are, as fields of knowledge go, supremely integrative. They merely need to integrate with one another. If an when they do, we will have a better idea of our past, more complete, more compelling, more comprehensible, if perhaps more complicated. We will have a better idea of our present situation, and whether or not it qualifies as a predicament. With these, we will be better idea of our possible futures. And, with that, we will be better placed to debate and chose among them, and at the very least to avoid the most unpleasant ones. We might then consciously choose a world that would require only irksome adaptations on our part and avoid traumatic ones. We could make our own luck instead of merely trusting to luck.- J. R. McNeill, Something New Under the Sun (2000)
It happens then as it does to physicians in the treatment of consumption, which in the commencement is easy to cure and difficult to understand; but when it has neither been discovered in time nor treated upon a proper principle, it becomes easy to understand and difficult to cure. The same thing happens in state affairs; by foreseeing them at a distance, which is only done by men of talents, the evils which might arise from them, are soon cured, but when, from want of foresight, they are suffered to increase to such a height that they are perceptible to everyone, there is no longer any remedy.- Machiavelli, The Prince (1513)
The French allow you to smoke. If you try to smoke in L.A., you're accused of spoiling the smog.- Johnny Depp, on why he lives in France (2001)
To describe those who believe that the natural resources are available in practically limitless abundance, someone has coined the phrase "cornucopians," to contrast with "doomdayers." But please notice: The school of thought that I represent here is not cornucopian. I do not believe that nature is limitlessly bountiful. I believe instead that the possibilities in the world are sufficiently great so that with the present state of knowledge, and with the additional knowledge that the human imagination and human enterprise will develop in the future, we and our descendants can manipulate the elements in such fashion that we can have all the mineral raw materials that we need and desire at prices ever smaller relative to other prices and to our total incomes. In short, our cornucopia is the human mind and heart, and not a Santa Claus natural environment. So has it been in the past, and therefore so is it likely to be in the future.- Julian Simon (1981)
If one out of every three California homes turned off one light, we would have 500 megawatts more power - the equivalent of one power plant. If every household in the U.S. switched to ENERGY STAR light fixtures, we could save 70 billion kilowatt-hours and prevent 100 billion pounds of carbon dioxide per year - equal to removing 10 million cars from the road.- Robert Harris, Pacific Gas & Electric (2001)
The "trickle down" theory, the principle that the poor, who must subsist on table scraps dropped by the rich, can best be served by giving the rich bigger meals.- William Blum, Killing Hope (1994)
Growth is now the great god before whom all participants in the discussion of economic policy bow their knee. Merely to allege that a policy will promote growth is sufficient to make a case for it.- Herbert Stein, economic adviser to Richard Nixon (1988)
People used to talk about apartheid in Africa; today we could talk about apartheid throughout the world, where over four billion people are deprived of the most basic rights of all human beings: the right to life, to health, to education, to clean drinking water, to food, to housing, to employment, to hope for their future and the future of their children. At the present pace, we will soon be deprived even of the air we breathe, increasingly poisoned by the wasteful consumer societies that pollute the elements essential for life and destroy human habitat.... We are fighting for the most sacred rights of the poor countries; but we are also fighting for the salvation of a First World incapable of preserving the existence of the human species, of governing itself - overwhelmed by contradictions and self-serving interests - and much less of governing the world, whose leadership must be democratically shared. We are fighting - it could almost be demonstrated mathematically - to preserve life on our planet.- Fidel Castro (2000)
Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.- Japanese proverb
I have slowly become convinced ... that the ecological issue is not only of primary and lasting importance, but that it may indeed constitute the most dangerous and difficult challenge that humanity has ever faced.- Robert Heilbroner
Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.- Jesus Christ
Many people will think that the changes we have introduced in the model to avoid the growth-and-collapse behavior mode are not only impossible, but unpleasant, dangerous, even disastrous in themselves. Such policies as reducing the birth rate and diverting capital from production of material goods, by whatever means they might be implemented, seem unnatural and unimaginable, because they have not, in most people's experience, been tried, or even seriously suggested. Indeed there would be little point even in discussing such fundamental changes in the functioning of modern society if we felt that the present pattern of unrestricted growth were sustainable into the future. All the evidence available to us, however, suggests that of the three alternatives -- unrestricted growth, a self-imposed limitation to growth, or a nature-imposed limitation to growth-- only the last two are actually possible.- Club of Rome, Limits to Growth (1972)
It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look. To affect the quality of the day - that is the highest of arts.- Henry David Thoreau
Sustainable development, development without growth, does not imply the end of economics - if anything, economics becomes even more important. But it is a subtle and complex economics of maintenance, qualitative improvement, sharing, frugality, and adaptation to natural limits. It is an economics of better, not bigger.- Herman Daly (1996)
In my book, a "pioneer" is a man who turned all the grass upside down, strung barbed wire over the dust that was left, poisoned the water and cut down the trees, killed the Indian who owned the land and called it progress. If I had my way, the land would be like God made it, and none of you sons of bitches would be here at all.- Charles Russell, cowboy artist (1923)
The greater, more immediate problem is the survival of the entire world. If the world does not change, all its people will be threatened by the greed, exploitation, and violence of the power structure in the American empire. The handwriting is on the wall. The United States is jeopardizing its own existence and the existence of all humanity. If Americans knew the disasters that lay ahead, they would transform this society tomorrow for their own preservation.- Huey P. Newton (1970)
There was a time in my youth when reliable experts were believed. It was a time when most people and most institutions were presumed to be well-meaning and honest until and unless proved otherwise. It was also a time of unprecedented increase in our knowledge about the world, our belief in ourselves, and in our ability - through understanding and logic - to provide adequate solutions to technical problems. It was a time of optimism and progress.... Such progress continues, but it seems that hardly anyone enjoys it any more. Too many people have exchanged confidence for despair, too many have come to fear technology and to hate and reject anything nuclear or chemical-related. Despite all the evidence of our physical well-being beyond the dreams of all previous generations, we seem to have become a nation of easily frightened people - the healthiest hypochondriacs in the world!- Dixy Lee Ray (1988)
It is difficult to expect the disadvantaged masses of India to be motivated to reduce family size by appeals to the national good or world betterment. Many of the alleged advantages to individual families are probably more apparent in theory than in practice unless other conditions are changed, and at any rate the masses in the high fertility areas will have to be shown, not told, that such advantages exist - they have been exploited too long and too consistently by those in more privileged positions to take on faith any advice from these sectors. Not only do the poor have more immediate problems to deal with, they have the least to gain from promoting the so-called collective good and preserving the present inequitable distribution of social advantage. The fact that family planning programs are at present advocated by those who most benefit from that inequality does nothing to inspire their confidence.- Karen L. Michaelson (1975)
Anything you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.- Goethe
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