We will either defend the rights of people and the earth, and for that we have to dismantle the rights that corporations have assigned to themselves, or corporations will in the next three decades destroy this planet, in terms of human possibilities.
Vandana ShivaItยs not that Monsanto is making money out of the blue. Itยs making money by coercing and literally forcing people to pay for what was free. Take water, for instance. Water has always been free. Weยve never paid for drinking water. The World Bank says the reason water has been misused is because it was never commercially priced. But the reason itยs been misused is because it was wasted by the big usersยindustry, which polluted it.
Vandana ShivaEvery farmer must go to the seed industry every year to buy their seed and pay an 80 percent royalty to a corporation. Over-the-fence exchanges have started to be treated as crimes. Or, if you need a biological pest control, you can no longer use the need seed in your back yard. Instead you have to depend on the Grace Corporation or some other entity. That kind of dependency basically leads to increased poverty and increased ecological destruction.
Vandana ShivaSeen from a monocultural perspective, manipulating objects is very, very clever. But seen from a multidimensional perspective, from a perspective of diversity, this is extremely crude because what we have lost out on is a cow that serves as a source of sustainable energy.
Vandana ShivaI started out in nuclear physics. But after I became more sensitized to the environmental and health implications of the nuclear system - I was being trained to be the first women in the fast-breeder reactor in India (and was in it when it first went critical) - I didn't feel comfortable with it. So I went into theoretical physics.
Vandana Shiva