There are only four things in all cleaners - whether it's shampoo, laundry detergent, whatever.You buy them in bulk and you mix them up properly, and they all work. It doesn't matter if they call the stuff ecologically friendly or have dolphins diving around on the label - it still has these damn four things in it. Anything else is just unnecessary additions to make it smell good or color it blue when it goes down the toilet.

There is one, and only one solution, and we have almost no time to try it. We must turn all our resources to repairing the natural world, and train all our young people to help. They want to; we need to give them this last chance to create forests, soils, clean waters, clean energies, secure communities, stable regions, and to know how to do it from hands-on experience.

Why is it that we don't build human settlements that will feed themselves, and fuel themselves, and catch their own water, when any human settlement could do that easily? When it's a trivial thing to do?

I think we probably have a racial death wish. We don't understand anything about where we live, and we don't want to.

The worst thing about permaculture is that it's extremely successful, but it has no center, and no hierarchy.

The value of land must, in the future, be assessed on its yield of potable water. Those property-owners with a constant source of pure water already have an economically-valuable "product" from their land, and need look no further for a source of income.

You should never have gotten to the stage where you could see the last ancient forests! Just get out of there right now, because the lessons you need to learn are there. That's the last place you'll find those lessons readable.