What we need is an electronic encyclopedia of life, with one page for each species. On each page is given everything known about that species.

The green prehuman earth is the mystery we were chosen to solve, a guide to the birthplace of our spirit, but it is slipping away. The way back seems harder every year. If there is danger in the human trajectory, it is not so much in the survival of our own species as in the fulfillment of the ultimate irony of organic evolution: that in the instant of achieving self-understanding, through the mind of man, life has doomed its most beautiful creations. And thus humanity closes the door on its past.

Thirty trillion dollars worth of services, scot-free to humanity, every year.

In some ways, I had a traditional 'old South' upbringing, meaning that I spent some time in a military school, and acquired an inoculum of the military ethic that is still with me today: honor, duty, loyalty.

The global conservation organisations are doing everything they can on modest budgets. They essentially promote setting aside reserves and parks around the world.

I like what Abba Eban once said during the 1967 war. He said, "When all else fails, men turn to reason."

I see no way out of the problems that organized religion and tribalism create other than humans just becoming more honest and fully aware of themselves.