The world depends on fungi, because they are major players in the cycling of materials and energy around the world.

Jehovah had nothing to say to Moses and the others about the care of the planet. He had plenty to say about tribal loyalty and conquest.

In the process of natural selection, then, any device that can insert a higher proportion of certain genes into subsequent generations will come to characterize the species.

The ideal scientist thinks like a poet and works like a bookkeeper

It's the technique, I think, of writing a novel that is difficult for a nonfiction writer.

Destroying rainforest for economic gain is like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal.

If you go from the USA - which, relative to the rest of the world, is in pretty good shape in terms of biodiversity and sustainability - to the tropics, everything gets worse. You have Indonesia, which is destroying its own forest. In West Africa there's no control whatsoever. It's a global situation. For that reason it ties in clearly with the needs and relationships of low-income countries.