The one process now going on that will take millions of years to correct is the loss of genetic and species diversity by the destruction of natural habitats. This is the folly our descendants are least likely to forgive us.

If history and science have taught us anything, it is that passion and desire are not the same as truth.

The two major challenges for the 21st century are to improve the economic situation of the majority and save as much of the planet as we can.

Common sense is merely unaided intuition, and unaided intuition is reasoning performed in the absense of instruments and the tested knowledge of science. Common sense tells us that massive satellites cannot hang suspended 36,000 kilometers above the one point on the earth's surface, but they do.

[Bacteria are the] dark matter of the biological world [with 4 million mostly unknown species in a ton of soil].

I turned to the teeming small creatures that can be held between the thumb and forefinger: the little things that compose the foundation of our ecosystems, the little things, as I like to say, who run the world.

In my heart, I'm an Alabaman who went up north to work.