A coldly rationalist individualist can deny that he has any obligation to make sacrifices for the future.

The three filters [against folly] operate through these particular questions: Literacy: What are the words? Numeracy: What are the numbers? Ecolacy: And then what?

The rational man finds that his share of the cost of the wastes he discharges into the commons is less than the cost of purifying his wastes before releasing them.

Why are ecologists and environmentalists so feared and hated? This is because in part what they have to say is new to the general public, and the new is always alarming.

Economists (and others) who are satisfied with nature-free equations develop a dangerous hubris about the potency of our species

Education can counteract the natural tendency to do the wrong thing, but the inexorable succession of generations requires that the basis for this knowledge be constantly refreshed.

In a finite world this means that the per capita share of the world's goods must steadily decrease.