Perhaps our greatest distinction as a species is our capacity, unique among animals, to make counter-evolutionary choices.
Jared DiamondAfrican cavalry mounted on rhinos or hippos would have made mincemeat of European cavalry mounted on horses. But it couldnt happen.
Jared DiamondIn parts of Montana, salt concentrations in soil water, have reached those double those of seawater.
Jared DiamondAlthough native Africans domesticated some plants in the Sahel and in Ethiopia and in tropical West Africa, they acquired valuable domestic animals only later, from the north.
Jared DiamondThe metaphor is so obvious. Easter Island isolated in the Pacific Ocean — once the island got into trouble, there was no way they could get free. There was no other people from whom they could get help. In the same way that we on Planet Earth, if we ruin our own [world], we won't be able to get help.
Jared Diamond