Take air quality in the United States today: It's about 30 percent better than it was 25 years ago, even though there are now more people driving more cars.
Jared DiamondHistory as well as life itself is complicated -- neither life nor history is an enterprise for those who seek simplicity and consistency.
Jared DiamondWe know from our recent history that English did not come to replace U.S. Indian languages merely because English sounded musical to Indians' ears. Instead, the replacement entailed English-speaking immigrants' killing most Indians by war, murder, and introduced diseases, and the surviving Indians' being pressured into adopting English, the new majority language.
Jared DiamondThe United States has long thought of itself as the land of infinite plenty, and historically we did have abundant resources. But now we are gradually exhausting our fisheries, our topsoil, our water. On top of that, we're coming to the end of world resources.
Jared Diamond