Nature shrinks as capital grows. The growth of the market cannot solve the very crisis it creates.

Whenever we engage in consumption or production patterns which take more than we need, we are engaging in violence.

Although two thirds of our planet is water, we face an acute water shortage. The water crisis is the most pervasive , most severe, and most invisible dimension of the ecological devastation of the earth.

In England, the population explosion can be linked very clearly with the enclosure of the commons that uprooted the peasants from their land. In India, it was the same thing: the population increased at the end of the 18th century when the British took over and Indian lands were colonized. Instead of the land feeding Indian people it started to feed the British empire. So we had destitution. Destitute people who don't have their own land to feed themselves can only feed themselves by having larger numbers, therefore they multiply. It's the rational response of a dispossessed people.

I think what we owe each other is a celebration of life and to replace fear and hopelessness with fearlessness and joy.

The director of the institute where I was working apologized about these young, enthusiastic researchers when the World Bank visited because he was afraid the institute would lose the World Bank consultancies.I went back home and started the Research Foundation for Science, Technology, and Ecology—an extremely elaborate name for the tiny institute that I started in my mother’s cow shed. My parents handed over family resources and said, “Put them to public purpose.” That’s how I survived.

We share this planet, our home, with millions of species. Justice and sustainability both demand that we do not use more resources than we need.