My travels through physics really are the same urges that make me travel through ecology. They are not really different, except that there is an added dimension of seeing ecological destruction and seeing the very life-support system that makes us survive on this planet being destroyed. That makes me do more than just inquire; it compels me to act and to intervene.
Vandana ShivaIt's worse than slave trade because what is being traded is the very knowledge that makes survival possible for 80 percent of the people of this world. These 80 percent live on the biodiversity and the knowledge they have evolved as part of a rich collective heritage involving the use of seeds for growing crops and medicinal plants for healing.
Vandana ShivaWe will either defend the rights of people and the earth, and for that we have to dismantle the rights that corporations have assigned to themselves, or corporations will in the next three decades destroy this planet, in terms of human possibilities.
Vandana ShivaI have a deep connection with Mahatma Gandhi, partly because my mother was a very, very staunch Gandhian and brought us up that way. When I was six years old, and all the girls were getting nylon dresses, I was very keen to get a nylon frock for my birthday. My mother said, ยI can get it for you, but would you ratherยthrough how you live and what you wear and what you eatยensure that food goes into the hands of the weaver or ensure that profits go into the bank of an industrialist?ย That became such a checkstone for everything in life.
Vandana ShivaItยs not that Monsanto is making money out of the blue. Itยs making money by coercing and literally forcing people to pay for what was free. Take water, for instance. Water has always been free. Weยve never paid for drinking water. The World Bank says the reason water has been misused is because it was never commercially priced. But the reason itยs been misused is because it was wasted by the big usersยindustry, which polluted it.
Vandana Shiva