Popular quotes about Environmental! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 17
In the rich world, the environmental situation has improved dramatically. In the United States, the most important environmental indicator, particulate air pollution, has been cut by more than half since 1955, rivers and coastal waters have dramatically improved, and forests are increasing.
Bjorn LomborgOne third of all of our cancers are from tobacco. It's one of the big killers in America and more than half of our kids still have environmental tobacco smoke exposure when environmental tobacco smoke is known to be associated with sudden infant death syndrome, with ear infections, respiratory infections and the rest. If we had to pick something to really go after, that would be one that I would really argue is an extraordinarily high priority and something people can actually do something about.
Richard JacksonEconomic growth and environmental preservation are two sides of the same coin. There's no better illustration of that point than the California Clean Tech Open, which challenges California entrepreneurs to bring new, clean technologies to market. I encourage business leaders, policy makers, and environmental advocates to support this innovative, exciting competition.
Terry TamminenTo the greatest extent possible, I try to make choices that involve the least amount of cruelty and environmental damage. I'm interested in sustainable agriculture, environmental issues, human rights, and my interconnectedness in the web of life. It is a great pleasure for me to find products and practices that have a positive effect on living beings and the environment, rather than a negative one.
Vesanto MelinaWe should stop the non-scientific, pseudo-scientific, and anti-scientific nonsense emanating from the right wing, and start demanding immediate action to reduce global warming and prevent catastrophic climate change that may be on our horizon now. We must not let the [Bush] Administration distort science and rewrite and manipulate scientific reports in other areas. We must not let it turn the Environmental Protection Agency into the Environmental Pollution Agency.
Edward KennedyPerseverance is my biggest lesson. When I started to get involved in environmental protection some years ago, my people did not take it seriously and they never considered it important. But today, people look at what I do and they truly recognize those efforts, and eventually they join you as "environmental activists" too!
Li BingbingWe now know from a Princeton study that Superfund sites are causing higher rates of birth defects. We now know that there's no excusing the lack of moral urgency to do something about this environmental crisis. We see Flint, Michigan, for example, and the attention it's gotten, but what most Americans don't seem to realize is that this lead problem is not confined to just Flint. There are over 3,000 jurisdictions that have twice the lead levels in people's blood than Flint does. We're now seeing more people being exposed to the truth about environmental injustice in our country.
Cory BookerI want to make it clear,if there is ever a conflict [between environmental quality and economic growth], I will go for beauty, clean air, water, and landscape.
Jimmy CarterI've been there for so many crossroads in American history. My whole political life spans the birth of the environmental movement, the women's movement, the civil rights movement, putting an end to unjust wars, and so and so.
Barbara BoxerThere should be more attention paid to scientific research in the ecology area, and I think that such attention to proper environmental concerns would make the public feel much better about it.
Thomas CechWe are facing a tipping point of environmental crisis unprecedented in human history and our very survival is dependent on protecting nature.
Leonardo DiCaprioEverything we personally own thatโs made, sold, shipped, stored, cleaned, and ultimately thrown away does some environmental harm every step of the way, harm that weโre either directly responsible for or is done on our behalf.
Yvon ChouinardWe know what we have to do. And we know how to do it. If we fail to convert our self-destructing economy into one that is environmentally sustainable, future generations will be overwhelmed by environmental degradation and social disintegration. Simply stated, if our generation does not turn things around, our children may not have the option of doing so.
Lester R. BrownIt is environmental illiteracy and a complete lack of forward thinking to ignore the need to halt and then reverse population growth in the context of climate change, travel congestion, unaffordable housing, and resource depletion
Phil HardingI believe that climate change is the great global crisis that we face, environmental crisis. I believe that if you're serious about climate change, you don't encourage the excavation and transportation of very dirty oil.
Bernie SandersMy efforts in Congress are guided by the belief that environmental preservation and restoration are a critical part of the legacy we leave to future generations.
Sue KellyOur environmental problems originate in the hubris of imagining ourselves as the central nervous system or the brain of nature. We're not the brain, we are a cancer on nature.
David ForemanA very Faustian choice is upon us: whether to accept our corrosive and risky behavior as the unavoidable price of population and economic growth, or to take stock of ourselves and search for a new environmental ethic.
E. O. WilsonCanada stands out as making a sensible and positive contribution to the world. I'm saying that maybe because of its inclination toward multilateralism. Support for the environmental protection cause. It's relationship between people and nature.
Christine LagardeWe're not trying to reinvent the wheel; for any environmental organization to claim sole responsibility for any kind of victory is insane, because everybody attacks these problems as a group.
Ted DansonCivilization has given us enormous successes: going to the moon, technology. But then this is the civilisation that took us to debt, environmental crisis, every single crisis. We need a civilization where we say goodbye to these things.
Muhammad YunusIf people see how we're all interconnected and connected with Nature, we wouldn't have an environmental crisis, we wouldn't have two dozen wars all over the world.
Stanley KrippnerThe environmental catastrophes we're presently seeing are considered "normal" though they're horrific. Fracking has made drinking water flammable, families are dying from planned lead poisoning in Flint, Michigan, mountaintop removal is killing families throughout Appalachia, and oil/mining companies continue to denigrate Native American and indigenous rights throughout the world (see North Dakota Pipeline presently). This is horrific - and yet we somehow consider it normal.
Alexander WeinsteinMany people who live in big countries like ours thought that we had resources that would work for us for many, many years, but that was a mistake. Our natural wealth corrupted us. In this country, you were among the first to raise environmental issues. In Russia, despite all of its problems today, people are concerned about the environment, and it's become a central issue on the agenda.
Mikhail GorbachevWhile it's good that we maintain high standards for companies seeking to claim environmental leadership, I can't help but ponder the hypocrisy of it all: how much more we expect of companies than of ourselves.
Joel MakowerI am passionate about exploring the confluence of environmental and human health. I believe that the goals of conservation must constantly revisit a stated purpose.
Barton SeaverToxins love to get you while you're young. Lead, mercury, secondhand smoke and sundry other environmental nasties do a lot more damage when tissue is immature, vulnerable and growing than when it's mature and comparatively fixed.
Jeffrey KlugerThe favorite statistic is that the U.S. contains 6 to 7% of the world population but consumes more than half the world's resources and is responsible for that fraction of the total environmental pollution. But this statistic hides another vital fact: that not everyone in the U.S. is so affluent.
Barry CommonerEveryone, rich or poor, deserves a shelter for the soul, architects should lead in procuring social and environmental change.
Samuel MockbeeThe promises of pie-in-the-sky liberal environmentalists that we can convert to 'clean' energy sources and stimulate our economy are based on dubious environmental and economic assumptions, fantastic notions about alternative energy, and a disturbing acceptance of the tyrannies inherent in command-control economies.
David LimbaughWhy is the Keystone Pipeline the very first, #1 item on the Republicans' agenda? We know that this pipeline runs terrible environmental risks and it just won't do much for the American people. So why is this bill so urgent? Money and power.
Elizabeth WarrenI believe very strongly that corporations could and should be a major force for resolving social and environmental concerns in the twenty-first century.
Bill FordSustainability at Nike means being laser-focused on evolving our business model to deliver profitable growth while leveraging the efficiencies of lean manufacturing, minimizing our environmental impact and using the tools available to us to bring about positive change across our entire supply chain.
Mark ParkerYou become what you do. How and what you become depends on environmental influence so you become who you hang around. Raise the standard your peers must meet and you'll raise your expectations of yourself. If your environment is not making you better, change it.
Mark TwightI think the environmental movement has failed in that it's used the stick too much; it's used the apocalyptic tone too much; it hasn't sold the positive aspects of being environmentally concerned and trying to pull us out.
Edward BurtynskyYou take for example the environmental movement is a big deal in my district. You know, you might say, yeah, more African Americans are suffering from asthma and air pollution-related illnesses, but there`s a lot of white folks, a lot of white kids with inhalers. So, you just got to talk to the reality of everyone, not exclude anyone. And make sure that people know that you care about them too. I think if you do that, we can get there.
Keith EllisonCanada is the worst polluter in the world right now. There's absolutely no sign on a federal level that there's going to be any alleviation of the polluting that's going on. Even the Parti Quรฉbรฉcois in Quรฉbec, which is historically a party that has been leftist and environmental - they are trying to give $450 million subsidies to polluting enterprises in Gaspรฉ. These, to me are my problems.
Owen PallettBy seeing the otherness in that which is most unfamiliar, we can learn to see it too in that which at first seemed merely ordinary. If wilderness can do this - if it can help us perceive and respect a nature we had forgotten to recognize as natural - then it will become part of the solution to our environmental dilemmas rather than part of the problem.
William CrononBut one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world's wealth by climate policy...One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy any more.
Ottmar EdenhoferI'm sure that many people who are involved in an environmental effort ... they will be pretty much encouraged by this recognition.
Wangari MaathaiA primary function of art and thought is to liberate the individual from the tyranny of his culture in the environmental sense and to permit him to stand beyond it in an autonomy of perception and judgment.
Beverly SillsMost of us have become Ecozombies, desensitized, environmental deadheads. On average, society conditions us to spend over 95% of our time and 99.9% of our thinking disconnected from nature. Nature's extreme absence in our lives leaves us abandoned and wanting. We feel we never have enough. We greedily, destructively, consume and, can't stop. Nature's loss in our psyche produces a hurt, hungering, void within us that bullies us into our dilemmas.
Michael J CohenClimate change hype has grave real world consequences. It gets rich countries to adopt silly policies and to impose devastating eco-imperialism on poor countries. The world's rich millions can afford environmental extremism; its poor billions can't. Climate change pseudo-science about human causality has been exposed repeatedly. What's less appreciated is that there aren't more natural disasters in need of an explanation.
Leon LouwSomething bad happened on both Mars with its dried-up watercourses and Venus with its runaway greenhouse effect. Could something bad happen on Earth too? Our species currently turns row upon row of environmental knobs, without much regard to long-term consequences.
Neil deGrasse TysonClimate change is not an environmental problem. It is a civilizational problem. Climate change is not just another issue. If it is not addressed in very short order, it will swamp every other issue facing us today
Ross GelbspanThe Kochs have been activists since the 1970s. You can go back and look at the platform of the Libertarian Party in 1980 and see what they really believe in. They wanted to abolish huge swaths of the U.S. government, including the Internal Revenue Service. They want to get rid of Social Security. They'd like to get rid of Medicare. They'd like to abolish the Environmental Protection Agency, which directly affects their business.
Jane Mayer