Popular quotes about Environmental! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 9
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 LomborgWe 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 BookerWe must alert and organise the world's people to pressure world leaders to take specific steps to solve the two root causes of our environmental crises - exploding population growth and wasteful consumption of irreplaceable resources. Overconsumption and overpopulation underlie every environmental problem we face today.
Jacques Yves CousteauIt is essential that we take steps to prevent chemical substances from becoming environmental hazards. Unless we develop better methods to assure adequate testing of chemicals, we will be inviting the environmental crisis of the future.
Richard M. NixonGlobal warming is not only the number one environmental challenge we face today, but one of the most important issues facing all of humanity... We all have to do our part to raise awareness about global warming and the problems we as a people face in promoting a sustainable environmental future for our planet.
Leonardo DiCaprioDemocrats in environmental agencies tend to be more sensitive to environmental harm. And Republicans tend to be more sensitive to business harm.
David BrooksI urge Governments to considerably reduce funds allocated to the military, not only as a disarmament issue, but also as a potential contributor to social and environmental protection and call for the holding of referenda on this issue worldwide.
Alfred-Maurice de ZayasI was in a store in Halifax, Nova Scotia that I love, sort of like an environmental friendly sort of store. But they had a great book section. So I went in there all the time. The woman who worked there - which I feel so bad; I've forgotten her name - she handed me the book and she said, "Hey, you should read this. I think it would make a good movie." I remember reading the back of it and I was like, "Huh." Then I just devoured the book and I was so moved by it and said, "Why don't we start developing this into a film?" So that's how it ['Into the Forest'] all started.
Ellen PagePerhaps the central question about [Eliot] Porter's work is about the relationship between science, aesthetics, and environmental politics. His brother, the painter and critic Fairfield Porter, wrote in a 1960 review of [Porter's] colour photographs: 'There is no subject and background, every corner is alive,' and this suggests what an ecological aesthetic might look like.
Rebecca SolnitEven in the era of AIDS, sex raises no unique moral issues at all. Decisions about sex may involve considerations about honesty, concern for others, prudence, and so on, but there is nothing special about sex in this respect, for the same could be said of decisions about driving a car. (In fact, the moral issues raised by driving a car, both from an environmental and from a safety point of view, are much more serious than those raised by sex.)
Peter SingerEnvironmental pollution is a blight on people's quality of life and a trouble that weighs on their hearts.
Li KeqiangThe root cause of the looming energy problem - and the key to easing environmental, economic and religious tensions while improving public health - is to address the unending, and unequal, growth of the human population. And the one proven way to reduce fertility rates is to empower young women by educating them.
Lawrence M. KraussMy wish list is pretty short. I wish that we had empathy. As a society, we are so wrapped up in our own artificial creations that we have become disconnected from one another and the wonder of our natural world. I truly believe that empathy is the key to solving the majority of our environmental and social problems.
Adrian GrenierEarth Day gathered up those strands, and dozens more, and knitted them together in the public consciousness as "environmental" issues. The nation was pretty startled when 20 million people hit the streets. Congress, which had adjourned for the day to go back to its districts, was blown away.
Denis HayesI've had it for about 13 years, and I don't see any reason to change, I find that the violin just keeps responding really well. It changes itself every year; it ages, it goes through all these different environmental changes, and of course, the travelling...It develops on its own, just as any performer does. It's a very stable instrument, so I can rely on it, but at the same time it always shows me a different side of things than I expect.
Hilary HahnAny regeneration project that fails to put environmental and social benefits at its very heart is unlikely to achieve anything more than a very short-lived spasm of spurious prosperity
Jonathon PorrittIf 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 crisis arises from a fundamental fault: our systems of production - in industry, agriculture, energy and transportation - essential as they are, make people sick and die.
Barry CommonerI 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 SeaverThe number of people displaced by dams is estimated at between 40 million and 80 million, most of them in China and India. The costs of dams were on average 50% above their original estimate. Some designed to reduce flooding made it worse, and there were many unexpected environmental disadvantages, including the extinction of fish and bird species. Half the world's wetlands had been lost because of dams.
Paul BrownWe have fought for social justice. We have fought for economic justice. We have fought for environmental justice. We have fought for criminal justice. Now we must add a new fight - the fight for electoral justice.
Barbara BoxerWithout international participation, jobs and emissions will simply shift overseas to countries that require few, if any, environmental protections, harming the global environment as well as the U.S. economy.
Fred UptonArchitects in the past have tended to concentrate their attention on the building as a static object. I believe dynamics are more important: the dynamics of people, their interaction with spaces and environmental condition.
John C. Portman, Jr.My idea of an amusement park story is getting adventurers to go tour environmental disaster areas. After all, if the entire Great Barrier Reef gets killed, which seems like an extremely lively possibility, what are you going to do with all that rotting limestone?
Bruce SterlingEnvironmental history was . . . born out of a moral purpose, with strong political commitments behind it, but also became, as it matured, a scholarly enterprise that had neither any simple, nor any single, moral or political agenda to promote. Its principal goal became one of deepening our understanding of how humans have been affected by their natural environment through time and, conversely, how they have affected that environment and with what results.
Donald WorsterWe have a project with Unocal here in Los Angeles, where we as an environmental organization, the oil company, and the state all get together to promote the recycling of used motor oil.
Ted DansonEconomic dynamism can be combined with environmental and social responsibility. High financial returns can go hand in hand with respect for human rights, and the preservation of the planet's natural resources
David MilibandMost 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 CohenThe clearest evidence that we are living beyond environmental means is the threat of dangerous climate change. The scale of this threat, to human life and to the natural resources and assets on which it depends, for everything from oxygen and clean water to healthy soils and flood defence, means that this simply must be our top priority
David MilibandI wonder what kind of environmental consciousness is to be developed in a family or a community where nature is seen as either an optional thing, not accessible to you, or something completely exotic, unwelcome.
Kyo MaclearThe earth has continued to change, from rapid climatic changes that have caused the glaciers and the ice sheets to basically bulldoze the landscape and cause species compression in the tropics and cause mass species extinction - you know, all these huge changes. In terms of evolution, every species is doomed to eventual extinction. The natural world is constantly changing. So, to deal with "environmental problems," in quotes, totally misses the issue. That is not the way we want to define our problem if we're going to find our solution.
Gordon HemptonBusinesses can lead with their values and make money, too. You don't have to simply be purely profit-driven. You can integrate social and environmental concerns into a business, be a caring business, be a generous business and still do very well financially.
Jerry GreenfieldToday the environmental movement has become opposed to issues of justice. You can see this in the way issues are framed. It's a permanent replay of jobs-versus-the-environment, in nature-versus-bread. These are extremely artificial dichotomies.
Vandana ShivaIt was inspiring to learn of the new Bachelor of Environmental Studies Program, and I congratulate you for it. Singapore is geographically in the right central position for an influence in Asia and Australia, and NUS has the reputation and academic strength to make it effective.
E. O. WilsonI think that people do things for a reason - that we have mental illness, that we have genetic wiring that can get triggered by certain environmental factors.
Karin SlaughterWater is our next great environmental challenge. It is the new oil. How are we going to preserve this sport unless we are designing and maintaining golf courses that are energy net zero, carbon net zero and water net zero? Or ideally, energy positive, carbon positive and water positive, where they are taking out more than they are using.
Thomas FriedmanYou show me pollution and I will show you people who are not paying their own way, people who are stealing from the public, people who are getting the public to pay their costs of production. All environmental pollution is a subsidy.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.Providing a real way to deal with the urgent needs of environmental issues that is accessible to everyone is the new fight for the democratization of design.
Philippe StarckWhat I see are people who want affordable energy. They want strong environmental standards - they want a lot of things - but first and foremost they want affordable energy. And if you want affordable energy, you want oil, gas and coal.
John S. WatsonIf China is helping its domestic industries charge an artificially low price for solar panels and other environmental goods, then China is violating international trade rules that it agreed to when it became a member of the World Trade Organization.
Ron WydenThe human species is now at a point where it has to make choices that are going to determine whether decent survival is even possible. Environmental catastrophe, including war, maybe pandemics, these are very serious issues and they can't be addressed within the current structure of institutions. That's almost given. There have to be real significant changes, and only really effective popular mass-based movements can introduce and carry forward such initiatives, as indeed did happen during the 1930s.
Noam ChomskyAccording to leading researchers, however, only about 10 to 15 percent of cancers are genetic in origin; the rest are caused by a combination of environmental and lifestyle factors.
Dharma Singh KhalsaBecause the global ecosystem is a connected whole, in which nothing can be gained or lost and which is not subject to over-all improvement, anything extracted from it by human effort must be replaced. Payment of this price cannot be avoided; it can only be delayed. The present environmental crisis is a warning that we have delayed nearly too long.
Barry Commoner