Environment: Difference between revisions

Environmentalism is a concern for the preservation, restoration, or improvement of the natural environment, such as the conservation of natural resources, prevention of pollution, and certain land use actions.

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• The one factor that you can’t find on a spreadsheet is the willingness of the people in government to lead change, And in Denmark every single one of them is engaged and willing to do whatever it takes to get Denmark to be a leader in electric vehicles.
  • Shai Agassi, Founder and Chief Executive of Better Place; quoted in "In Denmark, Ambitious Plan for Electric Cars". nytimes.com. 1 December 2009. 

• All our efforts to defeat poverty and pursue sustainable development will be in vain if environmental degradation and natural resource depletion continue unabated.
  • Kofi Annan, UN Secretary-General, "In larger freedom: towards development, security and human rights for all", 2005 report for the United Nations sixtieth anniversary summit

• Were we and the rest of the back-boned animals to disappear overnight, the rest of the world would get on pretty well.
  • David Attenborough; quoted in "Wolf spiders reveal their love secrets". Telegraph.co.uk. 15 November 2005. Retrieved on 2006-11-25. 

• Every American expects and deserves clean air, and then we act on that belief, then we will set an example for the rest of the world to follow.
  • George H. W. Bush, from "Remarks Announcing Proposed Legislation to Amend the Clean Air Act", June 12, 1989^{[specific citation needed]}

• In America today you can murder land for private profit. You can leave the corpse for all to see, and nobody calls the cops.
  • Paul Brooks, The Pursuit of Wilderness, 1971

• It is a curious situation that the sea, from which life first arose should now be threatened by the activities of one form of that life. But the sea, though changed in a sinister way, will continue to exist; the threat is rather to life itself.
  • Rachel Carson, (1907-1964) The Sea Around Us, 1951

• "The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe around us, the less taste we shall have for destruction."
  • Rachel Carson, "Slient Spring", 1962

• I 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 Carter, quoted in the New York Times, September 19, 1976^{[specific citation needed]}

• We will look upon the earth and her sister planets as being with us, not for us.
  • Mary Daly, Beyond God the Father (1973)

• The weight of our civilization has become so great, it now ranks as a global force and a significant wild card in the human future along with the Ice Ages and other vicissitudes of a volatile and changeable planetary system
  • Dianne Dumanoski, Rethinking Environmentalism, December 13, 1998

• Humanity is on the march, earth itself is left behind.
  • David Ehrenfeld, The Arrogance of Humanism, 1978

• Sanctimonious slogans have a way of lulling well-meaning people, and at the same time providing self-seekers with means to frustrate the very controls that are most needed. Take, for example, a report entitled, “The Engineer’s Responsibility in Environmental Pollution Control,” submitted in 1971 to the government’s Council of Environmental Quality by the National Industrial Pollution Control Council. The report is an amorphous collection of noble generalities. It conjures up a vision of a crusading army of engineers, thousands abreast, marching in unison. The banner of this army is “cooperation.” Its mission is to “coordinate,” “unify,” “interact,” “centralize efforts,” and “pool resources.” Its weapons are “shared objectives,” “common goals,” “interdisciplinary concepts and techniques.” The cloud of pieties serves, not to enlighten, but to obscure the real truth, which is that environmental pollution control can never be achieved by the worthy sentiments of industrial spokesmen, but only by government regulation.
  • Samuel Florman, The Existential Pleasures of Engineering (1976), p. 27

• When the well's dry, we know the worth of water.
  • Benjamin Franklin, (1706-1790), Poor Richard's Almanac^{[specific citation needed]}

• Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed.
  • Mohandas K. Gandhi; quoted in EF Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful

• While the farmer holds the title to the land, actually, it belongs to all the people because civilization itself rests upon the soil.
  • Thomas Jefferson; quoted in the Des Moines Register, July 8, 1979^{[specific citation needed]}

• The Supreme Reality of Our Time is...the Vulnerability of our Planet
  • John F. Kennedy (1917-1963), speech, June 28, 1963^{[specific citation needed]}

• The creator is angry. Everyone is going to be sorry for what they have done. A day of reckoning is coming. And it's going to be for everyone on the planet. It will make no distinction for religion or creed. Something is going to happen.
  • Chief Al Lameman, Alberta Cree. He is commenting here on the effects of oil extraction from the opencast tar-sand mines of the forests of Alberta, Canada. From, 'Armageddon', an article in the Mail on Sunday magazine, June 10 2012. Report by Jonathan Green.

• We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.
  • Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac

• The Environmental movement is, you might say, a movement of repressed Romantics.
  • Charles E. Little, A Town Is Saved, 1973

• Environmentalists have long been fond of saying that the sun is the only safe nuclear reactor, situated as it is some ninety-three million miles away.
  • Stephanie Mills ed., In Praise of Nature, 1990

• Even when the pioneer didn't rape Nature, he divorced her a little too easily: he missed the great lesson that both ecology and medicine teach - that Man's great mission is not to conquer nature by main force but to cooperate with her intelligently but lovingly for his own purposes.
  • Lewis Mumford, "California and the Human Prospect", Sierra Club Bulletin, vol. 47, no. 9, 1962, pp. 45-6.

• Think globally. Act neighborly.
  • Todd Murphy, friend of environmental author Bill McKibben; quoted in "Bill McKibben says we're stuffed". salon.com. 23 March 2007. 

• We still have too much air and water pollution and we still need to work to reduce it. But we also need to put the problem of pollution into a historical as well as scientific perspective...
  • Ronald Reagan, quoted in Charles D. Hobbs' Ronald Reagan's Call to Action

• We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we may have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.
  • Stephen Schneider (Discover magazine, Oct 1989)

• The Truly Healthy environment is not merely safe but stimulating.
  • William H. Stewart, Environmental Science and Technology, February 1968

• The Materials of wealth are in the earth, in the seas, and in their natural and unaided productions.
  • Daniel Webster, (1782-1852) remarks in the US Senate, March 12, 1838^{[specific citation needed]}

• It seems to me that we all look at Nature too much, and live with her too little.
  • Oscar Wilde, "De Profundis", 1905

See also

• Conservation
• Nature
• Waste
• Global warming