Quotes About Environment

Sand, sand, sand—all that pulverized time. Eons ago, the world's burst hourglass spilled its contents here; now the years pile and spin, waiting with inhuman patience to be swept into some future ocean. Sand washes right up to the paved road, washes over to the other side in a solid orange current, illuminated by their headlights.

Sometimes I think I might not have written 'The Age of Miracles' if I hadn't grown up in California, if I hadn't been exposed to its very particular blend of beauty and disaster, of danger and denial.

Der Frosch, der am lautesten quakt, wird zu allererst vom Storch gefressen.

Jellyfish] are 97% water or something, so how much are they doing? Just give them another 3% and make them water. It's more useful.

They keep saying that sea levels are rising an' all this. It's nowt to do with the icebergs melting, it's because there's too many fish in it. Get rid of some of the fish and the water will drop. Simple. Basic science.

Stay green, stay in the woods, and stay safe.

Most of us, it seems, have a strong inclination to accept the peculiarities of our social environment as if they were "natural".... that we live in a charmed circle of unchanging taboos, of laws and customs which are felt to be as inevitable as the rising of the sun.

The belief in a political Utopia is especially dangerous. This is possibly connected with the fact that the search for a better world, like the investigation of our environment, is (if I am correct) one of the oldest and most important of all the instincts.

Most of us, it seems, have a strong inclination to accept the peculiarities of our social environment as if they were 'natural'.

Why are we doing the? I asked. Because looking aat a dead shark will tell us something about the ones that are still alive, Robin said.

I just could not stand the idea of eating meat - I really do think that it has made me calmer.... People's general awareness is getting much better, even down to buying a pint of milk: the fact that the calves are actually killed so that the milk doesn't go to them but to us cannot really be right, and if you have seen a cow in a state of extreme distress because it cannot understand why its calf isn't by, it can make you think a lot.

All this, grassy paddock, cows, trees - he had thought it was Nature. But now he could see that that was ignorance, or lack of imagination. It was not Nature . It was actually property.

The ground was as clear and clean as Sal's own yard.

Every tree, every rock seemed to be watching.

Here's the conundrum: No country has ever ended human deprivation without a growing economy. And no country has ever ended ecological degradation with one.

global greenhouse gas emissions is highly skewed: the top 10 percent of emitters—think of them as the global carbonistas living on every continent—generate around 45 percent of global emissions, while the bottom 50 percent of people contribute only 13 percent.

The essence of that industrial system is the cradle-to-grave manufacturing supply chain of take, make, use, lose: extract Earth's minerals, metals, biomass and fossil fuels; manufacture them into products; sell those on to consumers who—probably sooner rather than later—will throw them 'away'.

At this point in human history, the movement that best describes the progress we need is coming into dynamic balance by moving into the Doughnut's safe and just space, eliminating both its shortfall and overshoot at the same time.

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We live now, says Daly, in 'Full World', with an economy that exceeds Earth's regenerative and absorptive capacity by over-harvesting sources such as fish and forests, and over-filling sinks such as the atmosphere and oceans.

With sufficient international support, these countries can seize the opportunity to leapfrog the wasteful and polluting technologies of the past. And if they channel GDP growth into creating economies that are distributive and regenerative by design, they will start bringing all of their inhabitants above the Doughnut's social foundation without overshooting its ecological ceiling.

what determines whether or not we can actually move into its safe and just space? Five factors certainly play key roles: population, distribution, aspiration, technology and governance.

It's important to note, however, that the decoupling required would not be a one-off phase: if GDP were to keep on growing, then the rate of decoupling would have to more than keep pace with it, year on year on year.

For the twenty-first century, a far bigger goal is needed: meeting the human rights of every person within the means of our life-giving planet.