Quotes About Sustainability

As Pollan explains, "Eating industrial meat takes an almost heroic act of not knowing, or, now, forgetting.

When we eat factory-farmed meat we live, literally, on tortured flesh. Increasingly, that tortured flesh is becoming our own.

Perhaps in the back of our minds we already understand, without all the science I've discussed, that something terribly wrong is happening. Our sustenance now comes from misery. We know that if someone offers to show us a film on how our meat is produced, it will be a horror film.

Whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together.

Those who are more thrifty (as I must confess the times require) may flay the carcass; the skin of which, artificially dressed, will make admirable gloves for ladies, and summer boots for fine gentlemen.

They laugh at this, the idea that one might keep herds of friendly deer or elk that walk happily to their slaughter whenever it's time for the human to eat meat. Some ask openly if there aren't consequences of a life so easy to live.

Vegetarianism is the first turning away from life, because life lives on lives. Vegetarians are just eating something that can't run away.

One lesson that every nation can learn from China is to focus more on creating village-level enterprises, quality health services and educational facilities.

There is little in life as rewarding as enjoying a salad composed entirely of things you've picked from your own garden

mechanisms for dealing with extremely sandy, excessively well-drained soils or rocky, cold soils in which moisture is limited for months at a time. Try alfalfa, aloe, artichokes, asparagus, blue hibiscus, chives, columbine, eucalyptus, garlic, germander, lamb's ear, lavender, ornamental grasses, prairie turnip, rosemary, sage, sedum, shrub roses, thyme, yarrow, yucca, and verbena.

The thirsty earth soaks up the rain,And drinks, and gapes for drink again.The plants suck in the earth, and areWith constant drinking fresh and fair.

theabout the Feeding Center. I meant it, Philipose —I'm proud of you. You're saving lives. But think about this, Philipose: if nothing changes, if the people have no way to escape poverty, if the pulayar can never own land or pass on wealth to their children, then the next time there's a famine, it'll be the same people standing in line. And it will take people like you to feed them.

Ultimately, the problem we face is confronting a twenty-third-century dilemma armed only with a thirteenth-century mind. Our project of civilization has been successful on scales we could not have imagined when we began it ten millennia ago. But with that success has come consequences that will last for centuries.

Had she never been hungry enough to eat a flower? Did she not know that you could eat daisies, daylilies, pansies, and marigolds? That hungry enough, a person could consume the bright faces of violas, even the stems of dandelions and the bitter hips of roses?

Everything eaten is killed. Every meal is a sacrifice.

We live our lives far removed from the food chains that support us, sitting atop a trophic pyramid we never really become part of.

You have to focus on what you're passionate about. For me it's the forests and of course, because I'm concerned about the forests, I'm concerned about the way paper is made.

Earth was not built for six billion people all running around and being passionate about things. The world was built for about two million people foraging for roots and grubs.

It's no secret - if you know me, have ever met me or have shared a meal with me - that I'm a passionate environmentalist.

When you're living off a 1 packet of pasta a day you know you need to get a break because you certainly can't go on like that for ever!

These garbage patches won't go away by themselves.

Climate change is moving faster than we are, but we don't give up because we know that climate action is the only path.

You can't be a first-world economy in the 21st century if you're not on the path to a clean energy future.

There's no really rosy scenario ahead, where climate change just doesn't happen, but I believe we don't have the ethical right to throw our hands up in the air and say, 'Game over.' Whatever pathway we choose, our descendants will be dealing with that reality for centuries to come.