Quotes About Sustainability

and produce as a result of their inundation with industrial herbicides and pesticides which, of course, make their way, again, into the Russian River. Then into the Pacific Ocean. And ultimately, into all the fish in your local supermarket. What is said about the environmental impact of vineyards in Sonoma County? Fucking nothing. It is our sacred cow." Darren raised his shot glass again, "Long live the sacred cow." Colin

When it don't rain, the roof don't leak; when it rains, I can't fix it nohow.

The practical reason for continuing our system is the same as the practical reason for continuing anything: It works satisfactorily.

But what did they appear to be doing? 'They went to work to earn the money to buy the food to get the strength to go to work to earn the money to buy the food to get the strength to go to work to get the strength to buy the food to earn the money to go to—' until they fell over dead.

The Colorado River was at a record low and the towers in Lake Mead stood high out of the water. But the Angelenos committed communal suicide by watering lawns as usual.

If a table has four legs, which one can you afford to throw away?

We need to have as many baskets for our eggs as possible. Even if we don't manage to ruin this planet ourselves, natural disasters or changes—or even changes in our star—could make it impossible to live on this planet. —Philosopher Anson MacDonald, radio interview, Butler, MO, USA, Terra, July 7, 1987 ("Anson MacDonald Day")

China is able to feed 23 percent of the world's population from 7 percent of the arable land—"by crowding some 2,000 human beings onto each square mile of cultivated earth in the valleys and flood plains," as Fairbank points out.

A lot of times when I think I'm being self-sufficient, I'm really just learning to live without the things that I need.

HAPA was like mint. You could rip it up, and six months later, it was back, healthier than ever. Mint smelled better, though, and you could make juleps out of it. I don't know what I could make out of HAPA. Compost, maybe.

Do you work a job that slowly kills you so you can afford health coverage to pay medical expenses? Or do you live right with the earth and make your own way, keep things simple, and take care of yourself?

We've been paying a fraction of what things really cost to make, but meanwhile the planet, and the workers who made the stuff, take the unpaid costs right in the teeth.

A major part of sustainability is social justice, here and everywhere. Think of it this way: justice is a technology. It's like a software program that we use to cope with the world and get along with each other, and one of the most effective we have ever invented, because we are all in this together. When you realize that acting with justice and generosity turns out to be the most effective technology for dealing with other people, that's a good thing.

And tourism is an ugly business, it's not fit work for human beings. It's hosting parasites.

a postcarbon landscape, each

Kim Stanley Robinson

the seven generations rule, thinking seven generations back and seven generations forward, and seven times seven

Kim Stanley Robinson

most economists are still working within the empty-world model of economics.

bubbles and Ponzi schemes and capitalism all have to keep growing or else they are in deep shit.

What's good is what's good for the land.

Humans are burning about 40 gigatons (a gigaton is a billion tons) of fossil carbon per year. Scientists have calculated that we can burn about 500 more gigatons of fossil carbon before we push the average global temperature over 2 degrees Celsius higher than it was when the industrial revolution began; this is as high as we can push it, they calculate, before really dangerous effects will follow for most of Earth's bioregions, meaning also food production for people.

Kim Stanley Robinson

Swiss citizens in general used about 5,000 watts. This was compared to 6,000 in the rest of western Europe. Chinese citizens about 1,500. 1,000 in India. 12,000 in the United States. His country, the great whale in this as in everything, slurping down the world.