Quotes About Sustainability

Renewable energy is very significant.

I support the need for Canada to play a significant role in reducing global emissions.

Many times people tried to convince me about Ahimsa silk, but when I followed the chain of production it always ended with genetically modified silk moths that could not fly. There was nothing Ahimsa about it.

The armed forces are paying a lot more attention to the use of energy. The Air Force has realized that the paint on planes is heavy, so there are going to be a lot more silver planes, or planes painted in a less heavy way, so that you are using less fuel to get from point A to point B.

The crisis of the fisheries is similar to our economy. This is not one fishery failing, but the whole system.

My argument is that there is already an automated machine to make pads. What I did - I reverse-engineered it to 'simple.' Anyone who wants to compete will have to come out with a simpler machine.

My dad is an engineer and works on green energy, so I'm very aware of what it takes to keep a modern home running and how we can simplify.

It is very possible to have lives that are just as prosperous, and nicer, that use 5 percent of the fossil fuels and virgin materials we do now. But if we're living anything like the average McMansion-ite, SUV-driving suburbanites, there's simply no way that can be powered in a climate-friendly way.

Griffith calculates that, in order to keep the atmospheric concentration of CO 2 at no more than 450 ppm, humanity has to do something that is almost unimaginably difficult. We have to cut our fossil fuel use to around 3 terawatts, which means we have to produce all the rest of our power from non-fossil-fuel sources, and we have to do it in about twenty-five years or it will be too late to level off at 450 ppm.

At present, the best low-carbon source is nuclear.

The unwelcome four are urbanization, nuclear power, biotechnology, and geoengineering. The familiar one is natural-system restoration, which may be better framed as megagardening—

How do we make long-term thinking automatic and common instead of difficult and rare? How do we make the taking of long-term responsibility inevitable?

Some environmentalists already are proponents of urban compactness. Sierra Club's magazine reports that in Vancouver, "Mayor Sam Sullivan's EcoDensity program includes zoning changes to allow 'secondary suites,' or in-law apartments; triplexes; and narrow streets with houses that abut property lines." Peter Calthorpe's "walkability" has become a real estate selling point, with walkable neighborhoods able to charge premium prices.

Weisman's book, The World Without Us, grew out of two questions, he said. One was, How can I write a best-seller about the environment? The answer to that was the second question: How would the rest of nature behave without the constant pressure we put on it?

Plans to protect air and water, wilderness and wildlife, are in fact plans to protect man.

It takes honeybee workers ten million foraging trips to gather enough nectar to make one pound of honey. —Bees of the World

Maybe things could be better for the grubs, but things could be better for clavers, too. We're in this together. We're all making sacrifices so things will be better, if not for us, then for Gabe and all the children to come.

I've always wanted to be self-sustaining and able to grow my own food. All I lack is land and skill.

The great differentiator going forward, the next frontier for exponential growth, the place where individuals and organizations will find a new and sustainable competitive edge, resides in the area of human connectivity.

The garden flourished that summer because Magnus's mother was determined to feed her family despite the depredations of the distant war. In the fall, there were beans and tomatoes and pickles to can, and jar after jar of applesauce. Mama's hives yielded fresh honey, and then willow skeps were winterized. The bees would not come out until the air warmed and the sun appeared.

But between then and now, I had met McQuaid. I had lived with him and learned that sustainable love doesn't grow out of superheated physical passion, but out of simply holding hands and holding on, day in and day out. I'd learned that "good" really is enough, not because you're settling for something less, but because "fantastic" and "incredible" burn you out emotionally, just as life in the fast lane bums you out physically.

If we do not permit the earth to produce beauty and joy, it will in the end not produce food, either.

The Ecology Frame focuses on achieving your goals in a way that benefits everybody. It involves acting morally and setting up scenarios where everybody wins."

We could power a city with this energy, but it'd be a waste.