Inspiring and informative quotes from those who saw it coming long before it was trendy.
Our challenge then is to develop the big picture of this new human order, including economic models, legal/governance systems, educational programs, and health care systems that comport with and work within the larger order of the planet earth. This calls for the reinvention of the role of human society on earth. -Ty Cashman
Extreme weather events are on the rise. The biosphere is becoming spastic. Economic growth globally is stalling. In the next 3-7 years rationing will be a significant part of the dialog. Opinion leaders will wake up to what needs to happen to seriously address the needs of nature and humanity’s future! Are we ready? -Randy Hayes
Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist. -Kenneth Boulding
The moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would not otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man would have dreamed would come his way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets: “Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it! Boldness has genius, magic, and power in it.” -W.H. Murray, from The Scottish Himalayan Expedition
There is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living. –Nelson Mandela
A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise. –Aldo Leopold
Surely the True Path is to Dive Deep into Nature. -Vincent Van Gogh
If we lose the battle against tropical deforestation we lose the battle against climate change. -Prince Charles
The Stern Report and the influential McKinsey Report agree that forests offer the single largest opportunity for cost-effective and immediate reductions of carbon emissions. In the next 24 hours, deforestation will release as much CO2 into the atmosphere as 8 million people flying from London to New York. Stopping the loggers is the fastest and cheapest solution to climate change. So why are global leaders turning a blind eye to this crisis?
The tropical rainforest issue is not solved and is more important than ever. -Mike Roselle
This generation may either be the last to exist in any semblance of a civilized world or it could be the first to have the vision, the bearing and the greatness to say “I will have nothing to do with this destruction of life, I will play no part in this devastation of the land, I am determined to live and work for peaceful construction for I am morally responsible for the world of today and the generations of tomorrow.” -Richard St Barbe Baker
Yes, one more point. When we look around the world and we see the degree of deforestation, we see climate change, we feel in our gut level the weather patterns changing, we realize we’re the last generation on Earth that’s going to have a chance to save the rainforest, to orchestrate the paradigm shift to ecologically sustainable society that is socially just. So, to the young people out in the world: there is reason for hope! We can make this paradigm shift, we can make this ecological U-turn, we can build an ecological utopia on this planet, and in many respects we can do it within our lifetime! We could have, in 10 to 20 years, virtually all of our energy from renewable energy, all of our transportation shifting towards mass transportation, industrial agriculture replaced with organic agriculture that’s soil-building and not soil-destroying. These are components of the solution, so we have to get out there and do it! -Randy Hayes, March 2010 (from a Tampa radio interview)
Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. -Goethe
We need yours! -David R. Brower
The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. -Eleanor Roosevelt
Those who believe they can do something and those who believe they can’t are both right. -Henry Ford
Any fool can destroy trees. They cannot defend themselves or run away…. God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand storms; but he cannot save them from sawmills and fools; this is left to the…people!” -John Muir, 1900
This is the true joy in life: the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one. The being a force of nature rather than a feverish, selfish clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do what I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die…for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It is sort of a spendid torch which I’ve got a hold of for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations. -George Bernard Shaw
Advice to frazzled environmentalists:
Do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am–a reluctant enthusiast, a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the environment; it is important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, that lovely, mysterious and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to your body, the body active and alive, and I promise you one sweet victory over our enemies, over those deskbound men with their hearts in a safe deposit box and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this: You will outlive the bastards. -Edward Abbey
You ask, What is our aim? I can answer in one word — victory. Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival. -Winston Churchill, May 13, 1940
When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace. -Jimi Hendrix
Our intellect has created a new world that dominates nature, and has populated it with monstrous machines. -Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961), Man and His Symbols, 1964
I am pessimistic about the human race because it is too ingenious for its own good. Our approach to nature is to beat it into submission. We would stand a better chance of survival if we accommodated ourselves to this planet and viewed it appreciatively instead of skeptically and dictatorially. -E.B. White (1899-1985)
Our destruction of nature is not just bad stewardship, or stupid economics, or a betrayal of family responsibility; it is the most horrid blasphemy. It is flinging God’s gifts into His face, as if they were of no worth beyond that assigned to them by our destruction of them. -Wendell Berry, “Christianity and the Survival of Creation,” Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community, 1992
The more we extend the sphere of activities about which we can say “This is not for sale” or “I can’t put a price on this”, the richer are our individual and our social lives. -Andre Gorz
When it is dark enough, you can see the stars. -Charles Austin Beard
A human being is a part of a whole, called by us ‘universe’, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest… a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. -Albert Einstein
