Ramez Naam Quotes

Quotes about:

• Playing God is actually the highest expression of human nature. The urges to improve ourselves, to master our environment, and to set our children on the best path possible have been the fundamental driving forces of all of human history. Without these urges to ‘play God’, the world as we know it wouldn’t exist today.

  Ramez Naam

  Children, Expression, Play

  14 Copy quote

• There are really two kinds of optimism. There's the complacent, Pollyanna optimism that says "don't worry - everything will be just fine" and that allows one to just lay back and do nothing about the problems around you. Then there's what we call dynamic optimism. That's an optimism based on action.

  Ramez Naam

  Two, Optimism, Worry

  "Q&A with Ramez Naam: Dialogues on the Environment". Interview with Mark Tercek, bigthink.com.

  4 Copy quote

• When it comes to trying to manage how our entire planet-wide market and all the people and businesses in it deal with nature and our natural resources - we first and foremost need to change the incentives.

  Ramez Naam

  People, Trying, Needs

  "Q&A with Ramez Naam: Dialogues on the Environment". Interview with Mark Tercek, bigthink.com.

  4 Copy quote

• I was much more of a naïve techno-optimist than I am now. I still believe that technology can help us come out of this situation with a richer humanity with less impact on the planet, but now I think it has to be paired with effective policy in order to achieve that.

  Ramez Naam

  Believe, Technology, Thinking

  "Q&A with Ramez Naam: Dialogues on the Environment". Interview with Mark Tercek, bigthink.com.

  7 Copy quote

• Technology is incredibly powerful. And in many ways, the sky is the limit in terms of what you can actually accomplish with the right science and the right technology.

  Ramez Naam

  Powerful, Technology, Sky

  "Q&A with Ramez Naam: Dialogues on the Environment". Interview with Mark Tercek, bigthink.com.

  4 Copy quote

• Whatever my current beliefs are, on any topic, they're all open to being changed by the right facts and the right evidence.

  Ramez Naam

  Topics, Facts, Belief

  "Q&A with Ramez Naam: Dialogues on the Environment". Interview with Mark Tercek, bigthink.com.

  4 Copy quote

• Today, our incentives aren't set up well - you can make a lot of money burning fossil fuels, digging up wetlands, pumping fossil water out of aquifers that will take 10,000 years to recharge, overfishing species in international waters that are close to collapse, and so on.

  Ramez Naam

  Aquifers, Years, Water

  "Q&A with Ramez Naam: Dialogues on the Environment". Interview with Mark Tercek, bigthink.com.

  23 Copy quote

• I decided five years ago that I wanted to truly understand, for myself, what the state of the planet was, and when I dug into it, what I found was quite different than I'd imagined.

  Ramez Naam

  Years, Different, Planets

  "Q&A with Ramez Naam: Dialogues on the Environment". Interview with Mark Tercek, bigthink.com.

  6 Copy quote

• That, to me, is a kind of brilliant environmental ju-jitsu - using the energy of the market and the profit-motive to get businesses to invest in preserving and improving natural systems.

  Ramez Naam

  Environmental, Energy, Brilliant

  "Q&A with Ramez Naam: Dialogues on the Environment". Interview with Mark Tercek, bigthink.com.

  6 Copy quote

• When you're managing a large number of people, you learn that incentives matter tremendously. You really want people to be rewarded for doing the right thing for the customers and the organization.

  Ramez Naam

  Organization, Numbers, People

  "Q&A with Ramez Naam: Dialogues on the Environment". Interview with Mark Tercek, bigthink.com.

  6 Copy quote

• Agriculture is the #1 source of deforestation. By some estimates it accounts for 80% of the forests chopped down in the tropics.

  Ramez Naam

  Agriculture, Forests, Source

  Source: bigthink.com

  56 Copy quote

• Often an idea has impact far larger than the person who originated it.

  Ramez Naam

  Impact, Ideas, Persons

  "Dialogues on the Environment: Q&A with Ramez Naam". Interview with Mark Tercek, blog.nature.org. July 1, 2013.

  6 Copy quote

• Often we need to use policy to level the playing field, or to be sure that a technology is managed in a responsible way.

  Ramez Naam

  Technology, Way, Fields

  "Dialogues on the Environment: Q&A with Ramez Naam". Interview with Mark Tercek, blog.nature.org. July 1, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

• TNC was once limited by the resources it could directly marshal to buy land. But teaching people a new idea is incredibly more scalable.

  Ramez Naam

  Teaching, Land, Ideas

  "Q&A with Ramez Naam: Dialogues on the Environment". Interview with Mark Tercek, bigthink.com.

  4 Copy quote

• The more widely you can spread this notion of achieving ROI by preserving and improving ecosystems, the better.

  Ramez Naam

  Ecosystems, Roi, Achieve

  "Q&A with Ramez Naam: Dialogues on the Environment". Interview with Mark Tercek, bigthink.com.

  4 Copy quote

• By focusing on teaching businesses about the ROI they can achieve by preserving and investing in nature, you're expanding the scope of the impact you can have.

  Ramez Naam

  Teaching, Impact, Roi

  "Q&A with Ramez Naam: Dialogues on the Environment". Interview with Mark Tercek, bigthink.com.

  4 Copy quote

• I think the environmental movement is now so large and diverse that it's hard to talk of it as a single entity.

  Ramez Naam

  Thinking, Environmental, Movement

  "Q&A with Ramez Naam: Dialogues on the Environment". Interview with Mark Tercek,

  4 Copy quote

• If the incentives are aligned right - towards better preservation and restoration of nature and natural resources - then you'll see a tremendous amount of activity in that direction.

  Ramez Naam

  Restoration, Incentives, Natural

  "Q&A with Ramez Naam: Dialogues on the Environment". Interview with Mark Tercek, bigthink.com.

  4 Copy quote

• New technology lets you grow the resource pie, which is the only way you can get out between that pincer of rising consumption (as we end poverty) and environmental and natural resource depletion.

  Ramez Naam

  Technology, Pie, Environmental

  "Q&A with Ramez Naam: Dialogues on the Environment". Interview with Mark Tercek, bigthink.com.

  5 Copy quote

• Ozone and climate are global issues, and it's hard to find a way in which the benefits of shutting down carbon emissions are going to pay for themselves for any given power-plant, say.

  Ramez Naam

  Carbon Emissions, Issues, Ozone

  "Q&A with Ramez Naam: Dialogues on the Environment". Interview with Mark Tercek, bigthink.com.

  4 Copy quote

• Just like you could dump oil into the Cuyahoga in the 60s and let someone else foot the bill, today you can pump CO2 into the atmosphere and let the whole world foot the bill.

  Ramez Naam

  Oil, Feet, Atmosphere

  "Q&A with Ramez Naam: Dialogues on the Environment". Interview with Mark Tercek, bigthink.com.

  4 Copy quote

• We have climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions, mostly from human power and transportation infrastructure. At the same time, we have 2 billion people who live in energy poverty.

  Ramez Naam

  People, Energy, Climate

  "Q&A with Ramez Naam: Dialogues on the Environment". Interview with Mark Tercek, bigthink.com.

  4 Copy quote

• Doom yourself to horrific climate change by burning all that carbon and releasing all that CO2. Or power down society, reducing total energy usage around the planet. One leads to ecological collapse. The other is a reversion, in many ways, to poverty.

  Ramez Naam

  Energy, Climate, Burning

  "Q&A with Ramez Naam: Dialogues on the Environment". Interview with Mark Tercek, bigthink.com.

  4 Copy quote

• You have to be able to generate usable energy without greenhouse gas emissions and you have to be able to do it cheaply if you want people to choose that approach.

  Ramez Naam

  People, Energy, Want

  "Q&A with Ramez Naam: Dialogues on the Environment". Interview with Mark Tercek, bigthink.com.

  4 Copy quote

• If your incentives are set up wrong - if for some reason you reward people for behavior that's actually bad for your customers or your organization - then you're going to encourage that behavior.

  Ramez Naam

  Organization, People, Incentives

  "Q&A with Ramez Naam: Dialogues on the Environment". Interview with Mark Tercek, bigthink.com.

  4 Copy quote

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