Ecology Quotes - Page 6

• We could have saved the earth, but we were too damned cheap.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Nature, Earth, Environment

  "If This Isn't Nice, What Is?: Advice for the Young". Book by Kurt Vonnegut, 2013.

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• Diversity is a survival factor for the community itself. A community of a hundred million species can survive anything short of total global catastrophe. Within that hundred million will be thousands that could survive a global temperature drop of twenty degrees—which would be a lot more devastating than it sounds. Within that hundred million will be thousands that could survive a global temperature rise of twenty degrees. But a community of a hundred species or a thousand species has almost no survival value at all.

  Daniel Quinn

  Diversity, Community, Survival

  "Ishmael". Book by Daniel Quinn, 1992.

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• Man has been endowed with reason, with the power to create, so that he can add to what he's been given.

  Anton Chekhov

  Inspirational, Men, Wild Life

  'Uncle Vanya' (1897) act 1

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• I hope a start at getting some oil out of the enormous Alaska field isn't indefinitely mired in a bureaucratic morass as a result of our national concern for the ecology. This concern must not be so misguided, misdirected, misused that it serves to stop economic growth, to bankrupt companies, to stifle new development, new jobs, new horizons. In fighting new pollution and stemming present pollution, exciting, sometimes costly means and methods exist and others will evolve. But blanket legislative naysaying to expanding power and energy sources is stupid, self-defeating.

  Malcolm Forbes

  Nature, Jobs, Stupid

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• We're never going to have respectful and reverential relationships with the planet- and sensible policies about what we put in the air, the soil, the water - if very young children don't begin learning about these things literally in their houses, backyards, streets and schools. We need to have human beings who are oriented that way from their earliest memories.

  Elise M. Boulding

  Respect, Children, Memories

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• All nations are degrading and consuming their environment to a point beyond capacity. In the past 15 years in the U.S. we have added 1300 cities with populations over 100,000. When the environment is forced to file Chapter 11, the ecology collapses. Nations recover from war but not from a failed eco-system. The status of our environment is more threatening than all wars. It is forever.

  Gaylord Nelson

  War, Past, Years

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• Today, people are talking about many things: the danger of war and frequent clashes, water and air pollution, hunger, the increasing erosion of moral values, and so on. As a result, many other concerns have come to the fore: peace, contentment, ecology, justice, tolerance, and dialogue. Unfortunately, despite certain promising precautions, those who should be tackling these problems tend to do so by seeking further ways to conquer and control nature and produce more lethal weapons.

  Fethullah Gulen

  War, Erosion, Air

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• The primary threat to nature and people today comes from centralising and monopolising power and control. Not until diversity is made the logic of production will there be a chance for sustainability, justice and peace. Cultivating and conserving diversity is no luxury in our times: it is a survival imperative.

  Vandana Shiva

  Luxury, Justice, Diversity

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• A garden is an awful responsibility. You never know what you may be aiding to grow in it.

  Charles Dudley Warner

  Responsibility, Garden, Essentials

  Charles Dudley Warner (2006). “My Summer in a Garden: Easyread Comfort Edition”, p.28, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• Because we don't think about future generations, they will never forget us.

  Henrik Tikkanen

  Time, Future, Kids

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• Man's heart away from nature becomes hard.

  Standing Bear

  Inspirational, Life, Nature

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• Financial institutions have been merging into a smaller number of very large banks. Almost all banks are interrelated. So the financial ecology is swelling into gigantic, incestuous, bureaucratic banks-when one fails, they all fall. We have moved from a diversified ecology of small banks, with varied lending policies, to a more homogeneous framework of firms that all resemble one another. True, we now have fewer failures, but when they occur... I shiver at the thought.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Fall, Numbers, Financial

  "The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable". Book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, 2007.

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• When I was very young, biology, the diversity of life, was one of my main interests. I know there's this image people have that I'm this spoiled, cocky punk of an actor. Honestly, that's not who I am. I really care that so many species have been wiped out, like genocide of entire races. I believe in the divine right of all species to survive on this planet. So I decided I want to be active as an environmentalist. I learned. I asked experts. I got active.

  Leonardo DiCaprio

  Believe, Cocky, Divine Right

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• From literature to ecology, from the escape velocity of galaxies to the greenhouse effect, from garbage disposal methods to traffic jams, everything is discussed in our world. But the democratic system, as if it were a given fact, untouchable by nature until the end of time, we don't discuss that.

  Jose Saramago

  Garbage Disposal, Our World, Jam

  Jose Saramago's intervention in the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, February 1992.

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• On Earth Day I made a commitment to reduce our emissions of greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by the year 2000. And I asked for a blueprint on how to achieve this goal. In concert with all other nations, we simply must halt global warming. It is a threat to our health, to our ecology, and to our economy. I know that the precise magnitude and patterns of climate change cannot be fully predicted. But global warming clearly is a growing, long-term threat with profound consequences. And make no mistake about it, it will take decades to reverse.

  William J. Clinton

  Mistake, Commitment, Years

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• I am a profound pessimist both about life and about human relations and about politics and ecology. Humans are inadequate and stupid creatures who sooner or later make a mess, and those who are trying to do good do a lot more damage than those who are muddling along.

  A. S. Byatt

  Stupid, Profound, Trying

  FaceBook post by A.S. Byatt from Aug 31, 2011

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• The frontier in space, embodied in the space colony, is one in which the interactions between humans and their environment is so much more sensitive and interactive and less tolerant of irresponsibility than it is on the whole surface of the Earth. We are going to learn how to relate to the Earth and our own natural environment here by looking seriously at space colony ecologies.

  Rusty Schweickart

  Future, Space, Earth

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• Just by being out you're doing your part. It's like recycling. You're doing your part for the environment if you recycle; you're doing your part for the gay movement if you're out.

  Martina Navratilova

  Gay, Movement, Recycling

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• All things are bound together. All things connect.

  Chief Seattle

  Native American, Web Of Life, Earth Day

  Seattle (Chief) (1980). “How can one sell the air?: the manifesto of an Indian chief”, Book Publishing Company (TN)

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• If an economy is to sustain progress, it must satisfy the basic principles of ecology. If it does not, it will decline and eventually collapse. There is no middle ground

  Lester R. Brown

  Progress, Principles, Doe

  Lester R. Brown (2013). “Eco-Economy: Building an Economy for the Earth”, p.77, Routledge

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• Early ecologists soon realised that, since humans are organisms, ecology should include the study of the relationship between humans and the rest of the biosphere. ... We don't often tend to think about the social sciences (history, economics and politics) as subcategories of ecology. But since people are organisms, it is apparent that we must first understand the principles of ecology if we are to make sense of the events in the human world.

  Richard Heinberg

  Thinking, People, Environmental

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• We know from the truths of evolution and ecology that we are all related and interdependent. Anthropomorphism (crediting animals with human emotions and traits) is, however, outdated. Rather we know that we are like animals.

  Michael Fox

  Animal, Emotion, Evolution

  Michael W. Fox (1980). “One Earth, One Mind”, Coward McCann

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• The beginning point at both conferences must be that everything is a woman's issue. That means racism in a woman's issue, just as is anti-Semitism, Palestinian homelessness, rural development, ecology, the persecution of lesbians, and the exploitative practices of global corporations.

  Charlotte Bunch

  Mean, Practice, Issues

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• I realized that Eastern thought had somewhat more compassion for all living things. Man was a form of life that in another reincarnation might possibly be a horsefly or a bird of paradise or a deer. So a man of such a faith, looking at animals, might be looking at old friends or ancestors. In the East the wilderness has no evil connotation; it is thought of as an expression of the unity and harmony of the universe.

  William O. Douglas

  Animal, Men, Compassion

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• We cannot win this battle to save species and environments without forging an emotional bond between ourselves and nature as well - for we will not fight to save what we do not love.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Nature, Fighting, Emotional

  Stephen Jay Gould (1993). “Eight little piggies: reflections in natural history”, Vintage

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