Natural Resources Quotes - Page 3

• We assume that everything's becoming more efficient, and in an immediate sense that's true; our lives are better in many ways. But that improvement has been gained through a massively inefficient use of natural resources.

  Paul Hawken

  Environmental, Use, Way

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• The world can, in effect, get along without natural resources, so exhaustion is just an event, not a catastrophe.

  Robert Solow

  Events, World, Natural

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• The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth -- he could at the same time and by the same means adventure his wealth in the natural resources and new enterprise of any quarter of the world -- he could secure forthwith, if he wished, cheap and comfortable means of transit to any country or climate without passport or other formality.

  John Maynard Keynes

  Country, Morning, Peace

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• Imperialism creates the illusion of wealth as far as the masses are concerned. It usually serves to hide the fact that the ruling classes are gobbling up the natural resources of the home territory in an improvident manner and are otherwise utilizing the national wealth largely for their own purposes. Eventually the general public is called upon to pay for all of this, frequently after the military machine can no longer maintain external aggression.

  Jack D. Forbes

  Military, Home, Class

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• With so much evidence of depleting natural resources, toxic waste, climate change, irreparable harm to our food chain and rapidly increasing instances of natural disasters, why do we keep perpetuating the problem? Why do we continue marching at the same alarming beat?

  Yehuda Berg

  Irreparable Harm, Toxic Waste, Climate

  "What the @#$% is Going On?" by Yehuda Berg, www.huffingtonpost.com. July 10, 2010.

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• I get upset when so many people say there are all sorts of problems in Africa and India where they have these big families. They don't realize that 10 children in rural Tanzania will use less natural resources in a year than one middle class American child. People don't think like that.

  Jane Goodall

  Children, Thinking, Years

  "Exclusive Interview with Dr. Jane Goodall". Interview with Marianne Schnall, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 1, 2010.

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• I don't think anybody has the right to a huge family. There's already more people on the planet than our natural resources can even support, and if everybody were to have a high standard of living, we need three or four or five new planets to provide the resources. And this cannot be, so something has to change.

  Jane Goodall

  Thinking, People, Support

  Interview with Marianne Schnall, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 1, 2010.

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• I am tired of the warmakers making war with our children. I am tired of our tired troops being sent over to do the dirty work for mob bosses who are going to squeeze the life out of Iraq and not leave until every asset and every natural resource has been raped from the country. I am tired of seeing Iraqis burying their loved ones and hearing the reverberating screams of mothers all over our country who are being destroyed for the benefit of a very few.

  Cindy Sheehan

  Mother, Country, Children

  Personal Blog, January 15, 2007.

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• The quicker we all realize that we've been taught how to live life by people that were operating on the momentum of an ignorant past the quicker we can move to a global ethic of community that doesn't value invented borders or the monopolization of natural resources, but rather the goal of a happier more loving humanity.

  Joe Rogan

  Live Life, Moving, Past

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• For a Canadian, natural resources were a good fit.

  Peter Munk

  Fit, Natural, Resources

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• The people of the United States will not tolerate another deep depression that arises not from any lack of natural resources, productive capacity or man and brain power, but solely from imperfections in the functioning of the system of finance capitalism.

  Benjamin Graham

  Men, People, Imperfection

  "Storage and Stability". Book by Benjamin Graham, Part V, Chapter XIX, The Reservoir Plan and Tradition, p. 234, 1937.

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• You really do have to wonder whether a few years from now we’ll look back at the first decade of the 21st century — when food prices spiked, energy prices soared, world population surged, tornados plowed through cities, floods and droughts set records, populations were displaced and governments were threatened by the confluence of it all — and ask ourselves: What were we thinking? How did we not panic when the evidence was so obvious that we’d crossed some growth/climate/natural resource/population redlines all at once?

  Thomas Friedman

  Thinking, Government, Years

  "The Earth Is Full". www.nytimes.com. June 7, 2011.

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• Countries don't go out of business....The infrastructure doesn't go away, the productivity of the people doesn't go away, the natural resources don’t go away. And so their assets always exceed their liabilities, which is the technical reason for bankruptcy. And that's very different from a company.

  Walter Wriston

  Country, People, Going Away

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• Natural resources are so vast that no single individual or business is going to protect them; they don't have an incentive to.

  William Weld

  Business, Incentives, Individual

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• When you meet a head of state, and you say, 'What is your most precious natural resource?' they will not say children at first, and then when you say, 'children,' they will pretty quickly agree with you.

  Nicholas Negroponte

  Children, Firsts, Natural

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• No "natural" resource is more precious and to be used more wisely than time. These mortal moments matter more than we know. There are no idle hours; there are only idle people. In true righteousness there is serenity, but there is an array of reminders that the "sacred present" is packed with possibilities which are slipping by us, which are going away from us each moment.

  Neal A. Maxwell

  People, Serenity, Balance

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• There's no country in the world that's more devastated from natural resources than Afghanistan.

  Jim Fowler

  Country, World, Natural

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• For conservation to succeed, we must embrace conservation models where people use their natural resources to create jobs, to grow economies, and to feed their people while protecting wildlife and Africa's iconic species.

  David Jeremiah Barron

  Jobs, People, Succeed

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• We can't leave people in abject poverty, so we need to raise the standard of living for 80% of the world's people, while bringing it down considerably for the 20% who are destroying our natural resources.

  Jane Goodall

  People, Environmental, Needs

  "Summit Says: Instant Interviews". www.dailysummit.net. August 26, 2002.

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• Devastation could arise insidiously, rather than suddenly, through unsustainable pressure on energy supplies, food, water and other natural resources. Indeed, these pressures are the prime 'threats without enemies' that confront us.

  Martin Rees

  Water, Enemy, Devastation

  "The global village will have its village idiots". The European Interview, www.theeuropean-magazine.com. December 13, 2012.

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• Obviously Muslim societies, like societies elsewhere, are becoming increasingly urban, many are becoming industrial, but since so many have oil and gas, they don't have a great impetus. But again, the revenue that natural resources produce gives them the capability and so countries like Iran are beginning to develop an industrial component.

  Samuel P. Huntington

  Country, Iran, Oil

  Interview With Amina Chaudary, www.theislamicmonthly.com. June 17, 2012.

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• The American Colossus was fiercely intent on appropriating and exploiting the riches of all continents - grasping with both hands, reaping where he had not sown, wasting what he thought would last forever. New railroads were opening new territory. The exploiters were pushing farther and farther into the wilderness. The man who could get his hands on the biggest slice of natural resources was the best citizen. Wealth and virtue were supposed to trot in double harness.

  Gifford Pinchot

  Men, Hands, Land

  Gifford Pinchot (1998). “Breaking New Ground”, p.23, Island Press

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• The natural resources we've depended on, if the places where they exist are not stable, our own livelihood and our health is put at risk.

  Jeff Corwin

  Risk, Natural, Resources

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• I spent the first years working in Jordan trying to learn as much as I could about what was taking place in the country, about where there were gaps in the development process that needed attention. Inevitably, there were certain common denominators which are fairly common to all developing societies, perhaps to all societies: that quality education be accessible to everyone, not just a limited elite few; the sustainable conservation of natural resources; the full engagement of women in national development; and the value of cross-cultural exchange and understanding to international relations.

  Queen Noor of Jordan

  Country, Years, Understanding

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• Food security is an authentically human requirement. Guaranteeing it for present and future generations also means safeguarding ourselves against the uncontrolled exploitation of natural resources. Indeed, the process of consumption and waste seems to overlook any concern for ... biodiversity, which is so important for agriculture.

  Pope Benedict XVI

  Mean, Land, Agriculture

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