Sustainable Development Quotes - Page 7

• This is the new politics. Personal responsibility. Not leaving it to others. I am my planet's keeper.

  Hilary Benn

  Future, Responsibility, Leaving

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• The moral imperative to make big changes is inescapable...that what we take for granted may not be here for our children

  Al Gore

  Children, Future, Vision

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• The 'Big Green Debate' has entered a very interesting stage. Once there was endless controversy; now there is near unanimity. Once there was universal political indifference; now the bandwagon is abrim with politicians in catch-up mode. Once the media were semi-detached: now they're really getting stuck in. And they need to be! Many people are confused and disempowered, and the role of the media in getting then informed and engaged is critical

  Jonathon Porritt

  Confused, Future, Media

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• Fifteen per cent of the population believe the moon landing was actually staged in a movie lot in Arizona and somewhat fewer still believe the Earth is flat. I think they all get together with the global warming deniers on a Saturday night and party

  Al Gore

  Believe, Future, Party

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• If our economies are to flourish, if global poverty is to be banished, and if the wellbeing of the world's people enhanced - not just in this generation but in succeeding generations - we must make sure we take care of the natural environment and resources on which our economic activity depends.

  Gordon Brown

  Future, People, Vision

  Gordon Brown's speech to foreign finance and environment ministers on climate change, www.theguardian.com. March 15, 2005.

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• For the first time in human history, society has the capacity, the knowledge and the resources to eradicate poverty

  Thabo Mbeki

  Future, Vision, Poverty

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• Our life as consumers seems light years away from that of our grandparents. But you don't change human nature. Optimism, for me, is the belief that we can spread the opportunity for everyone to be fully human. Sustainability, like music, is an impulse to make sense of the world around us. It is core to our humanity. If you only like one composer, or think all the best music has already been written, you have reason for pessimism. If not, it is within us to have good reason for hope

  Ed Mayo

  Future, Thinking, Opportunity

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• We have a situation where we are rich really as a world overall, and yet we have the capacity to destroy ourselves, either through nuclear weapons or through environmental degradation, and we allow the life chances of hundreds of millions of people to be destroyed because we haven't found the will to tackle it

  Tony Blair

  Future, People, Vision

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• We know the problems, and we know the solution: sustainable development. The issue is the political will.

  Tony Blair

  Future, Political Will, Issues

  "Can she sustain it?" by Jonathon Porritt, www.theguardian.com. September 30, 2002.

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• Humankind has the science and technology to destroy itself or to provide prosperity for all. But while science offers us these opportunities, science will not make that choice for us. Only the moral power of a world acting as a community can

  Margaret Beckett

  Future, Technology, Opportunity

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• In 1966 Rolf Edberg wrote "This is mankind's home", "in the narrow borderland between the deathly heat beneath our feet and the coldness of space above us". He describes the fragility of our existence in poetic terms: "the atmospheric layer is so thin that it cannot be represented on any globe with even the finest brushstroke. At its thickest, it is only a few fractions of a millionth of the Earth's radius. This thin layer is what makes the difference between our planet and the sterile landscape of the moon." After reading that, one does feel the need to take better care of this fragile layer.

  Margot Wallstrom

  Reading, Home, Moon

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• I became very interested [in philosophy] after attending the U.N. Conference on sustainable development in Brazil.I'm very concerned about climate change and the world reaching a tipping point. And, I see other people who really just want to survive to make it to the next election, rather than making means of change.

  Nick Offerman

  Philosophy, Mean, People

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• Investing in women's lives is an investment in sustainable development, in human rights, in future generations - and consequently in our own long-term national interests.

  Liya Kebede

  Rights, Long, Generations

  "Let’s Make Mother’s Day a Global Reality" by Liya Kebede, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 7, 2009.

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• Respect for human rights requires transparent and accountable institutions and governance as well as the effective participation of all individuals and civil society, who are an essential part of realizing social and people-centred sustainable development.

  Alfred-Maurice de Zayas

  Rights, People, Essentials

  "India: Urgent Call to Halt Odisha Mega-Steel Project Amid Serious Human Rights Concerns". "Alfred de Zayas' Human Rights Corner" blog, dezayasalfred.wordpress.com. October 01, 2013.

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• Ever more people are alert to the challenge of global poverty and global warming. We know that solutions are at hand. We will not sleepwalk into catastrophe. We have the capacity to forsee and forestall, and I believe we will find the will to act

  Jonathan Dimbleby

  Future, Believe, Hands

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• The era of procrastination...is coming to a close...we are entering a period of consequences - Winston Churchill (warning about the danger of appeasement

  Al Gore

  Procrastination, Entering, Warning

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• ...the core values that underpin sustainable development - interdependence, empathy, equity, personal responsibility and intergenerational justice - are the only foundation upon which any viable vision of a better world can possibly be constructed

  Jonathon Porritt

  Responsibility, Justice, Empathy

  Jonathon Porritt (2012). “Capitalism as If the World Matters”, p.347, Routledge

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• Under the current high energy / high entropy regime, sustainable development is a joke.

  James Howard Kunstler

  Energy, Development, Regimes

  Source: www.raisethehammer.org

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• Professional accountants should use that influence to encourage the companies they serve to think long term and integrate sustainable development goals into their accounting, such as by including a natural capital account, which I have heard is gaining ground.

  Kofi Annan

  Thinking, Goal, Long

  Source: www.accaglobal.com

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• Since problems spill across borders, security anywhere depends on sustainable development everywhere.

  Ban Ki-moon

  Environmental, Borders, Border Security

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• Quite apart from our desire to avoid destroying the planet or economic meltdown, I offer another reason to position cooperation at the heart of our political economy: it will mean we are more likely to live sane, fruitful lives

  Oliver James

  Future, Mean, Heart

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• Do we have to wait until a disaster overwhelms us before we make the radical changes necessary to protect our world for future generations? That is the vital challenge of sustainable development. If we act now there is much that can be saved which will otherwise disappear forever

  John Gummer

  Future, Our World, Waiting

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• 'Sustainable Development' is an oxymoron. 'Development' in all it's senses entails expansion and wanting more. Continual expansion and wanting more are unsustainable. Globally we are approaching the point when the only sustainable way forward is to want less. Indeed, the choice element may be removed from us and we will just have to have less. In the meantime we still have some choices about how to influence our future

  Don Johnston

  Future, Way Forward, Choices

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• For those who believe that ecological disaster will somehow be averted, it must also be clear that, over the next decade or so, sustainable development will constitute one of the biggest opportunities in the history of commerce. And innovation will be the name of the game.

  Stuart L. Hart

  Believe, Opportunity, Names

  Stuart L. Hart (2010). “Capitalism at the Crossroads: Next Generation Business Strategies for a Post-Crisis World”, p.52, FT Press

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• Preservation of the environment, promotion of sustainable development and particular attention to climate change are matters of grave concern for the entire human family. No nation or business sector can ignore the ethical implications present in all economic and social development. With increasing clarity scientific research demonstrates that the impact of human actions in any one place or region can have worldwide effects.

  Pope Benedict XVI

  Impact, Environmental, Attention

  Pope Benedict XVI's Letter to the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople on the Occasion of the Seventh Symposium of the Religion, Science and the Environment Movement, w2.vatican.va. September 1, 2007.

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