earth quotes

The following are some quotes that I find interesting which critcizes the interaction between our environment and people.

"Rivers have what man most respects and longs for in his own life and thought - a capacity for renewal and replenishment, continual energy, creativity, and cleansing."

~John M. Kauffman EPA Journal May 1981

"The problem with technology, from expansion bolts to nuclear power plants, is that it must be used to correct the errors it invites."

~ David Brower Let the Mountains Talk, Let the Rivers Run; Harper Collins, 1995

"The rainforest has plants and animals found nowhere else in the world. It has medicines found nowhere found nowhere else. It also helps us breathe."

~Michael Kramer, third grader, Mother Earth News March-April 1990

"The solution to pollution is local self-reliance."

~David Moore, Utne Reader Nov-Dec 1989

"Do not dishonor the earth, lest you dishonor the spirit of man."

~Henry Beston 1928

"Earth gives life and seeks the man who walks gently upon it."

~Hopi Legend

"Nature provides a free lunch, but only if we control out appetites."

~William Ruckelshaus, Business Week June 18, 1990

"The world is a sacred vessel which must not be tampered with or grabbed after. To tamper with it is to spoil it, and to grasp it is to lose it."

~Lao Tsu, Sixth Century B.C.

"All things come from earth and to earth they all return."

~Menander 342 B.C.

"I like trees because they seem more resigned to the way they have to live then other things do."

~Willa Cather, O Pioneets!, 1913

"More than anything else, my study of the environment has led me to realize the extrent to which our current public discourse is focused on the shortest of short-term values and encourages the American people to join us politicians in avoiding the most important issues and postponing the real difficult choices."

~Al Gore Earth in the Balance; Houghton-Mifflin, 1992

"More people need ot understand that milk does not come from a plastic container or water from a valve, or gasoline from a throttle."

~Let the Mountains Talk, Le the Rivers Run; Harper Collins, 1995

"Life originated in the sea, and about eighty percent of it is still there."

~Isaac Asimov 1988

"Plans are the dreams of the wise."

~German Proverb

"Waste is a terrible thing to mind - recycle!"

~A bumpersticker

"Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed."

~Mohandas Ghandi, quoted in E.F. Schumacher's Small is Beautiful 1973

"Paper recylcing has become a vital tool for restoring the natural balances of the world's forests. Not only are trees left standing, but the myriad species who live in them, below them, and among them will be left livingj. The forest's ability to moderate local climates by absorbing and releasing water will be maintained its ability to anchor soil and reduce erosion will continue, and its aesthetic value will be preserved."

~State of the World 1996 Worldwatch Institute Report

"Consider that the word ecology comes from the Greek word for "home" (eikos). An ecological awakening is an awakening about our true home. And our true home is the Unverse itself."

~Matthew Fox, The Reinvention of Work; Harper, 1994

"Gallons of water needed to produce 1 pound of hamburger: 2,500. Pounds of fruits and vegetables this water could produce: over 50."

~In Context Magazine, #42

"I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of the whole human being."

~Abraham Lincoln

"Operating with the wisdom that humankind is not an island but a strand in the web of life, the Endangered Species Act was established. Its purpose is to offer a meaningful measure of protection for those species that are on the brink of extinction. It mandates that long range protective measures be put into place to guarantee the survival of those species."

~Earth Keepers Leslie Baer-Brown & Bob Rhein Mercury House 1995

"Encounters with nature that reveal our interdependence with other earthly entities (landforms and creatures) may trigger in individuals a new ethic an active commitment to environmental preservation and restoration."

~Florence R. Krall, Ecotones; State of New York Press, 1994

"Those (now alive) born before 1950 have seen more population growth during their lifetimes, than occured during the preceding 4 million years."

~State of the World 1996

"McDonald's changed from styrofoam to paper packaging solely because 2 percent of its customers spoke up."

~Earth Keepers Leslie Baer-Brown & Bob Rhein Mercury House 1995

"Production of chlorofluorocarbons, which deplete the earth's protective ozone layer, fell 77% between 1989 and 1994 in response to determine international efforts to protect the stratosphere."

~State of the World 1996

"Ecotourism is travel with a purpose. Ecotourists travel to exotic locales and play an important role in helping to save endangered species or aiding researchers and ecologists in the field. The Sierra Club is one of the several organizations that offer such opportunities."

~Earth Keepers Leslie Baer-Brown & Bob Rhein Mercury House 1995

"Since 1990 the worldwide insurance industry has paid out $48 million for weather-related losses, compared with losses of $14 million for the entire decade of the eighties."

~State of the World 1996

"In 1880, a decade before the territory of Washington became part of the United States, 19,500 tons of salmon and steel head trout were harvested from the regions most important river, the Columbia. One hundred years later, the harvest was just 50 tons."

~State of the World 1996

"What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered."

~Ralph Waldo Emerson, Fortune of the Republic 1878

"The 50 million people who will be added to the U.S. population over the next forty yearswill have approximately the same global impact in terms of resource consumption as 2 billion poeple in India."

~The Ecology of Commerce Paul Hawken, Harper Business, 1993

"The earth laughs in flowers."

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Trees are the earth's endless effort ot speak to the listening heavens."

~Tagore

"Any fool can destroy a tree. They can't run away."

~John Muir

"On the return trip home, gazing through 240,000 miles of space toward the stars and the planet from which I had come, I suddenly experienced the Universe as intelligent, loving, harmonious."

~Edgar Mitchell U.S. Astronaut in Home Planet, Kevin W. Kelly, Editor

"Industrial countries are responsible for more than 90 percent of the 400 million tons of hazardous waste produced globally each year."

~State of the World 1996

"Wind power, using the new, highly efficient wind turbines to convert wind into electricity, is poised for explosive growth in the years ahead. In California, wind farms already supply enough electricity to meet the equivalent of San Francisco's residential needs."

"It is we alive today who have the responsibility of guiding this species on. It is we who have to find ways to release ourselves from this self-centered phase of our development and open ourselves ot the full significance of the timeless moment - and to the full significance of our present time."

~Peter Russell, The White Hole in Time; Harper, 1992

"Acid rain is the term used to describe rain, sleet, snow, mist, fog, and clouds containing sulfuric acid and nitric acid. In some areas, rain approaches the acidic level of vinegar. This acidification is caused by the burning of coal, oil, and gasoline. When this acidified rain falls to earth, it destroys fish life in lakes and streams, poses a short and long term threat to teh world's forests, and can cause a wide variety of human diseases."

~Green Lifestyle Handbook Jeremy Rifkin, editor 1990, Henry Holt Co.

"Organic gardening is gardening within the natural rhythms of the earth, without the chemical "fix" of artificial pesticides and fertilizers. While chemical applications often increase yields in the short run, many beneficial plants and insects die in the process, imparing the long-term capacity of the garden."

~Green Lifestyle Handbook Jeremy Rifkin, editor 1990 Henry Holt

"Regional water shortages are now common, even though global supplies of water are ample. In 26 countries - home to 230 million people - scarce water limits food production, economic development, sanitation, and environmental protection."

~State of the World 1996

"Life would be so much simpler if we weren't always struggling to clean up our grandparent's messes."

~Brian Tokar, Utne Reader Nov.-Dec. 1989

"Till now man has been up against nature; from now on he will be up against his own nature."

~Dennis Gabor, Inventory of the Future 1963

"To sustain an environment suitable for man, we must fight on a thousand battlegrounds. Despite all of our wealth and knowledge, we cannot create a redwood forest, a wild river, or a gleaming seashore."

~Lyndon Johnson, message to Congress, Feb. 23, 1966

"We have forgotten how to be good guests, how to walk lightly on the earth as its other creatures do."

~Barbara Ward, Only One Earth 1972

"Nature never did betray the heart that loved her."

~William Wordsworth 1788

"Now I see the secret of the makings of the best persons. It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth."

~Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

"If you plant for a year plant rice. If you plan for ten years plant trees. If you plan for 100 years educate your children."

~Chinese Proverb

"Nature is not a temple, but a workshop in which man is the laborer."

~Ivan Turgenev, Smoke 1967

"Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without."

~New England Proverb

"Mother Nature says: 'Clean up your room."

~Anonymous t-shirt slogan

"One touch of nature makes the whole world kin."

~William Shakespeare Troilus and Cressida 1601

"In wilderness I sense the miracle of life, and behind it our scientific accomplishments fade to trivia."

~Charles A. Lindberg, Life December 1967

"In the game of life we only have one world to live on...when it's gone...the game's over."

~Man Seok Salazar a.k.a. "Fil-Kor" (Fillipino-Korean)

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