Top 193 Quotes & Sayings by David Suzuki - Page 3

If Canada, one of the richest nations in the world, can't meet Kyoto targets, why should China or India give any considerations for meeting the targets?

The one thing I feel is very hopeful, however, is the overwhelming participation of women in the movement for change.

Human use of fossil fuels is altering the chemistry of the atmosphere; oceans are polluted and depleted of fish; 80 per cent of Earth's forests are heavily impacted or gone yet their destruction continues. An estimated 50,000 species are driven to extinction each year. We dump millions of tonnes of chemicals, most untested for their biological effects, and many highly toxic, into air, water and soil. We have created an ecological holocaust. Our very health and survival are at stake, yet we act as if we have plenty of time to respond.

Conventional economics is a form of brain damage. Economics is so fundamentally disconnected from the real world, it is destructive.

We have become a force of nature Not long ago, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, drought, forest fires, even earthquakes and volcanic explosions were accepted as “natural disasters or “acts of God.” But now, we have joined God, powerful enough to influence these events.

What permaculturists are doing is the most important activity that any group is doing on the planet.

Perhaps the whole world is actually a banquet, to which every living thing is invited. First you come as guests: then eventually you're on the menu.

The current economic system is fundamentally flawed and inevitably destructive.

Conventional economics is a form of brain damage.

Our planet has not seen an extinction crisis as serious as the one in progress for 65 million years.

If we want to move towards a low-polluting, sustainable society, we need to get consumers to think about their purchases.

What permaculturists are doing is the most important activity that any group is doing on the planet. We don't know what details of a truly sustainable future are going to be like, but we need options, we need people experimenting in all kinds of ways and permaculturists are one of the critical gangs that are doing that.

I see a world in the future in which we understand that all life is related to us and we treat that life with great humility and respect.

Other things, like capitalism, free enterprise, the economy, currency, the market, are not forces of nature, we invented them. They are not immutable and we can change them.

So now the challenge is to imagine a different world where our wealth is in human relations and the things we do together, and we learn to live in balance with the rest of nature.

People.. especially people in positions of power.. have invested a tremendous amount of effort and time to get to where they are. They really don't want to hear that we're on the wrong path, that we've got to shift gears and start thinking differently.

We all live downstream

Come on Canada, it's time to kick our bad habits and get into shape!

Debating the best way to do something we shouldn't be doing in the first place is a sure way to end up in the wrong place.

Because we aren't certain about the effects of GMOs, we must consider one of the guiding principles in science, the precautionary principle. Under this principle, if a policy or action could harm human health or the environment, we must not proceed until we know for sure what the impact will be. And it is up to those proposing the action or policy to prove that it is not harmful.

Love is the force that makes us fully human.

We no longer see the world as a single entity. We've moved to cities and we think the economy is what gives us our life, that if the economy is strong we can afford garbage collection and sewage disposal and fresh food and water and electricity. We go through life thinking that money is the key to having whatever we want, without regard to what it does to the rest of the world.

So we draw lines around our property, our counties, our cities, our states, our countries. And, boy, do we act as if those lines are important. I mean, we go to war. We will kill and die to protect those boundaries. Nature couldn't give two hoots about our national boundaries.

The environment is so fundamental to our continued existence that it must transcend politics and become a central value of all members of society.

The terrible part of this looming catastrophe is that people have been working on solutions for years and have developed concrete steps to massively reduce our energy use, while stimulating whole new industries and technologies that are more efficient and affordable.

We now have access to so much information that we can find support for any prejudice or opinion.

There is a gyre of discarded floating plastic the size of the continental USA in the ocean. In it, plastic trash outweighs plankton 40 to 1.

Fukushima is the most terrifying situation I can imagine.

If we humans are good at anything, it’s thinking we’ve got a terrific idea and going for it without acknowledging the potential consequences or our own ignorance.

It is not too late to take another path.

Each time I visit Japan, I am reminded of how Canadian I am and how little racial connection matters.

We are upsetting the atmosphere upon which all life depends. In the late 80s when I began to take climate change seriously, we referred to global warming as a "slowmotion catastrophe" one we expected to kick in perhaps generations later. Instead, the signs of change have accelerated alarmingly.

Human beings are often at their best when responding to immediate crises - car accidents, house fires, hurricanes. We are less effective in the face of enormous but slow-moving crises such as the loss of biodiversity or climate change.

Our choices at all levels-individual, community, corporate and government-affect nature. And they affect us.

If one day I look out from my cabin's porch and see a row of windmills spinning in the distance, I won't curse them. I will praise them. It will mean we are finally getting somewhere.

If we continue to set human borders and the economy as our highest priorities, we will never come to grips with the destructiveness of our activities and institutions.

Canada, more than any nation, will be affected by rising sea levels from global warming.

But human borders mean nothing to air, water, windblown soil or seeds or migrating fish, birds or mammals.

My Prime Minister regards the economy as our highest priority and forgets that economics and ecology are derived from the same Greek word, oikos, meaning household or domain. Ecology is the study of home, while economics is its management. Ecologists try to define the conditions and principles that enable a species to survive and flourish. Yet in elevating the economy above those principles, we seem to think we are immune to the laws of nature. We have to put the ‘eco’ back into economics.

A baby nursing at a mother's breast... is an undeniable affirmation of our rootedness in nature.

Our identity includes our natural world, how we move through it, how we interact with it and how it sustains us.

Each of us now has 2.27 kg (5 lbs) of plastic embedded in our bodies.

Humans are now the most numerous mammal on the planet. There are more humans than rats or mice. Humans have a huge ecological footprint, magnified by their technology.

Economics and a reliance on science and technology to solve our problems has led to an unsustainable situation where continued growth in consumption is required for governments and business to be considered successful. This is a form of insanity. Economics is at the heart of our destructive ways and our faith in it has blinded us

The fact of the matter is that today, stuff-selling mega-corporations have a huge influence on our daily lives. And because of the competitive nature of our global economy, these corporations are generally only concerned with one thing - the bottom line. That is, maximising profit, regardless of the social or environmental costs.

Any scientist who tells you they know that GMOs are safe and not to worry about it, is either ignorant of the history of science or is deliberately lying. Nobody knows what the long-term effect will be.

There are some things in the world we can't change.

Any politician or scientist who tells you these [GMO] products are safe is either very stupid or lying.

The human brain had a vast memory storage. It made us curious and very creative. Those were the characteristics that gave us an advantage - curiosity, creativity and memory. And that brain did something very special. It invented an idea called 'the future.'

Aboriginal people are key because they have a different sense of where we belong and how we interact with nature.

We are playing Russian roulette with features of the planet’s atmosphere that will profoundly impact generations to come. How long are we willing to gamble?

Even meeting Kyoto targets barely makes a dent in what we have to achieve.

Protecting the biosphere should be our highest priority or else we sicken and die.

Less than 10% of the fuel energy burned in automobiles is translated into forward motion of the vehicle and even then most of this energy is needed to move the vehicle itself, which typically weighs 20 times more than its passengers.

On December 7, 1941, an event took place that had nothing to do with me or my family and yet which had devastating consequences for all of us - Japan bombed Pearl Harbour in a surprise attack. With that event began one of the shoddiest chapters in the tortuous history of democracy in North America.

Despite the international scientific community's consensus on climate change, a small number of critics continue to deny that climate change exists or that humans are causing it. Widely known as climate change "skeptics" or "deniers," these individuals are generally not climate scientists and do not debate the science with the climate scientists.

Each of us has the ability to act powerfully for change; together we can restore that ancient and sustaining harmony.

Humanity is facing a challenge unlike any we've ever had to confront. We are in an unprecedented period of change.

Environmentali sm is really about seeing our place in world in a way that humans have always known up until very recently - that we are part of nature-utterly dependent on the natural world for our well being and survival.

We have become a force of nature.