Top 676 Quotes & Sayings by Famous Environmentalists - Page 2

Every policy is shaped by two forces: background analysis and foreground politics. The political forces are loud, self-serving and, in the case of energy policy, well known.

The rational man finds that his share of the cost of the wastes he discharges into the commons is less than the cost of purifying his wastes before releasing them.

The truth of the matter is, the birds could very well live without us, but many -- perhaps all -- of us would find life incomplete, indeed almost intolerable without the birds.

A finite world can support only a finite population; therefore, population growth must eventually equal zero.

When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on Earth and aren't pessimistic, you don't understand the data.

We live on a human-dominated planet, putting unprecedented pressure on the systems on Earth.

This song of the waters is audible to every ear, but there is other music in these hills, by no means audible to all. On a still night, when the campfire is low and the Pleiades have climbed over rimrocks, sit quietly and listen, and think hard of everything you have seen and tried to understand. Then you may hear it - a vast pulsing harmony - its score inscribed on a thousand hills, its notes the lives and deaths of plants and animals, its rhythms spanning the seconds and the centuries.

He who pays the piper can call the tunes.

Normally I don't race other people; I challenge the environment and my own limitations.

Moreover, the practical recommendations deduced from ecological principles threaten the vested interests of commerce; it is hardly surprising that the financial and political power created by these investments should be used sometimes to suppress environmental impact studies.

The 20th century was the time when the world turned to use of fossil fuels and the 21st century will be the century of the renewables.

I have learned to accept that, in the present moment at least, things are exactly as they are meant to be, and although I cannot control the future any more than I could control the wind and the weather, I can manage it and influence it in a positive way.

The optimum human population of earth is zero.

I can't think of anything more important than the environment we leave to our children and our children's children.

Beijing was such a different city. There were so few cars, I could walk in the middle of the road. In the summer, the streetlamps attracted swirling bugs. I loved those bugs: crickets, praying mantis, all kinds of beetles. I also have a vivid memory of dazzling sunlight coming out of the sky.

The mountains are calling and I must go.

We need to move away from crass, consumption-driven materialism by de-materialising status

A combination of very rapid population growth over the last 50 years and reckless economic growth during the same time has stored up massive problems for societies the world over. No nation is immune. The scientific evidence tells us all we need to know: carry on with business-as-usual growth-at-all-costs, and we're stuffed

There is no cost difference between incarceration and an Ivy League education; the main difference is curriculum.

The attention of a traveller, should be particularly turned, in the first place, to the various works of Nature, to mark the distinctions of the climates he may explore, and to offer such useful observations on the different productions as may occur.

It's not enough simply to wear the badge of corporate responsibility. Business must accept that real change is the only response to climate change and other environmental crises

Everyone knows the link between the environment and their own health.

Humanity is the cancer of nature.

Climate change is the Everest of all problems, the thorniest challenge facing humankind.

Commercial fishermen are the greediest, stupidest people on earth.

Until four years ago, in fact, I was absolutely in love with the atom.

Emissions of greenhouse gases warm the planet, altering the carbon and water cycles. A warmer ocean stores more heat, providing more fuel for hurricanes. A warmer atmosphere holds more water, bringing dangerous deluges. Rising sea levels threaten coastal zones.

Birds, it must be admitted, are the most exciting and most deserving of the vertebrates; they are perhaps the best entre into the study of natural history, and a very good wedge into conservation awareness.

In wildness is the salvation of the world.

I have seen what is to come in this world and I understand how I fit in. I fit in protecting the animals because many more are to die before we all stand up. I see who I have become because I had to die to be able to let go of consciousness.

I am unapologetic about asking people to connect up their own responsibility for their total environmental footprint and how they decide to procreate and how many children they think are appropriate.

Climate change is not an environmental issue, but much more to do with security and economics

Good words cool more than cold water.

Just because your direction has never been clear to you does not mean that you must give up.

If we bestow but a very little attention to the economy of the animal creation, we shall find manifest examples of premeditation, perseverance, resolution, and consumate artifice, in order to effect their purpose.

We deeply regret that some Senators are still willing to do Big Oil?s bidding, and we now turn to the House where the Arctic drilling scheme should be dead on arrival. Americans are clamoring for a clean Congress and a clean energy plan, but sadly they were shortchanged on both today.

Birds ... are sensitive indicators of the environment, a sort of "ecological litmus paper," ... The observation and recording of bird populations over time lead inevitably to environmental awareness and can signal impending changes.

Over the years, the diamond industry has had a devastating impact in countries such as Sierra Leone, Angola and the Congo, where profits from the sale of diamonds have been used to fund brutal wars, with disastrous effects on local communities.

Besides alligators, the only animals to be feared are the poisonous serpents. These are certainly common enough in the forest, but no fatal accident happened during the whole time of my residence.

If we don't overthrow capitalism, we don't have a chance of saving the world ecologically.

There is no such thing as a dangerous woman; there are only susceptible men.

A few years ago I wrote two versions of my obituary, the one I wanted and the one I was heading for. They were very different. I realized I needed to make some big changes if I was going to look back and be proud of my life. I am making those changes, and now I have a life worth living.

We've been given a warning by science, and a wake-up call by nature; it is up to us now to heed them.

When a man wantonly destroys one of the works of man we call him a vandal. When he destroys one of the works of god we call him a sportsman.

I'm a mother, and my life is very full.

My three main goals would be to reduce human population to about 100 million worldwide, destroy the industrial infrastructure and see wilderness, with it's full complement of species, returning throughout the world.

If you told Exxon or Lukoil that, in order to avoid wrecking the climate, they couldn't pump out their reserves, the value of their companies would plummet.

My heroes used to be cowboys.

Every child should have mud pies, grasshoppers, water bugs, tadpoles, frogs, mud turtles, elderberries, wild strawberries, acorns, chestnuts, trees to climb. Brooks to wade, water lilies, woodchucks, bats, bees, butterflies, various animals to pet, hayfields, pine-cones, rocks to roll, sand, snakes, huckleberries and hornets; and any child who has been deprived of these has been deprived of the best part of education.

Trees are being saved because of the Kindle.

It's amazing how resourceful you can become when you're in the middle of the ocean and there's only one way to get to the other side.

The snow itself is lonely or, if you prefer, self-sufficient. There is no other time when the whole world seems composed of one thing and one thing only.

Nations are in effect ceding portions of their sovereignty to the international community and beginning to create a new system of international environmental governance.

The popular notion is that Americans are addicted to fossil fuels, but I find that's not true; most people would be happy to power their lives with anything else.

What a man knows is everywhere at war with what he wants.

The land is not in the least bit fertile and yet the cattle herds grow larger and larger. A cow represents capital investment here.

I'm a plant eater.

Conservation is a state of harmony between men and land.

When I'm in London, I get a veggie-box sent up every week, with the latest pickings.

Continuity is at the heart of conservatism: ecology serves that heart.