can one person make a difference

A human being is part of the whole, called by us "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole [of] nature in its beauty.

We have to shift our emphasis from economic efficiency and materialism towards a sustainable quality of life and to healing of our society, of our people and our ecological systems.

Man has been endowed with reason, with the power to create, so that he can add to what he's been given. But up to now he hasn't been a creator, only a destroyer. Forests keep disappearing, rivers dry up, wild life's become extinct, the climate's ruined and the land grows poorer and uglier every day.

Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth.

I have to admit that, until recently, I was somewhat wary of the (global) warming debate. I believe it is now our responsibility to take the lead on this issue.

I drive a hybrid. Tipper and I got a Lexus hybrid. And we have a couple of Priuses in the family with our children. And I encourage people to make environmentally conscious choices because we all have to solve this climate crisis.

The sun, the moon and the stars would have disappeared long ago... had they happened to be within the reach of predatory human hands.

One of the first laws against air pollution came in 1300 when King Edward I decreed the death penalty for burning of coal. At least one execution for that offense is recorded. But economics triumphed over health considerations, and air pollution became an appalling problem in England.

In its broadest ecological context, economic development is the development of more intensive ways of exploiting the natural environment.

This fight against drilling in the Arctic Refuge is a fight about our principles. It’s about standing up for our environment, our families and our future, and I won’t give up this fight.

The artist is the person who invents the means to bridge between biological inheritance and the environments created by technological innovation.

With laissez-faire and price atomic,
Ecology's Uneconomic,
But with another kind of logic
Economy's Unecologic.

Renewable energy is proven technology, the price is dropping, the rest of the world is going that way, that's where our investment should be going as well.

Give a man a fish, and he can eat for a day. But teach a man how to fish, and he'll be dead of mercury poisoning inside of three years.

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.

We have been god-like in the planned breeding of our domesticated plants, but rabbit-like in the unplanned breeding of ourselves.

When we Indians kill meat, we eat it all up... When we build houses, we make little holes. When we burn grass for grasshoppers, we don't ruin things. We shake down acorns and pine-nuts. We don't chop down the trees.

It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment.

We must be certain that the repair to the environment is sufficient to allow wild species to recover and survive.

Oh Beautiful for smoggy skies, insecticided grain,
For strip-mined mountain's majesty above the asphalt plain.
America, America, man sheds his waste on thee,
And hides the pines with billboard signs, from sea to oily sea.

For a long time, the scientists have been telling us global warming increases the temperature of the top layer in the ocean, and that causes the average hurricane to become a lot stronger. So, the fact that the ocean temperatures did go up because of global warming, because of man-made global warming, starting around in the seventies and then we had a string of unusually strong hurricanes outside the boundaries of this multi-decadal cycle that is a real factor; there are scientists who point that out, and they're right, but we're exceeding those boundaries now.

Temperament lies behind mood; behind will, lies the fate of character. Then behind both, the influence of family the tyranny of culture; and finally the power of climate and environment; and we are free, only to the extent we rise above these.

The difference between animals and humans is that animals change themselves for the environment, but humans change the environment for themselves.

Living simply has resulted in us becoming more aware of the environment and the impact we have on it.