Paul Hawken Quotes - Page 3

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We need to revise our economic thinking to give full value to our natural resources. This revised economics will stabilize both the theory and the practice of free-market capitalism. It will provide business and public policy with a powerful new tool for economic development, profitability, and the promotion of the public good.

Paul Hawken

Powerful, Thinking, Practice

"Capital Gains" by Paul Hawken, www.motherjones.com. March/April 1997.

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In short, industrialism is over.

Paul Hawken

"The Next Reformation". Interview with Sarah van Gelder, Context Institute (p. 17), www.context.org. Summer 1995.

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And also, more and more businesses really want to do the right thing. They feel better about themselves, their workers feel better, and so do their customers. I think this is equally true in the transnational corporations, but it is harder to express in those situations.

Paul Hawken

Feel Better, Thinking, Want

"The Next Reformation". Interview with Sarah van Gelder, www.context.org. 1995.

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The problems to be faced are vast and complex, but come down to this: 6.6 billion people are breeding exponentially. The process of fulfilling their wants and needs is stripping earth of its biotic capacity to produce life; a climactic burst of consumption by a single species is overwhelming the skies, earth, waters, and fauna.

Paul Hawken

Sky, People, Water

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Intelligent policies will be largely self-regulating in the sense that the system of incentives and standards makes it absolutely ludicrous to not move towards clean, internalized systems of cost and production.

Paul Hawken

Moving, Intelligent, Self

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Interestingly, the oil companies know very well that in less than 30 years they will not only be charging very high prices, but that they will be uncompetitive with renewables.

Paul Hawken

Years, Oil, Charging

"The Next Reformation". Interview with Sarah van Gelder, Context Institute (p. 17), www.context.org. Summer 1995.

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Local companies don't have to internalize their costs, and few actually do, but they tend to more often because the owners live there and they have to show their face in town, and their kids play with other kids.

Paul Hawken

Kids, Play, Cost

"The Next Reformation". Interview with Sarah van Gelder, www.context.org. 1995.

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The financial capital is being concentrated by corporations, institutional investors, and even our pension funds, and being reinvested in companies that repeat this process because it provides the highest return on that financial capital.

Paul Hawken

Corporations, Return, Financial

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What we already know frames what we see, and what we see frames what we understand.

Paul Hawken

Insight, Knows

Paul Hawken (2007). “Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Social Movement in History Is Restoring Grace, Justice, and Beau ty to the World”, p.24, Penguin

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People are naming it the Third Wave, the Information Age, etc. but I would say those are basically technological descriptions, and this next shift is not about technology - although obviously it will be influenced and in some cases expressed by technologies.

Paul Hawken

Technology, People, Age

"The Next Reformation". Interview with Sarah van Gelder, www.context.org. 1995.

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There are insistent calls for autonomy, appeals for a new resource ethic based on the tradition of the commons, demands for the reinstatement of cultural primacy over corporate hegemony, and a rising demand for radical transparency in politics and corporate decision making. It has been said that environmentalism failed as a movement, or worse yet, died. It is the other way around. Everyone on earth will be an environmentalist in the not too distant future, driven there by necessity and experience.

Paul Hawken

Decision, Hegemony, Rising

Paul Hawken (2007). “Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Social Movement in History Is Restoring Grace, Justice, and Beau ty to the World”, p.234, Penguin

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The bottom line is down where it belongs – at the bottom. Far above it in importance are the infinite number of events that produce the profit or loss.

Paul Hawken

Appreciation, Loss, Numbers

Paul Hawken (1988). “Growing a Business”, p.21, Simon and Schuster

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It is critical to realize that underlying the extermination of nature is the marginalization of human beings. If we are to save what is wild, what is irreparable and majestic in nature, then we will ironically have to turn to each other and take care of all the human beings here on Earth. There is no boundary that will protect an environment from a suffering humanity.

Paul Hawken

Humanity, Suffering, Earth

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You can blame people who knock things over in the dark or you can begin to light candles. You're only at fault if you know about the problem and choose to do nothing.

Paul Hawken

Healing, Dark, Light

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We assume that everything's becoming more efficient, and in an immediate sense that's true; our lives are better in many ways. But that improvement has been gained through a massively inefficient use of natural resources.

Paul Hawken

Environmental, Use, Way

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That appropriation of resources and the transformation of them into goods and services through the European production system characterized, and characterizes to this day, all industrial systems including the information age.

Paul Hawken

Age, Information, Transformation

"The Next Reformation". Interview with Sarah van Gelder, www.context.org. 1995.

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Green business is not about tie-dyed T-shirts. It's about transforming the industrial system itself into one that looks at all the connections.

Paul Hawken

Ties, Connections, Looks

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We are speeding up our lives and working harder in a futile attempt to buy the time to slow down and enjoy it.

Paul Hawken

Life, Down And, Slow Down

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Most floods are caused by man, not weather; deforestation, levee construction, erosion, and overgrazing all result in the loss of ecosystem services.

Paul Hawken

Loss, Men, Erosion

"Capital Gains". www.motherjones.com. March/April 1997.

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Information from destructive activities going back a hundred years right up until today is being incorporated into the system. And as that happens the underlying framework of industrialism is collapsing and causing disintegration.

Paul Hawken

Years, Information, Today

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Natural capitalism is not about making sudden changes, uprooting institutions, or fomenting upheaval for a new social order. Natural capitalism is about making small, critical choices that can tip economic and social factors in positive ways.

Paul Hawken

Business, Order, Choices

"Natural Capitalism" by Paul Hawken, www.motherjones.com. March\April 1997.

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If you look at the science that describes what is happening on earth today and aren't pessimistic, you don’t have the correct data. If you meet the people in this unnamed movement and aren't optimistic, you haven’t got a heart.

Paul Hawken

Heart, Optimistic, Data

Paul Hawken (2007). “Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Social Movement in History Is Restoring Grace, Justice, and Beau ty to the World”, p.12, Penguin

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What a great time to be born! What a great time to be alive! Because this generation gets to essentially completely change the world.

Paul Hawken

Climate, This Generation, Generations

"Review: 'The 11th Hour' a message of hope for Mother Earth" by Joe Garofoli, www.sfgate.com. August 23, 2007.

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Mother's milk would be banned by the food safety laws of industrialized nations if it were sold as a packaged good.

Paul Hawken

Mother, Law, Safety

Paul Hawken (2013). “The Ecology of Commerce Revised Edition: A Declaration of Sustainability”, p.2, Harper Collins

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When the planes still swoop down and aerial spray a field in order to kill a predator insect with pesticides, we are in the Dark Ages of commerce.

Paul Hawken

Dark, Order, Environmental

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Born: February 8, 1946
Occupation: Environmentalist
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