Noam Chomsky Quotes About Environment

• So, at one extreme you have indigenous, tribal societies trying to stem the race to disaster. At the other extreme, the richest, most powerful societies in world history, like the United States and Canada, are racing full-speed ahead to destroy the environment as quickly as possible.

  Noam Chomsky

  Powerful, Race, Racing

  Noam Chomsky (2016). “Who Rules the World?”, p.119, Metropolitan Books

• The crimes committed against the people of West Papua are some of the most shameful of the past years. The Western powers have much to answer for, and at the very least should use their ample means to bring about the withdrawal of the occupying Indonesian army and termination of the shameful exploitation of resources and destruction of the environment and the lives and societies of the people of West Papua, who have suffered far too much.

  Noam Chomsky

  Mean, Army, Past

• In England, enclosure programs kind of destroyed the commons. In the United States, it happened later. But, ah, now it's happening in the world. The last remnant of the commons is the environment, which the indigenous people are still trying to preserve and we sophisticated rich people are trying to destroy.

  Noam Chomsky

  People, Trying, World

  Source: www.truth-out.org

• Markets are lethal, if only because of ignoring externalities, the impacts of their transactions on the environment.

  Noam Chomsky

  Impact, Environment, Transactions

  "Noam Chomsky slams Canada's shale gas energy plans" by Martin Lukacs, www.theguardian.com. November 1, 2013.

• Education must provide the opportunities for self-fulfillment; it can at best provide a rich and challenging environment for the individual to explore, in his own way.

  Noam Chomsky

  Teacher, School, Opportunity

  Noam Chomsky (2010). “The Chomsky Reader”, p.149, Pantheon

• If there are dollars to be made, you destroy the environment. The reason is elementary. The people who are going to be harmed by this are your grandchildren and they don't have any votes in the market. Their interests are worth zero. Anybody that pays attention to their grandchildren's interests is being irrational. Because what you're supposed to do is maximize your own interests, measured by wealth, right now. Nothing else matters. So destroying the environment and militarizing outer space are rational policies, but within a framework of institutional lunacy.

  Noam Chomsky

  Zero, Grandchildren, Space

  Source: www.madre.org

• Women taking care of children . . . it makes sense to pay them for that work . . . they should be paid for it, but that requires tax payments. And the same is true about protection of the environment.

  Noam Chomsky

  Children, Care, Pay

• Every single one cabinet appointment: education, environment, labor - every single one is selected to undermine any aspect of government that's of any help to people, and that doesn't benefit the super-rich. And it's absolutely systematic. The interesting question will be how long Donald Trump's constituency can fall for the con game.

  Noam Chomsky

  Fall, Long, People

  Source: www.truth-out.org

• Resource extraction impacts a global environment that is increasingly at severe risk.

  Noam Chomsky

  Impact, Risk, Environment

  "Chomsky: "The Business Elites ... Are Instinctive Marxists"". Interview with Keane Bhatt, www.truth-out.org. November 19, 2010.

• Suppose that we believe what we are taught. . . . destroying the environment and militarizing outer space are rational policies . . . of institutional lunacy.

  Noam Chomsky

  Believe, Space, Taught

• Destruction of the environment is not only rational; it's exactly what you're taught to do in college.

  Noam Chomsky

  College, Taught, Environment

  Source: www.madre.org

• Students typically are at a period of their lives when they're more free than at any other time. They're out of parental control. They're not yet burdened by the needs of trying to put food on the table in a pretty repressive environment, often, and they're free to explore, to create, to invent, to act, and to organize. Over and over through the years, student activism has been extremely significant in initiating and galvanizing major changes. I don't see any reason for that to change.

  Noam Chomsky

  Trying, Students, Environment

  Source: www.truth-out.org

• We should certainly not be perpetuating further harm to others or to the environment. Suppose that workers at ExxonMobil are trying to unionize. We have two choices: to help them improve their lives, or to keep away so that their lives will be worse. Neither choice has any effect on use of fossil fuels. So radical organizers can both help them unionize and improve their lives, and convince them to find a different way to survive and work for ending the use of fossil fuels.

  Noam Chomsky

  Two, Choices, Trying

  Source: thefifthcolumnnews.com

• When geologists announced the beginning of a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene, humans destroying the environment, one of the main things they pointed to is the use of plastics in the earth.

  Noam Chomsky

  Use, Earth, Environment

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

• Very urgent measures need to be taken, and without much delay, in dealing with the ongoing destruction of the environment.

  Noam Chomsky

  Taken, Delay, Needs

  Source: www.truth-out.org

• When geologists announced the beginning of a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene, humans destroying the environment, one of the main things they pointed to is the use of plastics in the earth. We don't think about it, but it has a tremendous effect. But these are things you don't see right in front of your eyes. You need to think about them a little, to see what the consequences are. It's easy to put them aside, and the media don't talk about them.

  Noam Chomsky

  Eye, Thinking, Media

  Source: www.salon.com

• The rich and powerful countries are trying to wreck as much as possible. You know, go off the cliff as soon as you can. Extract every drop of hydrocarbons off the ground and destroy the environment. At the opposite extreme are countries like Bolivia and Ecuador, indigenous people around the world, and first nations in Canada and tribal people in India, campesinos in Colombia... They're trying to save the commons.

  Noam Chomsky

  Country, Powerful, Opposites

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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