Ecological Quotes - Page 7

• Perhaps the simplest example is a synthetic plastic, which unlike natural materials, is not degraded by biological decay. It therefore persists as rubbish or is burned-in both cases causing pollution. In the same way, a substance such as DDT or lead, which plays no role in the chemistry of life and interferes with the actions of substances that do, is bound to cause ecological damage if sufficiently concentrated.

  Barry Commoner

  Play, Ddt, Environmental

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• Consider the willful scorching of the earth, over-fishing, wasteful hunting, excessive and dangerous recycling of resources, and other similar "injustices" against the ways of nature share in the responsibility for this ecological spiraling down.

  Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople

  Responsibility, Hunting, Fishing

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• In the last few decades we have seen the extraordinary rise of ecosocialist movements around the world inspired in large part by Marx's ecological critique of political economy. Marx was indeed influenced by some of the earliest attempts to develop what we now call an ecological-systems view, rooted in the concept of metabolism. Building on this perspective, Marx defined socialism as the rational regulation by the associated producers of the metabolism between society and nature in such a way as to conserve energy and to promote the satisfaction of human needs.

  John Bellamy Foster

  Perspective, Political, Energy

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

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• I have always been a big advocate of tap water-not because I think it harmless but because the idea of purchasing water extracted from some remote watershed and then hauled halfway round the world bothers me. Drinking bottled water relieves people of their concern about ecological threats to the river they live by or to the basins of groundwater they live over. It's the same kind of thinking that leads some to the complacent conclusion that if things on earth get bad enough, well, we'll just blast off to a space station somewhere else.

  Sandra Steingraber

  Drinking, Thinking, Rivers

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• In reality, we haven't escaped the gravity of life at all. We are still beholden to ecological laws, the same as any other life-form.

  Janine Benyus

  Nature, Animal, Reality

  Janine M. Benyus (2009). “Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature”, p.5, Harper Collins

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• The ecological crisis shows the urgency of a solidarity which embraces time and space... A greater sense of intergenerational solidarity is urgently needed. Future generations cannot be saddled with the cost of our use of common environmental resources.

  Pope Benedict XVI

  Space, Environmental, Generations

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• The real survivors are the Earth inhabitants that have lived millions of years without consuming their ecological capital, the base from which all abundance flows.

  Janine Benyus

  Nature, Real, Animal

  Janine M. Benyus (2009). “Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature”, p.9, Harper Collins

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• A species consists of a group of populations which replace each other geographically or ecologically and of which the neighboring ones integrate or hybridise wherever they are in contact or which are potentially capable of doing so (with one or more of the populations) in those cases where contact is prevented by geographical or ecological barriers.

  Ernst Mayr

  Science, Groups, Population

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• You do not belong to you. You belong to the universe. The significance of you will remain forever obscure to you, but you may assume you are fulfilling your significance if you apply yourself to converting all you experience to highest advantage to others. Make the world work, for 100% of humanity, in the shortest possible time, through spontaneous cooperation, without ecological offense or the disadvantage of anyone.

  R. Buckminster Fuller

  Spiritual, Forever, Humanity

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• ... the ecological problem of our times demands a radical reevaluation of how we see the entire world; it demands a different interpretation of matter and the world, a new attitude of humankind toward nature, and a new understanding of how we acquire and make use of our material goods.

  Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople

  Attitude, Understanding, World

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• The roots of our ecological crises are axiomatic: they lie in our belief and value structures which shape our relationship with nature, with each other and the lifestyles we lead.

  Ziauddin Sardar

  Lying, Roots, Shapes

  Ziauddin Sardar, Ehsan Masood (2006). “How do you know?: reading Ziauddin Sardar on Islam, science and cultural relations”, Pluto Pr

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• The dramatic threat of ecological breakdown is teaching us the extent to which greed and selfishness are contrary to the order of creation. ...A given culture reveals its understanding of life through the choices it makes in production and consumption... a great deal of educational and cultural work is urgently needed, including the education of consumers in the responsible use of their power of choice.

  Pope John Paul II

  Educational, Teaching, Order

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• The seriousness of ecological degradation lays bare the depth of man's moral crisis... Simplicity, moderation, and discipline as well as the spirit of sacrifice must become a part of everyday life.

  Pope John Paul II

  Sacrifice, Men, Discipline

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• At the heart of the WTO is an assault on everything left standing in the commons, in the public realm. Everything is now for sale. Even those areas of life that we once considered sacred like health and education, food and water and air and seeds and genes and a heritage. It is all now for sale. Economic freedom - not democracy, and not ecological stewardship - is the defining metaphor of the WTO and its central goal is humanity's mastery of the natural world through its total commodification.

  Maude Barlow

  Heart, Air, Water

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• What makes the IoT a disruptive technology in the way we organize economic life is that it helps humanity reintegrate itself into the complex choreography of the biosphere, and by doing so, dramatically increases productivity without compromising the ecological relationships that govern the planet.

  Jeremy Rifkin

  Technology, Humanity, Way

  Jeremy Rifkin (2014). “The Zero Marginal Cost Society: The Internet of Things, the Collaborative Commons, and the Eclipse of Capitalism”, p.19, Palgrave Macmillan

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• The most profound and serious indication of the moral implications underlying the ecological problem is the lack of respect for life evident in many of the patterns of environmental pollution.

  Pope John Paul II

  Profound, Environmental, Patterns

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• 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.

  David Suzuki

  Ocean, Air, Years

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• I'm first and foremost a biological explorer. I've looked all over the world for answers. Secondly, I'm an ecological designer, and by that I mean I attempt to work with constellations of nature to create technological forms. So I'm part engineer, part ecologist, part inventor, really.

  John Todd

  Mean, Answers, World

  Source: edition.cnn.com

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• Modern society will find no solution to the ecological problem unless it takes a serious look at its lifestyle. In many parts of the world society is given to instant gratification and consumerism while remaining indifferent to the damage which these attitudes cause. Simplicity, moderation and discipline, as well as a spirit of sacrifice, must become part of everyday life, lest all suffer the negative consequences of the careless habits of a few.

  Pope John Paul II

  Attitude, Sacrifice, Discipline

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• In Germany it is good if as many people as possible join initiatives and peaceful demonstrations against the rule of the financial markets. Worshipping the unfettered freedom of global markets has brought the world to the brink of ruin. We now need social and ecological rules for the market economy.

  Sigmar Gabriel

  People, Peaceful, Ruins

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• Canada regards herself as responsible to all mankind for the peculiar ecological balance that now exists so precariously in the water, ice and land areas of the Arctic archipelago. We do not doubt for a moment that the rest of the world would find us at fault, and hold us liable, should we fail to ensure adequate protection of that environment from pollution or artificial deterioration.

  Pierre Trudeau

  Ice, Land, Water

  Pierre Trudeau during House of Commons Debate, October 24, 1969.

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• One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Much of the damage inflicted on land is quite invisible to laymen. An ecologist must either harden his shell and make believe that the consequences of science are none of his business, or he must be the doctor who sees the marks of death in a community that believes itself well and does not want to be told otherwise.

  Aldo Leopold

  Believe, Doctors, Land

  Aldo Leopold (1972). “Round River”, p.165, Oxford University Press

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• The re-establishment of an ecological balance depends on the ability of society to counteract the progressive materialization of values. The ecological balance cannot be re-established unless we recognize again that only persons have ends and only persons can work towards them.

  Ivan Illich

  Balance, Progressive, Ends

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• Every time we consume meat, eggs or dairy foods, we contribute to ecological devastation and the wasteful misuse of resources on a global scale.

  Ingrid Newkirk

  Eggs, Meat, Devastation

  "You Can’t Be a Meat-Eating Environmentalist" by Ingrid Newkirk, www.huffingtonpost.com. April 22, 2010.

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• The reason why there is more pessimism about technology in Europe has to do with history, the use of databases to keep track of people in the camps, ecological disasters.

  Evgeny Morozov

  Technology, Europe, People

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