Ecosystems Quotes

• The First Amendment has the same role in my life as a citizen and a writer as the sun has in our ecosystem.

  Michael Chabon

  House, Roles, Citizens

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• Each species on our planet plays a role in the healthy functioning of natural ecosystems, on which humans depend.

  William H. Schlesinger

  Play, Healthy, Roles

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• Let us be good stewards of the Earth we inherited. All of us have to share the Earth's fragile ecosystems and precious resources, and each of us has a role to play in preserving them. If we are to go on living together on this earth, we must all be responsible for it.

  Kofi Annan

  Teamwork, Responsibility, Play

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• We need to start looking at having a way of managing the whole ecosystem, because you can't pick away at it piece by piece, you have to truly start being coordinated and managing our resources as a system. We haven't gotten to that point yet.

  Ted Danson

  Needs, Pieces, Way

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• No phenomenon can be isolated, but has repercussions through every aspect of our lives. We are learning that we are a fundamental part of nature's ecosystems.

  Arthur Erickson

  Artist, Fundamentals, Aspect

  Arthur Erickson's address to the Institute of Canadian Bankers, www.arthurerickson.com. October 16, 1972.

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• The great ecosystems are like complex tapestries - a million complicated threads, interwoven, make up the whole picture. Nature can cope with small rents in the fabric; it can even, after a time, cope with major disasters like floods, fires, and earthquakes. What nature cannot cope with is the steady undermining of its fabric by the activities of man.

  Gerald Durrell

  Men, Fire, Earthquakes

  Gerald Durrell (1989). “The Amateur Naturalist”, Alfred A. Knopf

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• Your body isn't just a body. It's an ecosystem.

  Douglas Coupland

  Body, Environment, Your Body

  Douglas Coupland (2011). “The Gum Thief: A Novel”, p.75, Bloomsbury Publishing USA

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• The more complex the network is, the more complex its pattern of interconnections, the more resilient it will be.

  Fritjof Capra

  Resilience, Networking, Patterns

  Fritjof Capra (1996). “The Web of Life: A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems”, Doubleday

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• We are all together in this, we are all together in this single living ecosystem called planet earth.

  Sylvia Earle

  Together, Earth, Planets

  "Ambassador for the World's Oceans". The Academy of Achievement, www.achievement.org. January 27, 1991.

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• We are all together in this, we are all together in this single living ecosystem called Planet Earth. As we learn how we fit into the greater scheme of things, and begin to understand how the system works, we can plan ahead, we can use the resources responsibly, to show some respect for this inheritance that goes back 4.6 billion years.

  Sylvia Earle

  Responsibility, Years, Together

  "Ambassador for the World's Oceans". The Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org. January 27, 1991.

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• Trying to save ecosystems has more to do with changing egosystems.

  Don Rittner

  Trying

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• Even if we act immediately, the world is doomed to lose many of its animal and plant species and this inturn will reduce the ability of ecosystems to deliver vital services to human populations. The Red List gives all of us a practical tool for raising awareness of the biodiversity crisis and for forging new partnerships within the international community.

  Achim Steiner

  Animal, Giving, Community

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• Nothing has prepared sharks, squid, krill and other sea creatures for industrial-scale extraction that destroys entire ecosystems while targeting a few species.

  Sylvia Earle

  Sharks, Sea, Squids

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• The G8 nations, together with the five major emerging economies of China, India, South Africa, Brazil, Mexico, use almost three-quarters of the Earth's biocapacity - the capacity of the world's ecosystems to produce natural resources and to reduce harmful substances.

  Sigmar Gabriel

  Together, Three, Mexico

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• Putting our ecosystem in great peril is certainly not a part of Chinese culture that I know.

  Yao Ming

  Chinese, Culture, Peril

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• The continued existence of wildlife and wilderness is important to the quality of life of humans. Our challenge for the future is that we realize we are very much a part of the earth's ecosystem, and we must learn to respect and live according to the basic biological laws of nature.

  Jim Fowler

  Law, Challenges, Important

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• The ecosystem of our world is a closed system: it would run out of gas, collapse of its own weight.

  Joan D. Vinge

  Running, Our World, Weight

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• The undisturbed coastal plain is home to a wide variety of plants and animals and is the only wilderness sanctuary in North America that protects a complete range of the arctic ecosystem.

  Dan Lipinski

  Home, Animal, America

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• In calling society an ecological system we are not merely using an analogy; society is an example of the general concept of an "ecosystem" that is, an ecological system of which biological systems - forests, fields, swamps - are other examples.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Example, Calling, Analogies

  "A Reconstruction of Economics". Book by Kenneth Ewart Boulding, p. 6, 1950.

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• You cannot tackle hunger, disease, and poverty unless you can also provide people with a healthy ecosystem in which their economies can grow.

  Gro Harlem Brundtland

  Health, Hunger And Poverty, People

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• A diverse ecosystem will also be resilient, because it contains many species with overlapping ecological functions that can partially replace one another. When a particular species is destroyed by a severe disturbance so that a link in the network is broken, a diverse community will be able to survive and reorganize itself... In other words, the more complex the network is, the more complex its pattern of interconnections, the more resilient it will be.

  Fritjof Capra

  Broken, Community, Links

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• As the GAO report recognizes, the long-term health of our forests relies on additional fuel reduction options and funding to reduce the risks that catastrophic fire poses to our nation's ecosystems, communities and federal budgetary resources.

  Greg Walden

  Fire, Long, Community

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• We don't know nearly enough about the complexities of Nature. If we think we can eliminate natural ecosystems and substitute prosthetic devices, i.e. clean air or water with fusion energy - we are kidding ourselves.

  E. O. Wilson

  Thinking, Air, Water

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• The damage that climate change is causing and that will get worse if we fail to act goes beyond the hundreds of thousands of lives, homes and businesses lost, ecosystems destroyed, species driven to extinction, infrastructure smashed and people inconvenienced.

  David Suzuki

  Home, People, Climate

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• No piecemeal solution is going to prevent the collapse of whole societies and ecosystems ... a radical re-thinking of our values, priorities and political systems is urgent.

  Maude Barlow

  Thinking, Priorities, Political

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