Fossils Quotes - Page 15

• The climate is nearing tipping points. Changes are beginning to appear and there is a potential for explosive changes, effects that would be irreversible, if we do not rapidly slow fossil-fuel emissions over the next few decades.

  James Hansen

  Energy, Climate, Would Be

  "Coal-fired power stations are death factories. Close them" by James Hansen, www.theguardian.com. February 14, 2009.

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• Burning all the fossil fuels will destroy the planet we know, Creation, the planet of stable climate in which civilization developed.

  James Hansen

  Civilization, Energy, Climate

  "A letter to Obama" by James and Anniek Hansen, www.theguardian.com. January 1, 2009.

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• Carbon dioxide pollution is transforming the chemistry of the ocean, rapidly making the water more acidic. In decades, rising ocean acidity may challenge life on a scale that has not occurred for tens of millions of years. So we confront an urgent choice: to move beyond fossil fuels or to risk turning the ocean into a sea of weeds.

  Sigourney Weaver

  Weed, Moving, Ocean

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• Is the divine presence a Republican? Or is He/She/It running an inter-galactic fossil fuel conglomerate?...whatever the explanation may be, the Paraclete appears to be as determined as any terrestrial corporate frontman to prevent a successful conclusion to the climate talks. How I know? Because every time anyone gets together to try to prevent global climate breakdown, He swaths the rich, densely habited parts of the world with snow and ice, while leaving obscurer places to cook.

  George Monbiot

  Running, Successful, Ice

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• The fact is fossil fuel carbon will stay in the surface climate system for millennia.

  James Hansen

  Facts, Climate, Burning Fossil Fuels

  "Global warming activist, former NASA scientist James Hansen speaks out before World Affairs Council of Oregon appearance". Interview with Scott Learn, www.oregonlive.com. April 24, 2013.

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• CO2 is a minor player in the total system, and human CO2 emissions are insignificant compared to total natural greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, lowering human CO2 emissions will have no measurable effect on climate, and continued CO2 emissions will have little or no effect on future temperature....While controlling CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels may have some beneficial effects on air quality, it will have no measurable effect on climate, but great detrimental effects on the economy and our standard of living.

  Jonathan Duhamel

  Player, Air, Quality

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• The known fossil record fails to document a single example of phyletic evolution i.e., a species becoming a new species accomplishing a major morphological transition and hence offers no evidence that the gradualistic model can be valid.

  Steven M. Stanley

  Example, Transition, Records

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• The question of the origin of life is essentially speculative. We have to construct, by straightforward thinking on the basis of very few factual observations, a plausible and self-consistent picture of a process which must have occurred before any of the forms which are known to us in the fossil record could have existed.

  John Desmond Bernal

  Thinking, Origin Of Life, Self

  John Desmond Bernal (1967). “The origin of life”

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• The mineral kingdom consists of the fossil substances found in the earth. These are either entirely destitute of organic structure, or, having once possessed it, possess it no longer: such are the petrefactions.

  Torbern Bergman

  Substance, Earth, Kingdoms

  William Withering, Torbern Bergman (1822). “The miscellaneous tracts of the late William Withering: to which is prefixed a memoir of his life, character, and writings”, p.9

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• Permanence of instinct must go with permanence of form...The history of the present must teach us the history of the past.

  Jean-Henri Fabre

  Past, Instinct, Form

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• No conclusion is more fully established, than the important fact of the total absence of any vestiges of the human species throughout the entire series of geological formations.

  William Buckland

  Men, Important, Facts

  William Buckland (1837). “Geology and Mineralogy: Considered with Reference to Natural Theology”, p.103

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• It is my object, in the following work, to travel over ground which has as yet been little explored and to make my reader acquainted with a species of Remains, which, though absolutely necessary for understanding the history of the globe, have been hitherto almost uniformly neglected.

  Georges Cuvier

  Understanding, Littles, Neglected

  Georges Cuvier (Barón, (), Robert Jameson (1817). “Essay on the Theory of the Earth”, p.1

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• A Chinese paleontologist lectures around the world saying that recent fossil finds in his country are inconsistent with the Darwinian theory of evolution. His reason: The major animal groups appear abruptly in the rocks over a relatively short time, rather than evolving gradually from a common ancestor as Darwin's theory predicts. When this conclusion upsets American scientists, he wryly comments: "In China we can criticize Darwin but not the government. In America you can criticize the government but not Darwin."

  Phillip E. Johnson

  Country, Animal, Theory Of Evolution

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• In a sense, the fossil fuels are a onetime gift that lifted us up from subsistence agriculture and eventually should lead us to a future based on renewable resources.

  Kenneth S. Deffeyes

  Future, Science, Agriculture

  Kenneth S. Deffeyes (2008). “The Future of Fossil Fuels: From "Hubbert's Peak"”, p.160, Princeton University Press

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• Fossils work almost the same way as photography as a record of history. The accumulation of time and history becomes a negative of the image. And this negative comes off, and the fossil is the positive side. This is the same as the action of photography.

  Hiroshi Sugimoto

  Photography, Negative, Records

  "Tradition: Hiroshi Sugimoto". ART21 interview, art21.org.

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• Permaculture principles focus on thoughtful designs for small-scale intensive systems which are labor efficient and which use biological resources instead of fossil fuels. Designs stress ecological connections and closed energy and material loops. The core of permaculture is design and the working relationships and connections between all things.

  Bill Mollison

  Stress, Thoughtful, Focus

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• Japan is a model already to the lie that economic growth is the key to our future. If they can really show an alternative to nukes and fossil fuels, then they will be the poster boy for the renewable energy for the future.

  David Suzuki

  Lying, Boys, Keys

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• I personally think that a couple of pounds a week - maybe rising to almost £3 a week - is a reasonable price for Britain to achieve a degree of energy security to reduce its total dependence on fossil fuels and to honour its commitments to cut green house gases.

  Tim Yeo

  Couple, Commitment, Cutting

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• It is a search for a mythical CO2 sink to explain an immeasurable CO2 lifetime to fit a hypothetical CO2 computer model that purports to show that an impossible amount of fossil fuel burning is heating the atmosphere. It is all a fiction.

  Tom Segalstad

  Atmosphere, Fiction, Burning

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• Now we are all learning what it's like to reap the whirlwind of fossil fuel dependence... Our destructive addiction has given us a catastrophic war in the Middle East and - now - Katrina is giving our nation a glimpse of the climate chaos we are bequeathing our children.

  Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

  Children, War, Giving

  "'For They That Sow the Wind Shall Reap the Whirlwind'". www.huffingtonpost.com. May 9, 2010.

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• If the world goes crazy for a lovely fossil, that's fine with me. But if that fossil releases some kind of mysterious brain ray that makes people say crazy things and write lazy articles, a serious swarm of flies ends up in my ointment.

  Carl Zimmer

  Crazy, Writing, People

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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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• We have already used more than half of that budget. This means that three quarters of the fossil fuel reserves need to stay in the ground, and the fossil fuels we do use must be utilized sparingly and responsibly.

  Christiana Figueres

  Mean, Three, Needs

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• In reality, Republicans have long been at war with clean energy. They have ridiculed investments in solar and wind power, bashed energy-efficiency standards, attacked state moves to promote renewable energy and championed laws that would enshrine taxpayer subsidies for fossil fuels while stripping them from wind and solar.

  Jeff Goodell

  War, Moving, Reality

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• If we want energy security, then we have to reduce our appetite for fossil fuels. There's no other way. Other issues may crowd the headlines, but this is our fundamental challenge. Big challenges require bold action and leadership. To get the United States off fossil fuels in this uneasy national climate of terrorism and conflict in the Persian Gulf, we must treat the issue with the urgence and persistance it deserves. The measure of our success will be the condition on which we leave the world for the next generation.

  Robert Redford

  Issues, Challenges, Way

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