The one thing I feel is very hopeful, however, is the overwhelming participation of women in the movement for change.
There is a gyre of discarded floating plastic the size of the continental USA in the ocean. In it, plastic trash outweighs plankton 40 to 1.
Any scientist who tells you they know that GMOs are safe and not to worry about it, is either ignorant of the history of science or is deliberately lying. Nobody knows what the long-term effect will be.
I can’t imagine anything more important than air, water, soil, energy and biodiversity. These are the things that keep us alive.
Debating the best way to do something we shouldn’t be doing in the first place is a sure way to end up in the wrong place.
Education has failed in a very serious way to convey the most important lesson science can teach: skepticism.
If we humans are good at anything, it’s thinking we’ve got a terrific idea and going for it without acknowledging the potential consequences or our own ignorance.
What permaculturists are doing is the most important activity that any group is doing on the planet.
Our personal consumer choices have ecological, social, and spiritual consequences. It is time to re-examine some of our deeply held notions that underlie our lifestyles.
Conventional economics is a form of brain damage. Economics is so fundamentally disconnected from the real world, it is destructive.
Rapid population growth and technological innovation, combined with our lack of understanding about how the natural systems of which we are a part work, have created a mess.
I’ve always been more interested in organisms that can move on their own than in stationary plants. But when I canoe or hike along the edge of lakes or oceans and see trees that seem to be growing out of rock faces, I am blown away. How do they do it?
Some argue we should get coal, oil and gas out of the ground as quickly as possible, build more pipelines and make as much money as we can selling it here and abroad. Their priorities are the economy and meeting short-term energy needs so we can live the lives to which we’ve become accustomed.
We are upsetting the atmosphere upon which all life depends. In the late 80s when I began to take climate change seriously, we referred to global warming as a “slowmotion catastrophe” one we expected to kick in perhaps generations later. Instead, the signs of change have accelerated alarmingly.
Conserving energy and thus saving money, reducing consumption of unnecessary products and packaging and shifting to a clean-energy economy would likely hurt the bottom line of polluting industries, but would undoubtedly have positive effects for most of us.
If we want to move towards a low-polluting, sustainable society, we need to get consumers to think about their purchases.
Water is our most precious resource, but we waste it, just as we waste other resources, including oil and gas.
If we pollute the air, water and soil that keep us alive and well, and destroy the biodiversity that allows natural systems to function, no amount of money will save us.
The environment is so fundamental to our continued existence that it must transcend politics and become a central value of all members of society.
Humans are now the most numerous mammal on the planet. There are more humans than rats or mice. Humans have a huge ecological footprint, magnified by their technology.