Environment Quotes

"All our environmental problems become easier to solve with fewer people and harder - and ultimately impossible to solve - with ever more people."

"All we can hope for is that the thing is going to slowly and imperceptibly shift. All I can say is that 50 years ago there were no such thing as environmental policies."

"And secondly, I would impose a significant state landfill tipping fee and use that tipping fee to fund the billion dollar bond issue that I want to create to produce the funds for all of the environmental challenges that we just went over."

"As you heat the planet up, it's just like boiling a pot."

"Beyond reducing individual use, one of our top priorities must be to move from fossil fuels to energy that has fewer detrimental effects on water supplies and fewer environmental impacts overall."

"Brands who come to China, often they just care about price - so they actually drive the suppliers to cut corners on environmental standards to win a contract."

"By adopting the control strategy, the nation's environmental program has created a built-in antagonism between environmental quality and economic growth."

"By polluting clear water with slime you will never find good drinking water."

"China has leapfrogged into this information age, and Web users have grown very significantly, which knocked down the cost of doing the environmental transparency."

"China is bearing the environmental cost for much of the world because China is the factory of the world."

"China leads the world in energy consumption, carbon emissions, and the release of major air and water pollutants, and the environmental impact is felt both regionally and globally."

"China's environmental conundrums will not be solved by changes within government alone. New mechanisms are needed to allow the communities which may be affected by a given plan, and citizens concerned about the environment, to join in."

"Civilization has given us enormous successes: going to the moon, technology. But then this is the civilisation that took us to debt, environmental crisis, every single crisis. We need a civilization where we say goodbye to these things."

"Clinton understands that climate change is real, is caused by human activity and is one of the great environmental crises facing our planet. She knows that we must transform our energy system away from fossil fuels and move aggressively to energy efficiency and sustainable energy."

"Congressional Republicans are dismantling the limited environmental protections initiated by Richard Nixon, who would be something of a dangerous radical in today's political scene."

"Design our world so that we have positive social and environmental side effects."

"Destroying rainforest for economic gain is like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal."

"Earth Day 1970 was irrefutable evidence that the American people understood the environmental threat and wanted action to resolve it."

"Economists treat economics as if it is a pure science divorced from the facts of life. The result of this false accountancy is a willful confusion under cover of which industry wreaks its havoc scot-free and ignores the environmental cost."

"Election days come and go. But the struggle of the people to create a government which represents all of us and not just the one percent - a government based on the principles of economic, social, racial and environmental justice - that struggle continues."

"Environmental agencies in China are hamstrung by local officials who put economic growth ahead of environmental protection; even the courts are beholden to local officials, and they are not open to environmental litigation."

"Environmental concern is a phenomena that tends to rise in a nation after a certain level of wealth."

"Environmental concern is now firmly embedded in public life: in education, medicine and law; in journalism, literature and art."

"Environmental groups are not completely against dams. We approve of appropriate development."

"Environmental pollution is an incurable disease. It can only be prevented."

"Environmental pollution, terrorism, and many other global threats do not stop at borders. We all bear global responsibility and thus need a global identity to enable us to cope with them. We must learn to integrate different levels of identity in ourselves. What matters is not either/or, but both/and."

"Environmental problems cannot be resolved here the way they are resolved in other countries. I heard that 80 per cent of the environmental problems in the U.S. are solved in court. That can't happen here."

"Environmental quality was drastically improved while economic activity grew by the simple expedient of removing lead from gasoline - which prevented it from entering the environment."

"Even the government understands that the environmental challenge is so big that no single agency can handle it. It needs collaboration among all the stakeholders - companies, governments, NGOs and the public. Public accountability will be the ultimate driving force."

"Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it."

"Every time I have some moment on a seashore, or in the mountains, or sometimes in a quiet forest, I think this is why the environment has to be preserved."

"Far from environmental prophet, he is a foreign oil profiteer. That is the inconvenient truth of Al Gore."

"For TPP to get my vote, it must benefit America's middle class, raise wages, and safeguard the consumer and environmental protections that we rely upon."

"From year to year, environmental changes are incremental and often barely register in our lives, but from evolutionary or geological perspectives, what is happening is explosive change."

"Genetic modification is a very powerful tool. But like any powerful tool, when using it, you have to take into account the environmental impact, the food safety aspects and so on. There must be a strong regulatory mechanism."

"Good environmental policy is good economic policy."

"Grave security concerns can arise as a result of demographic trends, chronic poverty, economic inequality, environmental degradation, pandemic diseases, organized crime, repressive governance and other developments no state can control alone. Arms can't address such concerns."

"Harmony with land is like harmony with a friend; you cannot cherish his right hand and chop off his left."

"Human civilization as we know it is like the Titanic headed for the iceberg, whether the iceberg be nuclear, environmental or terrorism-related."

"Hydrogen holds great promise to meet many of our future energy needs, and it addresses national security and our environmental concerns. Hydrogen is the simplest, most abundant element in the universe."

"I always felt that if someone shot me, it would be great for the environmental movement, because they would make me a martyr. Our biggest fear was our children, because there was a tremendous amount of threat and intimidation, and my wife was terrified that the children might be grabbed or assaulted in some way. That was the real fear."

"I always thought we had an environmental problem, but I hadn't realized how urgent it was. James Lovelock writes that by the end of this century there will be one billion people left."

"I can find God in nature, in animals, in birds and the environment."

"I definitely want to get into environmental science and environmental politics, learning a lot more and preserving what's left of the world. That's such a sacred circle to be in. I'd love to contribute to that."

"I did not become a vegetarian for my health, I did it for the health of the chickens."

"I don't use any animal products, both because of ethical and environmental and climate reasons."

"I have a private plane. But I fly commercial when I go to environmental conferences."