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Norman Myers
(24 Sep 1934 - 20 Oct 2019)
English environmental scientist and author who has been called the “Paul Revere of the environmental movement” for his extensive public outreach in 300 popular articles in newspapers and magazines, and over 15 books (in 11 different languages). Myers is the originator of the biodiversity hot-spot strategy that has generated over $300 million for conservation activities.
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Science Quotes by Norman Myers (7 quotes)
As we consider the manifold materials that keep us going between breakfast and bedtime, our welfare is served by the wild species that make up the planetary ecosystem with us. To date, scientists have conducted intensive screening of less than 1 percent of all species with a view to determining their economic potential. Yet these preliminary investigations have thrown up thousands of products of everyday use.
— Norman Myers
A Wealth Of Wild Species: Storehouse For Human Welfare (1983), Prologue, 8.
Interestingly enough, the plant kingdom makes many more contributions to us than the animal kingdom, even though plant species total only some 250,000, whereas animal species probably number at least 5 million and could reach 10 million.
— Norman Myers
A Wealth Of Wild Species: Storehouse For Human Welfare (1983), Prologue, 8.
Not only do wild species supply materials for our direct use, but they provide “models” for researchers to draw on when they are devising synthetic medicines or designing industrial products. Scientists would have had a hard time devising synthetic rubber if they had not had a “blueprint” to copy, in the molecular structure of natural rubber.
— Norman Myers
A Wealth Of Wild Species: Storehouse For Human Welfare (1983), Prologue, 5.
Our welfare is ever more intimately tied up with the welfare—indeed the continued survival—of the millions of species that share the One Earth home with us.
— Norman Myers
A Wealth Of Wild Species: Storehouse For Human Welfare (1983), Preface, x.
The only thing we know for sure about the future is that it will be radically different from the past. In the face of this enormous uncertainty, the least we can do for future generations is to pass on as many of the planet’s resources as possible.
— Norman Myers
In The Sinking Ark: A New Look at the Problem of Disappearing Species (1979), 189.
We are already engaged in World War III. It is a war against nature, and it is simply no contest. As a result, the threat from the skies is no longer missiles but ozone-layer depletion and global warming, and the threat on land is the erosion of soil.
— Norman Myers
Guest Essay in G. Tyler Miller, Environmental Science: Working With the Earth (6th Ed, 1997), 258.
Without knowing it, we utilize hundreds of products each day that owe their origin to wild animals and plants. Indeed our welfare is intimately tied up with the welfare of wildlife. Well may conservationists proclaim that by saving the lives of wild species, we may be saving our own.
— Norman Myers
In 'Wild Species: A Key Factor in Our Daily Lives', A Wealth Of Wild Species: Storehouse For Human Welfare (1983), Prologue, 3.
See also:
- The Sinking Ark: A New Look at the Problem of Disappearing Species, by Norman Myers. - book suggestion.
- Booklist for Norman Myers.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
