Environmentalism Quotes (9 quotes)
Calm reason and alarmist environmentalism do not co-exist.
In Trashing the Planet: How Science Can Help Us Deal With Acid Rain, Depletion of the Ozone, and the Soviet Threat Among Other Things (1990), 7.
Environmentalism opposes reckless innovation and makes conservation the central order of business.
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I had fought on behalf of man against the sea, but I realised that it had become more urgent to fight on behalf of the sea against men.
From an interview on the 50th anniversary of his voyage, when asked about his avid support for environmentalism in later years. As quoted in 'Alain Bombard: Transatlantic Adventurer Who Survived on the Fruits of the Sea', The Times (19 Jul 2005).
Keep in mind that it is hubris to think that we know how to save the Earth: our planet looks after itself. All we can do is try to save ourselves.
In The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning (2010), 13.
Only rarely do we see beyond the needs of humanity. … Now that we are over six billion hungry and greedy individuals, all aspiring to a first-world lifestyle, our urban way of life encroaches upon the domain of the living Earth. We are taking so much that it is no longer able to sustain the familiar and comfortable world we have taken for granted. Now it is changing, according to its own internal rules, to a state where we are no longer welcome.
In The Revenge of Gaia: Earth’s Climate Crisis & The Fate of Humanity (2006, 2007), 9. The first sentence is a concept acknowledged to John Gray, Straw Dogs (2002).
The Earth has recovered after fevers like this, and there are no grounds for thinking that what we are doing will destroy Gaia, but if we continue business as usual, our species may never again enjoy the lush and verdant world we had only a hundred years ago. What is most in danger is civilization; humans are tough enough for breeding pairs to survive, and Gaia is toughest of all. What we are doing weakens her but is unlikely to destroy her. She has survived numerous catastrophes in her three billion years or more of life.
In The Revenge of Gaia: Earth’s Climate Crisis & The Fate of Humanity (2006, 2007), 76-77.
The idea that humans are yet intelligent enough to serve as stewards of the Earth is among the most hubristic ever.
In The Revenge of Gaia: Earth’s Climate Crisis & The Fate of Humanity (2006, 2007), 195.
We are no more qualified to be the stewards or developers of the Earth than are goats to be gardeners.
In The Revenge of Gaia: Earth’s Climate Crisis & The Fate of Humanity (2006, 2007), 176.
When we burn fossil fuel for energy we are, in qualitative terms, doing nothing more wrong than burning wood. Our wrongdoing, if that is an appropriate term, is taking energy from Gaia hundreds of times faster than it is naturally made available. We are sinning in a quantitative not a qualitative way.
In The Revenge of Gaia: Earth’s Climate Crisis & The Fate of Humanity (2006, 2007), 92.
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) -- 
