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Jonathon Porritt

Jonathon Porritt Biography

Environmentalist

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“The World Health Organization recently published some data showing that each overweight person causes and additional one tonne of CO2 to be emitted every year. With one billion people overweight around the world-of whom at least 300 million are obese-that's an additional one billion tonnes.”

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“A combination of very rapid population growth over the last 50 years and reckless economic growth during the same time has stored up massive problems for societies the world over. No nation is immune. The scientific evidence tells us all we need to know: carry on with business-as-usual growth-at-all-costs, and we're stuffed”

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“"The ultimate recession": a recession caused not by failed regulation and bankers' greed, but by very high oil prices, food and water shortages, disappearing forests, accelerating climate change, forced migration and mass civil disruption...The long and the short of it, unfortunately, is this: more politicians still believe that economic recovery depends on continuing to live beyond our means (financially and ecologically) than on learning to live within our means. And that's why the ultimate "Perfect Storm" recession still looms on the horizon”

BelieveMeanLongStillsWaterPerfectBusinessEconomicDependsPoliticianMassEconomicsUltimateManagementClimateGreedClimate ChangeStormOilDisappearForestsRecoveryHorizonRegulationContinuingBankersRecessionsDisruptionShortageMigrationEconomic RecoveryOil PricePerfect Storm
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“Many ideas have struggled over the centuries to dominate the planet. Fascism. Communism. Democracy. Religion. But only one has achieved total supremacy. Its compulsive attractions rob its followers of reason and good sense. It has created unsustainable inequalities and threatened to tear apart the very fabric of society. More powerful than any religion, it has reached into every corner of the globe. It is consumerism”

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“The 'Big Green Debate' has entered a very interesting stage. Once there was endless controversy; now there is near unanimity. Once there was universal political indifference; now the bandwagon is abrim with politicians in catch-up mode. Once the media were semi-detached: now they're really getting stuck in. And they need to be! Many people are confused and disempowered, and the role of the media in getting then informed and engaged is critical”

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“Absolutely love the new campaign from the Optimum Population Trust: do your bit for addressing climate change by having fewer children - or even no children. The lifetime CO2 emissions of a UK citizen amount to 750 tonnes (the equivalent - apparently - of 620 return flights between London and New York), so the extra 10 million by which our population will rise between now and 2074 will, over their lifetimes, emit around 7½ billion tonnes of CO2..."births averted" is probably the most single most substantial and cost-effective intervention that governments could be using”

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“We desperately need some new thinking today about systems of global governance. We're stuck with the same obsolete, ignore-the-earth institutions that were brough into being after the 2nd World War, and they're now failing us ever more catastropically. Wild Law shows just how radical we now need to be in creating new institutions that are genuinely 'fit for purpose' in the 21st Century.”

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“...the core values that underpin sustainable development - interdependence, empathy, equity, personal responsibility and intergenerational justice - are the only foundation upon which any viable vision of a better world can possibly be constructed”

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Book:Capitalism as If the World Matters
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“Fundamentally transforming the foundations of the economy is the biggest contribution we can make towards building a sustainable future. The current economic crisis may be painful, but it will be nothing compared with the crises we will face if we continue to grow in a way that threatens the life-support systems on which we rely”

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“The collapse of the world's banking system and the impending disaster of accelerating climate change are not separate phenomena. They are simply the most visible symptoms of a particular model of capitalism that will bring civilisation to its knees. But those symptoms will not get sorted unless and until we commit to a radical transformation of the way we create and distribute wealth in the world today”

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“The huge arrogance of the companies developing GMO crops and their determination to destroy the line of accountability which links the developer to the product is breath-taking. When something goes wrong, as it inevitably will, there will be a great benefit to those who have taken a stance against genetically modified organisms.”

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