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Quote by David W. Orr

“... laws governing pollution tend to move pollutants from one medium to another. So, for example, we scrub SO2 from power plants only to dispose toxic sludge on land. We "clean" water only to disperse toxic-laced solids on farmland or landfills. Pollution control becomes a kind of giant shell game by which we move pollutants between air, water, groundwater, and land.”

Quote by David W. Orr

Book:Hope Is an Imperative: The Essential David Orr

Work

Hope Is an Imperative: The Essential David Orr

Hope Is an Imperative: The Essential David Orr is a compilation of works by David Orr, focusing on his insights into environmental issues and the importance of hope in the face of ecological challenges. The book includes a variety of essays and articles that delve into the complexities of environmentalism, sustainability, and the human impact on the natural world. Orr's writing is characterized by its thoughtful analysis and advocacy for a more sustainable future. more

Author

David W. Orr (b. 1944) is a prominent American environmental educator, author, and professor at Oberlin College. He is widely recognized as a pioneer in environmental education, focusing on ecological literacy, sustainability, and green campus design. Orr authored influential books such as 'Ecological Literacy' and 'Earth in Mind,' and led the creation of the Adam Joseph Lewis Center for Environmental Studies at Oberlin, one of the greenest buildings globally. His work has significantly shaped environmental education, ecological design, and public policy. more

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“... the fouling of the nest which has been typical of man's activity in the past on a local scale now seems to be extending to the whole world society.”

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Book:Environmental Quality in a Growing Economy

Source: Environmental Quality in a Growing Economy

“We can change our thinking. Rather than viewing the chemical adulteration of our environment and our bodies as the inevitable practice of convenience and progress, we can decide that cancer is inconvenient and toxic pollution archaic and primitive. We can start seeing the creation of carcinogens as the result of outmoded technologies. We can demand green engineering and green chemistry. We can let our systems of industry and agriculture know that they are suffering from a design flaw.”

“Air pollution is not merely a nuisance and a threat to health. It is a reminder that our most celebrated technological achievements-the automobile, the jet plane, the power plant, industry in general, and indeed the modern city itself-are, in the environment, failures.”

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Author:Barry Commoner

“Along with the possibility of extinction of mankind by nuclear war, the central problem of our age has therefore become the contamination of man's total environment with such substances of incredible potential for harm-substances that accumulate in the tissues of plants and animals and even penetrate the germ cells to shatter or alter the very material of heredity upon which the shape of the future depends.”

Source: Silent Spring

“Poor communities, frequently communities of color but not exclusively, suffer disproportionately. If you look at where our industrialized facilities tend to be located, they're not in the upper middle class neighborhoods.”

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Author:Carol Browner

“An unfolding technology has increased our economic strength and added to the convenience of our lives. But that same technology-we know now-carries danger with it. From the great smoke stacks of industry and from the exhausts of motors and machines, 130 million tons of soot, carbon and grime settle over the people and shroud the Nation's cities each year. From towns, factories, and stockyards, wastes pollute our rivers and streams, endangering the waters we drink and use.”

“The debris of civilization litters the landscapes and spoils the beaches. Conservation's concerns now is not only for man's enjoyment-but for man's survival.”

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Book:Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1968-1969

Source: Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1968-1969

“And there are other dangers potentially more dangerous than even nuclear war. There is AIDS. There is terrorism. There are drugs and more to the point the darkness of our time that makes people seek escape in drugs. There is the slow poisoning of what we call "the environment" of all things as if with that absurdly antiseptic phrase we can conceal from ourselves that what we are really poisoning is home, is here, is us.”

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Author:Frederick Buechner

“Another agricultural trend of growing concern is the increased nutrient content of coastal waters resulting from fertilizer runoff in agricultural regions. Augmented by urban sewage discharge in some situations, this results in huge algal blooms, which, as they die and decay, deplete the oxygen content in the water, leading to the death of the fish.”

Source: Vital Signs 1999-2000: The Environmental Trends That Are Shaping Our Future

“Each summer, for example, nitrogen and phosphate washing from farmlands in the Mississippi Valley enter the Gulf of Mexico, creating a massive algal bloom covering some 16,000 square kilometers. As the blooms die off, this area-roughly the size of New Jersey-is so deprived of oxygen that no fish survive.”

Source: Vital Signs 1999-2000: The Environmental Trends That Are Shaping Our Future