Home / Quotes / Quote by Ernest Becker

Quote by Ernest Becker

“Ecological devastation is the excrement, so to speak, of man's power worship.”

Author

Ernest Becker was an American anthropologist known for his theories on human motivation and culture. His major work, 'The Denial of Death', explores how humans seek meaning and purpose by denying the fear brought by freedom. more

“God then makes people whom he puts right in the middle of all this loaded creation. Commanding them to care for creation, to manage it, to lovingly use it, to creatively order it... They are environmentalists. Being deeply connected with their environment is who they are. For them to be anything else or to deny their divine responsibility to care for all that God has made would be to deny something that is at the core of their existence. This is why litter and pollution are spiritual issues.”

People Made Use Would Be Care Spiritual Order Existence Responsibility Issues Environment Middle Creation Divine Environmental Deny Connected Core Manage Pollution Loaded Environmentalist

Author:Rob Bell

“How would you describe the difference between modern war and modern industry-between say, bombing and strip mining, or between chemical warfare and chemical manufacturing? The difference seems to be only that in war the victimization of humans is directly intentional and in industry it is "accepted" as a "trade-off." Were the catastrophes of Love Canal, Bhopal, Chernobyl, and the Exxon Valdez episodes of war or of peace? They were in fact, peacetime acts of aggression, intentional to the extent that the risks were known and ignored.”

“I find man utterly unaware of what his wealth is or his fundamental capability is. He says time and again, "We can't afford it." For instance, we are saying now that we can't afford to do anything about pollution but after the costs of not doing something about pollution have multiplied many fold beyond what it would cost to correct it now, we will spend many fold what it would cost us now to correct it.”

Men Wealth Cost Fundamentals Environmental Instance Capability Pollution Folds

Book:World Game Series: Document 1

Source: World Game Series: Document 1

“Here in the United States, a study of nearly 700 women in California showed an increased risk of fetal death among babies whose mothers lived near crops when certain pesticides were sprayed. The largest risks were found among pregnant women exposed during the critical first trimester and among those who lived in the same square mile where pesticides were used.”

Source: Having Faith: An Ecologist's Journey to Motherhood

“Industrialized countries have disproportionately more cancers than countries with little or no industry (after adjusting for age and population size). One half of all the world's cancers occur in people living in industrialized countries, even though we are only one-fifth of the world's population. Closely tracking industrialization are breast cancer rates, which are highest in North America and northern Europe, intermediate in southern Europe and Latin America, and lowest in Asia and Africa.”

“Man was the outlaw, the rebel, the distorted shape that scarred the earth, the voice that silenced the music of Eden, the hand that raised up obscenities and blasphemies. Man was the pariah-dog, the moral leper in this translucent mirror of Heaven. He was the muddier of crystal waters, the despoiler of forests, the murderer of the innocent, the challenger against God. He was the assassin of the saints and the prophets, for they spoke of what he WOULD NOT HEAR, in the darkness of his spirit!”

Source: Great Lion of God: A Novel About Saint Paul

“Man, especially in our time, has without hesitation devastated wooded plains and valleys, polluted waters, disfigured the earth's habitat, made the air unbreathable, disturbed the hydro-geological and atmospheric systems, turned luxuriant areas into deserts and undertaken forms of unrestrained industrialization, degrading that 'flower bed'-which is the earth, our dwelling place.”

“Between the late 1950s and the late 1980s, more than 750 million tons of chemical wastes were discarded.”

Millions Waste Late Environmental Chemicals Pollution Discarded

Book:Living Downstream: An Ecologist's Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment

Source: Living Downstream: An Ecologist's Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment

“The study of how substances alter gene expression is part of the field of epigenetics. Some chemical exposures appear to turn on and turn off genes in ways that disregulate cell growth and predispose for cancer. From this perspective, our genes are less the command-and-control masters of our cells and more like the keys of piano, with the environment as the hands of the pianist.”

Source: Living Downstream: An Ecologist's Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment

“The military is the largest polluter in the country, and so you have a lot of military waste contaminating reservations - as, for example, on the Skull Valley Goshute Reservation, where 5,000 sheep died in some kind of experimental military nerve gas test 10 years ago. Many of our communities are dealing with that kind of waste, and an absence of political will to clean them up.”

Quote by Ernest Becker

Author

You May Also Like