“Human beings have been smart enough to turn nature to their ends, generate vast wealth for themselves, and double their average life span. But are they smart enough to solve the problems of the 21st century?” HumansHas BeensEndsEnoughProblemTurnsWealthHuman BeingsCenturySmartAverageSolve21st CenturyLife SpanAverage Life Author:Thomas Homer-Dixon
“As a general rule, when something gets elevated to apple-pie status in the hierarchy of American values, you have to suspect that its actual monetary value is skidding toward zero. Take motherhood: nobody ever thought of putting it on a moral pedestal until some brash feminists pointed out, about a century ago, that the pay is lousy and the career ladder nonexistent. Same thing with work: would we be so reverent about the 'work ethic' if it wasn't for the fact that the average working stiff's hourly pay is shrinking, year by year.” IfsYearsFactsValuesWorkPayMoralCareersCenturyEthicsAverageFeministMotherhoodApplesSuspectsZeroPieWork EthicLaddersHierarchyMonetaryPedestalShrinkingAmerican ValuesApple PieBrashMonetary Value Author:Barbara Ehrenreich
“I think we need to find a way to provide people with a reason that the average man on the street can grasp and embrace, that would cause him to move away from the centuries-old idea of the individual and individualism, and move toward a different concept of what it means to be human in a collective society. Unless he has that reason, unless he has a fundamental reason to do that, it's going to be very difficult to cause him to make that shift, in my view.” PeopleThinkingMenWayNeedsHumansMeanIdeasDifferentReasonMovingIndividualCausesDifficultViewsStreetsCenturyConceptsFundamentalsEmbraceAverageCollectivesIndividualismAverage ManOld IdeasWhat It Means To Be Human Author:Neale Donald Walsch
“The ingredients that made this country, you know, the miracle of the world - I mean we had a seven for one improvement in the average American standard of living in the 20th century.” KnowsWorldMeanMadeCountryCenturyStandardsMiracleSevenAverageImprovementIngredients20th CenturyStandards Of Living Author:Howard Warren Buffett
“There is some evidence that average wave heights are slowly rising, and that freak waves of eighty or ninety feet are becoming more common. Wave heights off the coast of England have risen an average of 25 percent over the past couple of decades, which converts to a twenty-foot increase in the highest waves over the next half century. One cause may be the tightening of environmental laws, which has reduced the amount of oil flushed into the oceans by oil tankers.” MayPastLawNextCausesWaterCommonHalfFeetCenturyAmountCoupleBecomingOceanHighestPercentEvidenceIncreaseEnglandTwentiesEnvironmentalAverageWaveOilDecadesHeightRisingFreakCoastNinetyEightyRisenOver The PastBecoming More Author:Sebastian Junger
“We are more gullible and superstitious today than we were in the Middle Ages, and an example of modern credulity is the widespread belief that the Earth is round. The average man can advance not a single reason for thinking that the Earth is round. He merely swallows this theory because there is something about it that appeals to the twentieth century mentality.” ThinkingMenReasonAgeTodayEarthBeliefModernMiddleCenturyExampleTheoryRoundsAverageAppealsMentalityMiddle AgesTwentieth CenturySuperstitiousCredulityAverage ManGullibleRound Earth Author:George Bernard Shaw
“I sell architecture better and more directly and more vividly than the architect does... The average architect is stupid. He doesn't know how to sell. He's not a merchandiser. He doesn't know how to express his own image. He doesn't know how to create a design of his image... And I do it. I've done it all my career over half a century, and it gets better.” KnowsDoeDoneHalfCareersKnow HowCenturyStupidDesignSellsAverageArchitectureGet BetterArchitectIt Gets BetterHalf A Century Author:Julius Shulman
“The impact of climate change is relatively small. The average impact on welfare is equivalent to losing a few per cent of income. That is, the impact of a century worth of climate change is comparable to the impact of one or two years of economic growth.” YearsTwoGrowthEconomicCenturyLosingImpactClimateClimate ChangeAverageIncomeWelfareTwo YearsCentsEconomic Growth Author:Richard Tol
“Fossil fuel is very seductive stuff. [John Maynard] Keynes once said that, as far as he could tell, the average standard of living from the beginning of human history to the middle of the eighteenth century had perhaps doubled. Not much had changed, and then we found coal and gas and oil and everything changed. We're reaping the result of that, both ecologically and socially.” HumansSaidFoundStuffResultsMiddleCenturyChangedStandardsAverageOilFuelGasCoalFossilsHuman HistoryFossil FuelSeductiveStandards Of LivingKeynes Author:Bill McKibben
“I was in school for literature, and read so many 19th century and early 20th century novels that it was hard to break out of that and read an average Jeanette Winterson book or something.” BookHardSchoolLiteratureBreakNovelCenturyAverage20th Century19th CenturyBreak Out Author:Colin Meloy