Best economy & sustainability Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“Our whole economy is based on planned obsolescence.”

Whole Economy Environmental Sustainability Obsolescence Planned Obsolescence

“To the extent that hiring in high-wage, developed economies continues to lag, the sustainability of any impetus to private consumption can be drawn into serious question.”

Economy Serious Sustainability Consumption Wages Hiring Impetus Lag

Author:Stephen S. Roach

“The creative process ignites our imagination, and I believe that that same imagination is what will propel us forward with issues of social change. I do think we have to acknowledge that we are a very capitalistic and consumptive nation, and that talk about conservation or issues of sustainability is never going to be popular with the dominant culture because it means checks and balances on an economy that is reserved for the dollar, rather than an economy that honors and respects spiritual resources and the right of all life to participate on the planet, not just our species.”

“The wrecking ball is characteristic of our way with materials. We 'cannot afford' to log a forest selectively, to mine without destroying topography, or to farm without catastrophic soil erosion. A production-oriented economy can indeed live in this way, but only so long as production lasts.”

Way Long Lasts Economy Mines Materials Balls Environmental Productions Forests Characteristics Soil Farms Destroying Sustainability Erosion Topography Soil Erosion

Author:Wendell Berry

“A sustainable economy represents nothing less than a higher social order one as concerned with future generations as with our own, and more focused on the health of the planet and the poor than on material acquisitions and military might. While it is a fundamentally new endeavor, with many uncertainties, it is far less risky than continuing with business as usual.”

“Although population and consumption are societal issues, technology is the business of business. If economic activity must increase tenfold over what it is today to support a population nearly double its current size, then technology will have to reduce its impact twenty-fold merely to keep the planet at its current levels of environmental impact. For example, to stabilize the climate we may have to reduce real carbon emissions by as much as 80 percent, while simultaneously growing the world economy by an order of magnitude.”

Source: Capitalism at the Crossroads: Next Generation Business Strategies for a Post-Crisis World

“Despite its protests to the contrary, modern Christianity has become willy-nilly the religion of the state and the economic status quo. Because it has been so exclusively dedicated to incanting anemic souls into Heaven, it has been made the tool of much earthly villainy. It has, for the most part, stood silently by while a predatory economy has ravaged the world, destroyed its natural beauty and health, divided and plundered its human communities and households.”

Source: The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry

“It is much easier to make intellectual messes than it is to clarify complicated issues, especially when real solutions would challenge the status quo and require much careful thought across many fields of knowledge. Problems of climatic change, biotic impoverishment, population growth, and the choices to be made by various technologies and the transition to a sustainable and decent society with an economy that works over the long-term are difficult, complex, and intertwined problems with many possible answers.”

Source: The Last Refuge: Patriotism, Politics, and the Environment in an Age of Terror

“Sustainability is an economic state where the demands placed upon the environment by people and commerce can be met without reducing the capacity of the environment to provide for future generations. It can also be expressed in the simple terms of an economic golden rule for the restorative economy: Leave the world better than you found it, take no more than you need, try not to harm life or the environment, make amends if you do.”

“The Captains of Industry have always counseled the rest of us "to be realistic." Let us, therefore, be realistic. Is it realistic to assume that the present economy would be just fine if only it would stop poisoning the air and water, or if only it would stop soil erosion, or if only it would stop degrading watersheds and forest ecosystems, or if only it would stop seducing children, or if only it would stop buying politicians, or if only it would give women and favored minorities an equitable share of the loot?”

Source: In the Presence of Fear: Three Essays for a Changed World

“We have reached a point where the value we do add to our economy is now being outweighed by the value we are removing, not only from future generations in terms of diminished resources, but from ourselves in terms of unlivable cities, deadening jobs, deteriorating health, and rising crime. In biological terms, we have become a parasite and are devouring our host.”

Jobs Values Term Cities Economy Generations Crime Resources Add Environmental Rising Host Sustainability Future Generation Parasites Devouring Deteriorating

Author:Paul Hawken

“We can just as easily have an economy that is based on healing the future instead of stealing it. We can either create assets for the future or take the assets of the future. One is called restoration and the other exploitation. And whenever we exploit the earth we exploit people and cause untold suffering. Working for the earth is not a way to get rich, it is a way to be rich.”

People Way Earth Suffering Causes Healing Economy Rich Environmental Stealing Assets Sustainability Exploitation Exploits Restoration Get Rich

Author:Paul Hawken

“We know what we have to do. And we know how to do it. If we fail to convert our self-destructing economy into one that is environmentally sustainable, future generations will be overwhelmed by environmental degradation and social disintegration. Simply stated, if our generation does not turn things around, our children may not have the option of doing so.”

“We will instead have to measure our economy by the health of the ecosystems and human communities where we do our work.”

Humans Community Economy Environmental Sustainability Ecosystems

Book:Life is a Miracle: An Essay Against Modern Superstition

Source: Life is a Miracle: An Essay Against Modern Superstition

“What is urgently needed is a bold new move from a consumer economy to a conserver economy in all of the developed countries, and particularly in the United States.”

Country States Moving United United States Economy Needed Environmental Consumers Sustainability Developed Country

Book:Richard Foster's treasury of Christian discipline

Source: Richard Foster's treasury of Christian discipline

“... placing economic activity in the context of the whole earth requires attention to the question of scale. Bigger is obviously not better, so the optimum scale of human economy in relation to the total economy becomes basically a question of sustainability. When the effects of the economy on the environment undercut the possibility of its own continuance, the scale is too large.”

Humans Whole Earth Attention Economy Environment Economic Effects Possibility Activity Bigger Relation Environmental Scales Sustainability Continuance Optimum Undercut

Book:Sustaining the Common Good: A Christian Perspective on the Global Economy

Source: Sustaining the Common Good: A Christian Perspective on the Global Economy

“Criticism of growth arose with the discovery that growth beyond a certain point is destructive of the earth. We are already using resources much faster than they can be replenished. We are producing wastes much faster than nature's sinks can process them. The growth economy will end. The only questions are when its end will come, and whether humanity will be able to survive its demise.”

Ends Able Earth Certain Humanity Process Growth Economy Waste Discovery Resources Criticism Environmental Faster Destructive Sustainability Demise Using Resources

Book:Sustaining the Common Good: A Christian Perspective on the Global Economy

Source: Sustaining the Common Good: A Christian Perspective on the Global Economy

“The sustainable alternative is one in which smaller and smaller regions produce more and more of the goods they need closer to where they are consumed. These economies will contribute little to the greenhouse effect and will survive the exhaustion of oil.”

Needs Littles Economy Effects Produce Environmental Oil Alternatives Regions Goods Sustainability Consumed Exhaustion Greenhouses

Book:Sustaining the Common Good: A Christian Perspective on the Global Economy

Source: Sustaining the Common Good: A Christian Perspective on the Global Economy

“How do we create beauty in a broken world? How do we create a view of sustainability in an economy that is crashing? How do we reconfigure our lives, how do we pick up the pieces and create a meaningful life? So, yes, we have a different form of leadership but the questions remain the same.”

World Different Form Views Economy Pieces Our Lives Broken Picks Meaningful Sustainability Meaningful Life Broken World

Author:Terry Tempest Williams

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