“I can't imagine anything more important than air, water, soil, energy and biodiversity. These are the things that keep us alive.” I CanImportantEnergyWaterAliveImagineAirSoilBiodiversity Author:David Suzuki
“Currents of energy shimmer through our bodies. Like shooting stars, we rocket through spacious stillness. But this silent, unmoving background is nothing like the granite ideas we use trying to take root in groundless soil.” TryingIdeasUseBodyEnergyStarsRootsSilentCurrentsBackgroundsShootingSoilStillnessRocketsGraniteShimmerShooting Star Author:Anthony Lawlor
“The wealth of any ecosystem is its perennials. The primal herbivore-predator-disturbance-rest dance is literally the breath and pulse of the earth. Grasses recycle oxygen far more efficiently than trees. The turnover is faster. Grass reaches out and turns solar energy into carbon. Tillage hyper-aerates the soil, burning out carbon. But because a plant creates bilateral symmetry at the soil horizon, it sloughs off root mass when the top gets chopped off.” EarthTurnsEnergyWealthTreeMassRootsBreathsPlantBurningFasterGrassSoilHorizonReach OutCarbonOxygenPulsePrimalEcosystemsPredatorDisturbanceSymmetryHyperSolar EnergyTurnoverSlough Author:Joel Salatin
“Yet the leaf is the chief product and phenomenon of Life: this is a green world, with animals comparatively few and small, and all dependent on the leaves. By leaves we live. Some people have strange ideas that they live by money. They think energy is generated by the circulation of coins. Whereas the world is mainly a vast leaf colony, growing on and forming a leafy soil, not a mere mineral mass: and we live not by the jingling of our coins, but by the fullness of our harvests.” PeopleThinkingWorldIdeasEnergyAnimalGrowingStrangeProductsMassGreenPlantMereChiefsSoilDependentLive ByPhenomenonHarvestLeafsCoinsFullnessColonyCirculationMineralsGreen World Author:Patrick Geddes
“He that has energy enough in his constitution to root out a vice should go a little further, and try to plant a virtue in its place; otherwise he will have his labor to renew. A strong soil that has produced weeds may be made to produce wheat with far less difficulty than it would cost to make it produce nothing.” ShouldTryingMayLittlesMadeEnoughEnergyStrongVirtueProduceCostLaborRootsConstitutionDifficultyPlantVicesSoilWeedWheat Author:Charles Caleb Colton
“There are some things in the world we can't change- gravity, entropy, the speed of light, and our biological nature that requires clean air, clean water, clean soil, clean energy and biodiversity for our health and well-being. Protecting the biosphere should be our highest priority or else we sicken and die. Other things, like capitalism, free enterprise, the economy, currency, the market, are not forces of nature, we invented them. They are not immutable and we can change them. It makes no sense to elevate economics above the biosphere.” WorldShouldWellsLightDiesEnergyForceWaterEconomyAirHighestCapitalismEconomicsCleanSpeedPrioritiesWell BeingSoilEnterpriseGravityCurrencyCan't ChangeEnvironmentalistFree EnterpriseBiodiversityEntropyForces Of NatureClean EnergyClean WaterSpeed Of LightBiosphereClean Air Author:David Suzuki
“One of the remarkable characteristics of young wild sunflowers, in addition to growing in soil that is not hospitable, is how the young flower bud follows the sun across the sky. In doing so, it receives life-sustaining energy before bursting forth in its glorious yellow color. Like the young sunflower, when we follow the Savior of the world, the Son of God, we flourish and become glorious despite the many terrible circumstances that surround us. He truly is our light and life.” WorldLightYoungEnergySunGrowingSkyColorSonFlowerCircumstancesTerribleDespiteCharacteristicsGloriousSoilRemarkableSurroundSaviorYellowBudSustainingBurstingSunflower Author:Quentin L. Cook
“... continual hard labor deadens the energies of the soul, and benumbs the faculties of the mind; the ideas become confined, the mind barren, and, like the scorching sands of Arabia, produces nothing; or, like the uncultivated soil, brings forth thorns and thistles. Again, continual hard labor irritates our tempers and sours our dispositions; the whole system become worn out with toil and fatigue; nature herself becomes almost exhausted, and we care but little whether we live or die.” MindLittlesIdeasSoulHardWholeCareDiesEnergyProduceLaborSoilSandFacultyTemperWornExhaustedDispositionToilFatigueConfinedThornsBarrenArabiaWorn OutThistlesScorching Author:Maria W. Stewart
“Real security, in other words, is inseparable from issues of energy policy; education; public health; preservation of soils, forests, and waters; and broadly based, sustainable prosperity.” RealEnergyWaterIssuesSecurityPolicyEnvironmentalProsperityForestsSoilSustainabilityPreservationInseparablePublic HealthEnergy Policy Author:David W. Orr
“Ours is certainly not an old culture. Yet in recent decades we've used more energy, destroyed more soil, created more pathogenicity (temporarily stopped some too, for sure), mutated more bacteria, and dumped more toxicity on the planet than all the cultures before us-combined. I love the United States, but I am not blind to the wrongs. I have no desire to live anywhere else, but that doesn't mean I think everything we're doing should be done or can be maintained.” ThinkingShouldMeanStatesDoneUsedDesireCultureEnergyUnitedUnited StatesPlanetsBlindEnvironmentalDecadesDestroyedSoilSustainabilityToxicityBacteriaDumpedDesire To LiveOld Culture Author:Joel Salatin