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Environment Quotes

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Environment Quotes

“If you ask me about my views on the environment, on women's rights, on gay rights, I am liberal. I don't have a problem with that at all. Some of my best friends are liberal.”

Ifs Problem Asks Views Environment Rights Gay Ask Me Womens Rights My Best Friend Gay Rights

Author:Bernie Sanders

“There is no larger collective-action problem than the environment. The three biggest lies of the environmental movement is that every little bit helps, you can do your part, and together we can do it.”

Littles Helping Problem Action Together Lying Three Bits Can Do Environment Movement Little Bit Environmental Collectives Together We Can Collective Action

Author:Clay Shirky

“Unintended consequences get to the heart of why you never really understand an adaptive problem until you have solved it. Problems morph and "solutions" often point to deeper problems. In social life, as in nature, we are walking on a trampoline. Every inroad reconfigures the environment we tread on.”

Heart Problem Social Knowledge Learning Environment Walking Solutions Consequence Management Deeper Social Life Adaptive Unintended Consequences Trampolines

Book:The Power of Positive Deviance: How Unlikely Innovators Solve the World's Toughest Problems

Source: The Power of Positive Deviance: How Unlikely Innovators Solve the World's Toughest Problems

“I think the human body is beautiful, and I don't really have a huge problem in dealing with it, but it's the context, the environment and what I feel about it that that makes the difference for me.”

Thinking Feels Humans Problem Body Beautiful Differences Environment Huge Human Body Dealing With It

Author:Andie MacDowell

“Natural selection deals ruthlessly with any population, bird or beaver, which fails to solve the problems of its environment with all those resources, learned or unlearned, which may be at its disposal.”

May Problem Natural Deals Environment Failing Evolution Bird Resources Population Solve Selection Natural Selection Beavers

Book:THE TERRITORIAL IMPERATIVE

Source: THE TERRITORIAL IMPERATIVE

“There are two ways. One is to be a puppet, follow the culture, and do whatever they want. That was mentally disturbing to me, and still is. And the other way is to go out. I knew there would be problems from my family, and also from my environment. But I thought that physical pain would be better than the mental pain. And I started working as an artist.”

Way Want Stills Two Problem Would Be Pain Artist Culture Environment My Family Disturbing Two Ways Puppets Physical Pain Mental Pain

Author:Malina Suliman

“When you have some skills but don't fully understand your environment, there is no way you can be a plus one. At best, you can be a zero. But a zero isn't a bad thing to be. You're competent enough not to create problems or make more work for everyone else. And you have to be competent, and prove to others that you are, before you can be extraordinary. There are no short-cuts, unfortunately.”

Way Enough Problem Environment Cutting Skills Prove Extraordinary Plus Bad Things Zero Be You Our Environment Competent Short Cuts

Book:An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth

Source: An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth

“We come from an environment molded from 3 billion years of evolution, and when we change our behavior, there may be problems.”

Years May Problem Environment Evolution Behavior Billions

Author:W. Richard Stevens

“The hungry world cannot be fed until and unless the growth of its resources and the growth of its population come into balance. Each man and woman-and each nation-must make decisions of conscience and policy in the face of this great problem.”

Source: Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1966

“We have come tardily to the tremendous task of cleaning up our environment. We should have moved with similar zeal at least a decade ago. But no purpose is served by post-mortems. With visionary zeal but the greatest realism, we must now address ourselves to the vast problems that confront us.”

Should Problem Purpose Environment Tasks Should Have Moved Decades Posts Addresses Realism Cleaning Our Environment Zeal Visionaries Cleaning Up

Book:Selected speeches

Source: Selected speeches

“The farmer and the farm, like "the environment," are looked upon, for example, as means to offset trade deficits. The farm is a place where we can externalize costs. The cost of pesticides to the farmer and the cost of the pesticides to the soil and groundwater are regarded similarly by the public: "a serious problem that something ought to be done about." But the problem is more fundamental than this glib statement would indicate, for soil pollution is an expense of production. So are pesticides and nitrates in our farm wells. So is the loss of farmers from the land.”

Wells Mean Done Problem Loss Environment Land Example Serious Ought Cost Fundamentals Trade Productions Statements Soil Expenses Farms Farmers Pollution Deficit Pesticides Groundwater

Author:Wes Jackson

“We worked on solving the problem of voice communications in a noisy military environment. We established military codes that are highly audible and invented selection tests for personnel who had a superior ability to recognize sound in a noisy background.”

Problem Sound Voice Ability Environment Military Communication Tests Backgrounds Superiors Code Selection Noisy Personnel

Author:M. H. Abrams

“There are serious problems that have to do with the environment, that have to do with the way in which we live and consume.”

Way Problem Environment Serious

Author:Donald Wuerl

“My view is there will be problems and bad people as long as the earth exists, and since we're moving into a completely interdependent global environment, we're better off building a world we'd like to live in when the United States are not the only military superpower. That is, we need to build a world of shared responsibility, shared benefits, and shared commitment to our common humanity.”

“I thanked the President [George W. Bush] for the steadfastness and resolve with which he's tackling the very complicated problems in the Middle East and Iraq, as well as the Israel-Palestinian issue.... It's critical for us in Southeast Asia that America does that.... because it affects America's standing in Asia and the world, and also the security environment in Asia because extremists, the jihadists, watch carefully what's happening in the Middle East and take heart, or lose heart, depending on what's happening.”

“In my travels, I have found two peoples, the Tibetans and the Fijians, who don't seem to have this problem. Their closeness with their environment, their religions, and their relationships with each other and nature make them feel part of everything.”

Feels Two Problem Seems Found Environment Rama Closeness Tibetan

Author:Frederick Lenz

“Parents needs to spend more time with who they're trusting their kids with. That's one of the nuggets going forward. Find out who these coaches are. Figure out their environment and what kind of problems they have, and see if you want your child involved with that.”

Ifs Want Needs Kind Children Problem Kids Parent Environment Figures Involved Our Children Coaches Your Children More Time Nuggets

Author:Ray Lewis

“If responsibility for the upbringing of children is to continue to be vested in the family, then the rights of children will be secured only when parents are able to make a living for their families with so little difficulty that they may give their best thought and energy to the child's development and the problem of helping it adjust itself to the complexities of the modern environment.”

Ifs Giving May Children Littles Helping Problem Able Energy Parent Responsibility Poverty Environment Rights Modern Development Difficulty Complexity Upbringing Secured

Author:Suzanne La Follette

“Tranquillizers do not change our environment, nor do they change our personalities. They merely reduce our responsiveness to stimuli. They dull the keen edge of the angers, fears, or anxiety with which we might otherwise react to the problems of living. Once the response has been dulled, the irritating surface noise of living muted or eliminated, the spark and brilliance are also gone.”

Has Beens Problem Might Gone Environment Personality Anxiety Response Edges Surface Noise Dull Sparks Our Environment Stimulus Brilliance Irritating Responsiveness Living Once

Author:Indra Devi

“We know it (meat eating) is indisputably the number one cause of global warming. So what does it mean exactly to be an environmentalist on a daily basis if you are not thinking about the number one cause of global warming or one of the top two or three causes of all other environmental problems? Does it mean you are necessarily someone who doesn't care about the environment? Obviously not, but it might mean you have a blind spot for something big.”

“This is the problem with foreign policy - talking about foreign policy in a political context. Politics is binary. People win and lose elections. Legislation passes or doesn't pass. And in foreign policy often what you're doing is nuance and you're trying to prevent something worse from happening. It doesn't translate well into a political environment.”

“Only in the problem play is there any real drama, because drama is no mere setting up of the camera to nature: it is the presentation in parable of the conflict between Man's will and his environment: in a word, of problem.”

Men Real Play Problem Environment Drama Conflict Cameras Mere Setting Settings Presentation Parables

Book:The Collected Works of George Bernard Shaw: Plays, Novels, Articles, Lectures, Letters and Essays: Pygmalion, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Candida, Arms and The Man, Man and Superman, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion, The New York Times Articles on War, Memories of Oscar Wilde and more

Source: The Collected Works of George Bernard Shaw: Plays, Novels, Articles, Lectures, Letters and Essays: Pygmalion, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Candida, Arms and The Man, Man and Superman, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion, The New York Times Articles on War, Memories of Oscar Wilde and more

“All in all, the communally reared children of Israel are far from the emotional disasters that psychoanalytic theory predicted. Neither have they been saved from all personality problems, as the founders of the kibbutz movement had hoped when they freed children from their parents. In any reasonable environment, children seem to grow up to be themselves. There is no evidence that communal rearing with stimulating, caring adults is either the ruination or the salvation of children.”

“Removed from its more restrictive sense, masturbation has become an expression for everything that has proved, for lack of human contact, to be void of meaning. We have communication problems, suffer from egocentrism and narcissism, are frustrated by information glut and loss of environment; we stagnate despite the rising GNP.”

Humans Problem Suffering Loss Environment Information Expression Communication Contact Despite Rising Void Narcissism Frustrated Masturbation Communication Problems

Author:Gunter Grass

“When Western civilization invaded the Near and Far East and what is now called the Third World it imposed its own ideas of a proper environment and a rewarding life. Doing this, it disrupted the delicate patterns of adaptation and created problems that had not existed before.”

World Ideas Problem Environment Civilization Thirds Western Patterns East Delicate Adaptation Third World Western Civilization Near And Far

Book:Conquest of Abundance: A Tale of Abstraction Versus the Richness of Being

Source: Conquest of Abundance: A Tale of Abstraction Versus the Richness of Being

“The basic building block of peace and security for all peoples is economic and social security, anchored in sustainable development. It is a key to all problems. Why? Because it allows us to address all the great issues-poverty, climate, environment and political stability-as parts of the whole.”

“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

“Man is suddenly becoming aware that by an ill-considered exploitation of nature he risks destroying it and becoming in his turn the victim of this degradation. Not only is the material environment becoming a permanent menace - pollution and refuse, new illness and absolute destructive capacity - but the human framework is no longer under man's control, thus creating an environment for tomorrow which may well be intolerable. This is a wide-ranging social problem which concerns the entire human family.”

“The real lesson of 9/11 that I think we have still to learn is that this is a world of interdependence, in which all of the challenges of environment and climate change, of jobs, of disease, of war and terrorism, are cross-border problems that cannot be met one nation at a time.”

Thinking World Stills War Real Problem Jobs Nations Challenges Environment Lessons Mets Disease Crosses Climate Climate Change Terrorism Borders Interdependence

Author:Benjamin Barber

“We have a tremendous opportunity to try to start solving some of our overwhelming problems with population related environment, related to the hatred that exists between countries and religions, so we have a tremendous opportunity, but the dangers are very clearly there.”

Trying Country Problem Opportunity Environment Danger Hatred Population Related Overwhelming

Author:Hugh Hefner

“Development requires modification and transformation of the environment... the planet's capacity to support its people us being irreversibly reduced by the destruction and degradation of the biosphere and the need to understand the problem and take corrective action is becoming urgent.”

People Needs Problem Action Support Environment Planets Development Becoming Capacity Destruction Transformation Urgent Degradation Modification Biosphere

Author:Malcolm Fraser

“Racism was just a tool to deal with frustration and pain and that people are in denial about the way we feel and desperately trying to control their environment the way their lives are. And ultimately their scapegoats aren't going to make them feel better, it's just going to increase hatred and the problem gets worse and worse.”

People Way Feels Trying Problem Pain Deals Environment Racism Tools Hatred Increase Denial Frustration Feel Better Scapegoat

Author:Matt Dillon

“Cars are the most central thing in America, in a lot of ways. They've probably influenced the way we live more than anything else, and yet every really big problem - whether it's the environment or who dictates the international economy because of oil - is all tied to cars. Ultimately, cars are bad for civilization. I don't know if they'll end us.”

Ifs Knows Way Ends Problem Bigs America Economy Environment Car Civilization International Oil Tied Big Problems

Author:Chuck Klosterman

“Lots of people talk to animals... Not very many listen, though... That's the problem.”

“Ideas, Mike Jones, an engineer at Google explained, were like babies - everything about their environment said they shouldn't exist. But they do. You can't dwell on problems too early, or they will swamp the virtues and you will decide not to do the project.”

Said Ideas Problem Virtue Environment Baby Projects Engineers Google Mike Swamps

Author:Steven Levy

“Most people have thought of ... climate change as a problem about the environment that is separate and distinct from problems of human wellbeing.”

People Humans Problem Environment Climate Climate Change Wellbeing

Author:Naomi Oreskes

“The answer is navigation, manipulation, and implementation of more sophisticated intelligence. The idea that a robot will become more aware of its environment, that telling it to "go to the kitchen" means something - navigation and understanding of the environment is a robot problem. Those are the technological frontiers of the robotics industry.”

Mean Ideas Problem Understanding Answers Environment Industry Kitchen Manipulation Sophisticated Technological Robots Frontiers Robotics Implementation Navigation

Author:Colin Angle

“The fundamental problem for Republicans when it comes to the environment is that whatever you say is viewed through the prism of suspicion.”

Problem Environment Republican Fundamentals Suspicion Prisms Whatever You Say

Author:Frank Luntz

“Through scientific discovery and technological innovation, we enlist the forces of the natural world to solve many of the uniquely human problems we face - feeding and providing energy to agrowing population, improving human health, taking responsibility for protecting the environment and the global ecosystem, and ensuring our own Nation's security. Scientific discoveries inspire and enrich us, teaching us about the mysteries of life and the nature of the world.”

“No problem stays solved in a dynamic environment.”

Problem Environment No Problem

Author:Russell L. Ackoff

“There is a major problem of unsustainability of our environment, and we're seeing it in our natural resources, peak oil is probably upon us, and it can't be sustained. We're on an unsustainable path, and at this point in history we are responsible for that. We're going to have to change our ways. We're going to have to think through this problem.”

Thinking Way Problem Natural Path Environment Seeing Majors Resources Responsible Oil Our Environment Natural Resources Major Problems Peak Oil

Author:Edgar Mitchell

“Somehow, the agenda has been put into the form of talking about a set of transitions from state A, the present, to a state B that's sustainable. The problem is that there is no such state. You have to assume that the transitions are going to continue forever and ever and ever. You have to talk about systems that are continuously dynamic, and that are embedded in environments that themselves are continuously dynamic.”

Has Beens States Problem Form Talking Forever Environment Assuming Agendas Transition Embedded

Author:George Cowan

“Must we wait for selection to solve the problems of overpopulation, exhaustion of resources, pollution of the environment and a nuclear holocaust, or can we take explicit steps to make our future more secure? In the latter case, must we not transcend selection?”

Problem Waiting Steps Cases Environment Resources Solve Nuclear Secure Latter Our Future Holocaust Pollution Selection Exhaustion Explicit Overpopulation

Author:B. F. Skinner

“Doing something, however pathetic, is psychologically better than doing nothing. In the current political environment - that is, with no more Cold War tensions - the tendency is to counteract the feelings of fear and vulnerability with a variety of military, paramilitary and police measures, despite the reality that this kind of excessive reliance on force in many ways intensifies the very problem it is purporting to solve.”

“I think the idea that the systemic problems in a society lead to illness is important to know. We shouldn't be separating out how we live with where we live, and what ails us with the environment we're in.”

Thinking Knows Important Ideas Problem Environment Illness Separating

Author:Claudia Rankine

“We would solve a lot of huge problems that are causing massive suffering. Poverty, violence, homophobia, heterosexism, racism, the environment - all these things that are crippling us. We need big, bold, dangerous, crazy ideas to solve these problems. When failure is not an option, innovation and creativity are not options.”

“So this is my attempt to give a preliminary - probably far too crude - account of how philosophy by showing can really teach us. The attempts we make to work through problems by reasoning always presuppose starting points, and even the most self-critical philosophers adopt some of those starting points simply by picking them up from the social environments in which they grow up.”

Giving Self Philosophy Problem Social Grows Teach Growing Up Environment Accounts Starting Philosopher Critical Reasoning Crude Starting Point Social Environment

Author:Philip Kitcher

“Many people who live in big countries like ours thought that we had resources that would work for us for many, many years, but that was a mistake. Our natural wealth corrupted us. In this country, you were among the first to raise environmental issues. In Russia, despite all of its problems today, people are concerned about the environment, and it's become a central issue on the agenda.”

People Years Firsts Country Problem Bigs Today Natural Wealth Mistake Issues Environment Resources Concerned Raises Environmental Russia Despite Agendas Environmental Issues

Author:Mikhail Gorbachev

“Psychotherapy makes every problem a subjective, inner problem. And that's not where the problems come from. They come from the environment, the cities, the economy, the racism. They come from architecture, school systems, capitalism, exploitation. They come from many places that psychotherapy does not address. Psychotherapy theory turns it all on you: you are the one who is wrong.”

Doe Problem School Turns Cities Economy Environment Theory Racism Capitalism Architecture Addresses Exploitation Subjective Psychotherapy School System Architecture School

Author:James Hillman

“The problem with architecture is it goes with the territory, because it's an applied art and because you're messing about with people and their environment.”

People Art Problem Environment Architecture Territory Applied Arts

Author:Peter Clewes