“The environmental crisis is somber evidence of an insidious fraud hidden in the vaunted productivity and wealth of modern, technology-based society. This wealth has been gained by rapid short-term exploitation of the environmental system, but it has blindly accumulated a debt to nature-a debt so large and so pervasive that in the next generation it may, if unpaid, wipe out most of the wealth it has gained us.” IfsMayHas BeensNextTermWealthTechnologyGenerationsModernEvidenceCrisisEnvironmentalDebtProductivityFraudExploitationRapidsNext GenerationShort TermWipeInsidiousSomberModern TechnologyEnvironmental Crisis Author:Barry Commoner
“The unlimited capacity of the plant world to sustain man at his highest is a region as yet unexplored by modern science.” MenWorldModernHighestCapacityPlantEnvironmentalRegionsSustainabilityUnlimitedModern ScienceUnexplored Book:India of My Dreams Source: India of My Dreams
“By the time [of modern] generation was coming of age sexually, there was already this idea of safe sex. But that didn't exist for me. I came out of the free-swinging '60s and '70s. It was free love, baby. That was it. We had very liberal sex-ed classes in 1973, a yearlong environmental science class, and then Women's Lib and Gay Liberation. So it's insane to go from that to Reagan and AIDS. It was like, "What happened? Where's my future?"” IdeasAgeSexClassGenerationsHappenedModernBabyGaySafeEnvironmentalAidsInsaneLiberationComing Of AgeMy FutureSexuallyFree LoveScience ClassGay LiberationEnvironmental Science Author:Michael Stipe
“Inanimate objects are sometimes parties to litigation. A ship has a legal personality, a fiction found useful for maritime purposes. The corporation sole - a creature of ecclesiastical law - is an acceptable adversary, and large fortunes ride on its cases... So it should be as respects valleys, alpine meadows, rivers, lakes, estuaries, beaches, ridges, groves of trees, swampland, or even air that feels the destructive pressures of modern technology and modern life.” FeelsShouldSometimesWaterPartyCasesTechnologyAirTreeModernObjectsPersonalityPressureFortuneEnvironmentalShipsCorporationsDestructiveValleysAcceptableModern LifeAdversariesGroveRidgesInanimate ObjectsModern Technology Author:William O. Douglas
“Modern man has no real "value" for the ocean. All he has is the most crass form of egoist, pragmatic value for it. He treats it as a "thing" in the worst possible sense, to exploit it for the "good" of man. The man who believes things are there only by chance cannot give things a real value. But for the Christian the value of a thing is not in itself autonomously, but because God made it.” MenGivingBelieveMadeRealChristianFormValuesWaterChanceModernWorstHe ManOceanTreatsEnvironmentalMade ItExploitsPragmaticModern ManReal ValueCrass Author:Francis Schaeffer
“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.” WorldHumansHas BeensMadeSoulStatesHeavenCommunityNaturalChristianityEconomyEconomicModernToolsEnvironmentalContraryDespiteDestroyedProtestDividedDedicatedSustainabilityHouseholdStatus QuoPredatoryVillainyEconomic Status Book:The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry Source: The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry
“No institutions in modern society are better equipped to catalyze the necessary transition to a sustainable world than colleges and universities. They have access to the leaders of tomorrow and the leaders of today. What they do matters to the wider public.” WorldMatterTodayLeaderModernCollegeTomorrowInstitutionsEnvironmentalUniversityAccessTransitionSustainabilityModern SocietyColleges And UniversitiesLeaders Of Tomorrow Author:David W. Orr
“Unrestrained automobility, hedonism, individualism, and conspicuous consumption cannot be sustained because they take more than they give back. A spiritually impoverished world cannot be sustained because meaninglessness, anomie, and despair will corrode the desire to be sustained and the belief that humanity is worth sustaining. But these are the very things that distinguish the modern age from its predecessors, Genuine sustainability, in other words, will come not from superficial changes but from a deeper process akin to humankind growing up to a fuller stature.” WorldGivingAgeDesireHumanityBeliefProcessGrowing UpGrowingModernDespairEnvironmentalDeeperGenuineIndividualismSustainabilityHumankindConsumptionSuperficialGiving BackStatureSustainingPredecessorsMeaninglessnessHedonismModern AgeConspicuous ConsumptionAnomie Author:David W. Orr
“To a large degree, we are still bound to the modern scientific spirit, that characterizes reality merely by its material and mechanic aspects, without including life, consciousness and the intimate communion with that which poets, musicians and artists bring us in their magnificent works.” StillsRealitySpiritArtistConsciousnessModernPoetMaterialsDegreesMusicianAspectEnvironmentalBoundsIncludingIntimateMagnificentCommunionMechanicStewardship Author:Leonardo Boff
“I started by saying that one of the most fateful errors of our age is the belief that the problem of production has been solved. This illusion, I suggested, is mainly due to our inability to recognize that the modern industrial system, with all its intellectual sophistication, consumes the very basis on which is has been erected. To use the language of the economist, it lives on irreplaceable capital which it cheerfully treats as income.” Has BeensUseProblemAgeBeliefLanguageModernIntellectualIllusionTreatsBasesErrorsEnvironmentalProductionsDuesIncomeEconomistInabilityStewardshipSophisticationIrreplaceableSmall Is Beautiful Book:SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL Source: SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL
“Technologically, modern man does everything he can do-he functions on this single boundary principle. Modern man, seeing himself as autonomous, with no personal-infinite God who has spoken, has no adequate universal to supply an adequate second boundary condition; and man being fallen is not only finite, but sinful. Thus man's pragmatically made choices have no reference point beyond human egotism. It is dog eat dog, man eat man, man eat nature.” MenHumansDoeMadeChoicesCan DoPrinciplesSeeingModernConditionsDogUniversalFunctionInfiniteEnvironmentalBoundariesFallenFiniteAdequateStewardshipEgotismModern ManAutonomous Author:Francis Schaeffer
“Air pollution is not merely a nuisance and a threat to health. It is a reminder that our most celebrated technological achievements-the automobile, the jet plane, the power plant, industry in general, and indeed the modern city itself-are, in the environment, failures.” CitiesEnvironmentAirModernIndustryAchievementThreatPlantEnvironmentalPlanesPollutionTechnologicalRemindersAutomobileJetNuisancePower PlantsAir PollutionJet Planes Author:Barry Commoner
“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.” HumansWarFactsSeemsDifferencesKnownRiskModernIndustryTradeEnvironmentalAcceptedChemicalsPollutionEpisodesAggressionWarfareIgnoredCatastropheManufacturingBombingMiningCanalsChernobylVictimizationTrade OffsModern WarChemical Warfare Author:Wendell Berry
“Asbestos, EMFs, and CFCs have given us a degree of humility. When yesterday's "triumph of modern chemistry" turns out instead to be today's deadly threat to the global environment, it is legitimate to ask what else we don't know.” KnowsTodayTurnsAsksGivenEnvironmentModernHumilityDegreesThreatEnvironmentalYesterdayTriumphChemistryPollutionAsbestos Author:Denis Hayes