Ramez Naam Quotes

We say we need to clean up the environment; to clean up the environment, we need to be richer. But maybe getting richer is actually making us poorer.

Fundamentally, if you look at where the environmental issues are coming from, it's all because of humans and our impact on the environment, so while it's true that one individual is not going to sufficiently fix the environment, it is a necessary thing.

I wanted to help raise awareness, so I created an environmental foundation called Just Within Reach.

The planet's environmental woes tend to be overlooked as we scramble for the latest high-tech gizmos - and conveniently ignore their energy consumption.

China leads the world in energy consumption, carbon emissions, and the release of major air and water pollutants, and the environmental impact is felt both regionally and globally.

We can have technology, prosperity, nice homes and cars, but at the same time we must be conscious of what we are dumping into the water, the air and our food.

Environmental policy must strike a balance between the earth's best interests and our citizen's pressing needs.

Every time we try to do something to improve the environment someone predicts that it will ruin the economy.

Every time there is an economic intensification, there is an ecological impact.

I think its important to speak up for the environment because the Earth is not saying something.

The environmentalists say capitalism is killing our oceans, air, land, and forests. Capitalists argue that they provide food, fuel, and building materials for a growing world.

I always knew that I was going be an environmental advocate when I was very young.

I have a major respect for nature. I'm an environmentalist.

Since the early 1990s, I had been very worried about the state of the environment, and by the end of that decade, I realized I needed to do something about it.

I agree on the need for environmental sustainability. It is no good raising gross national income while at the same time destroying natural assets.

Ecological thought rejects consumerism at its peril.

Unfortunately, our affluent society has also been an effluent society.

After all, sustainability means running the global environment - Earth Inc. - like a corporation: with depreciation, amortization and maintenance accounts. In other words, keeping the asset whole, rather than undermining your natural capital.

Journey with me to a true commitment to our environment. Journey with me to the serenity of leaving to our children a planet in equilibrium.

We're not going to persuade people in the developing world to go without, but neither can we afford a planet on which everyone lives like an American. Billions more people living in suburbs and driving SUVs to shopping malls is a recipe for planetary suicide. We can't even afford to continue that way of life ourselves.

It does seem really hard to get consumers to do the right thing. It is stupid that we use two tons of steel, glass, and plastic to haul our sorry selves to the shopping mall. It's stupid that we put water in plastic bottles in Fiji and ship it here.

Unless we keep this planet healthy, everything else is for naught.

We don't need a War on Carbon. We need a new prosperity that can be shared by all while still respecting a multitude of real ecological limits - not just atmospheric gas concentrations, but topsoil depth, water supplies, toxic chemical concentrations, and the health of ecosystems, including the diversity of life they depend upon.

It's no secret - if you know me, have ever met me or have shared a meal with me - that I'm a passionate environmentalist.

Franklin Roosevelt was very concerned about environmental issues.