Barbara Kingsolver Quotes

We depend on the gifts of nature, but these gifts must be received with gratitude and not exploited or abused

The seriousness of ecological degradation lays bare the depth of man's moral crisis... Simplicity, moderation, and discipline as well as the spirit of sacrifice must become a part of everyday life.

I think we need to take responsibility for the things we put on this planet, and also take responsibility for the things we take off the planet. We need to have limiters on how far we allow ourselves to go - ethical, moral limiters.

The oldest task in human history: to live on a piece of land without spoiling it..

A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community.

I can never waste water. If I cannot drink it I will use it to water the plants and I will never waste food. If it is inedible it goes on the compost heap.

Our biggest moral debt is to the environment. Take-take-take, nothing given back.

We share this planet, our home, with millions of species. Justice and sustainability both demand that we do not use more resources than we need.

If you wear clothing, and put out trash you are using up resources that others also need BUT I can pay attention and I can do better. That I know for sure about me, my soul needs to try or I can't lay my head down on my pillow at night and even hope to sleep.

the conspicuous consumption of limited resources has yet to be accepted widely as a spiritual error, or even bad manners

No society has ever yet been able to handle the temptations of technology to mastery, to waste, to exuberance, to exploration and exploitation... We have to learn to cherish this earth and cherish it as something that's fragile, that's only one, it's all we have... We have to use our scientific knowledge to correct the dangers that have come from science and technology.

It's upsetting to me that so many people think of themselves as environmentalists and still eat meat and dairy products. I think it's something people should be considering given the emergency situation we're in regarding water supplies, global warming, and the destruction of ecosystems. There's a lot of overlap between animal rights and the environment.

Fundamentally not to waste energy. If we were all to reduce our demands for energy, it would make an enormous amount of difference.

Our biggest challenge in this new century is to take an idea that seems abstract - sustainable development - and turn it into a reality for all the world's people

We have a responsibility toward the other life-forms of our planet whose continued existence is threatened by the thoughtless behavior of our own human species. . . . Environmental responsibility – for if there is no God, then, obviously, it is up to us to put things right.

The ecological crisis is a moral issue.

Gansey appeared beside Blue in the doorway. He shook his empty bottle at her. "Fair trade," he told her in a way that indicated he had selected a fair-trade coffee beverage entirely so that he could tell Blue that he had selected a fair-trade coffee beverage so that she could tell him well done with your carbon footprint and all that jazz. Blue said, "Better recycle that bottle.

We might hope to change the world through better, bigger programs to stop global warming, but global warming will not end unless people become less greedy and less wasteful, gaining a fresh vision of what it means to love our global neighbor.

We of an older generation can get along with what we have, though with growing hardship; but in your full manhood and womanhood you will want what nature once so bountifully supplied and man so thoughtlessly destroyed; and because of that want you will reproach us, not for what we have used, but for what we have wasted...So any nation which in its youth lives only for the day, reaps without sowing, and consumes without husbanding, must expect the penalty of the prodigal whose labor could with difficulty find him the bare means of life.

We are grossly wasting our energy resources and other precious raw materials as though their supply were infinite. We must even face the prospect of changing our basic ways of living. This change will either be made on our own initiative in a planned and rational way, or forced on us with chaos and suffering by the inexorable laws of nature.

We need to figure out how to have the things we love, and not destroy the world.

It took Britain half the resources of the planet to achieve its prosperity; how many planets will a country like India require?

A true conservative must necessarily be a conservationist.

We have reached the time in the life of the planet, and humanity's demand upon it, when every fisherman will have to be a river-keeper, a steward of marine shallows, a watchman on the high seas. We are beyond having to put back what we have taken out. We must put back more than we take out.

If human life is to survive on this planet, the old dualistic worldview, with people on one side and the environment on the other, must yield to a new vision that connects us with everything else and leads us to care for and take responsibility for it.