George Monbiot Quotes

Probably the most visible example of unintended consequences, is what happens every time humans try to change the natural ecology of a place.

Apart from the hostile influence of man, the organic and the inorganic world are ... bound together by such mutual relations and adaptations s secure, if not the absolute permanence and equilibrium of both ... at least a very slow and gradual succession of changes in those conditions. But man is everywhere a disturbing agent. Wherever he plants his foot, the harmonies of nature are turned to discords.

For two summers not a blue wing, not a blue warble. I seemed to miss something kindred and precious from my environment--the visible embodiment of the tender sky and wistful soil. What a loss, I said, to coming generations of dwellers in the country--no bluebird in spring!

If diversity is a source of wonder, its opposite - the ubiquitous condensation to some blandly amorphous and singularly generic modern culture that takes for granted an impoverished environment - is a source of dismay. There is, indeed, a fire burning over the earth, taking with it plants and animals, cultures, languages, ancient skills and visionary wisdom. Quelling this flame, and re-inventing the poetry of diversity is perhaps the most important challenge of our times.

When man becomes greater than nature, nature, which gave him birth, will respond.

To annihilate indigenous populations eventually paves the way to our own annihilation. They are the only people who practice sustainable living. We think they are relics of the past, but they may be the gatekeepers to our future.

It was Autumn, and incessant Piped the quails from shocks and sheaves, And, like living coals, the apples Burned among the withering leaves.

Our relationship with nature has changed radically, irreversibly, but by no means all for the bad. Our new epoch is laced with invention. Our mistakes are legion, but our talent is immeasurable.

Praise the green earth. Chance has appointed her home, workshop, larder, middenpit. Her lousy skin scabbed here and there by cities provides us with name and nation.

Why is it that the destruction of something created by humans is called vandalism, yet the destruction of something created by God is called development?

There are definitely recurring themes in humanity's relationship with our environment. The biggest is probably adaptation, because humans are incredibly good at adapting to new environments in relatively short periods of time. The ancestors of Homo sapiens started leaving Africa over one million years ago, moving from warm, tropical climates into the freezing wilderness of Europe and the desert ecosystems of the Middle East.

Give wind and tide a chance to change.

Like winds and sunsets, wild things were taken for granted until progress began to do away with them

Nature has given us this for free, it was meant to sustain us, we will not allow it to become a monopoly to finance the Imperial Army.

Biology is a science of three dimensions. The first is the study of each species across all levels of biological organization, molecule to cell to organism to population to ecosystem. The second dimension is the diversity of all species in the biosphere. The third dimension is the history of each species in turn, comprising both its genetic evolution and the environmental change that drove the evolution. Biology, by growing in all three dimensions, is progressing toward unification and will continue to do so.

When not protected by law, by popular favor or superstition, or by other special circumstances, [birds] yield very readily to the influences of civilization, and, though the first operations of the settler are favorable to the increase of many species, the great extension of rural and of mechanical industry is, in a variety of ways, destructive even to tribes not directly warred upon by man.

As some species die out, forms better adapted to utilize the obstacles against which they struggled in vain come into being.

It is a written fact that our people had warned of all these consequences of wrongful environmental behavior since our very first contact with the non-Indians. There was a time when our elders used to say to us, "You can't function with one foot in the white man's canoe and one foot in the Indian's canoe." With these extreme environmental concerns taking place on the earth, mankind is all in the same boat. Or better be.

Acorns are planted silently by some unnoticed breeze.

For one that comes with a pencil to sketch or sing, a thousand come with an axe or rifle. What a coarse and imperfect use Indiansand hunters make of nature! No wonder that their race is so soon exterminated.

Large flocks of butterflies, all kinds of happy insects, seem to be in a perfect fever of joy and sportive gladness.

Nature, as man has always known it, he knows no more. Since he has learned to esteem signs above symbols, to suppress his emotional reactions in favor of practical ones and make use of nature instead of holding so much of it sacred, he has altered the face, if not the heart, of reality.

All still when summer is over stand shocks in the field, nothing left to whisper, not even good-bye, to the wind. After summer was over we knew winter would come: we knew silence would wait, tall, patient calm.

We are a species that has lost its way. Everything natural, every flower or tree, and every animal have important lessons to teach us if we would only stop, look, and listen.