Ivan Illich Quotes

Human needs are served by a sustainable lifestyle, almost by definition, if humans include coming generations. And a shift to such technologies as high-speed rail instead of maximizing fossil fuel use, and solar energy, is not "relentless resource extraction."

Personally, I believe a rocking hammock, a good cigar, and a tall gin-and-tonic is the way to save the planet.

With the world's human population now at seven billion and growing, and the demand for technology and modern conveniences increasing, we can't control all our negative impacts. But we have to find better ways to live within the limits nature and its cycles impose.

My hope is that we continue to nurture the places that we love, but that we also look outside our immediate worlds.

I think that our cooperative conservation approaches get people to sit down and grapple with problem solving.

My ultimate dream is for the Irvine Ranch to be known and celebrated as much for the outstanding communities we've planned and built as it is for what is not developed. The beneficiary being the 50,000 acres of undeveloped land that is now permanently preserved and conserved as Open Space and parklands.

Plans to protect air and water, wilderness and wildlife are in fact plans to protect man.

Being vegan is a glorious adventure. It touches every aspect of my life - my relationships, how I relate to the world.

No-one wants polluted air, water or land, denuded forests or extinct animal species. But the error most people make is to trust the legislature to prevent these tragedies. What they don’t realize is how big a role the legislature has played historically in causing environmental destruction.

Pollution Prevention, Not Polluter Protection Not blind opposition to progress, but opposition to blind progress.

I'll never understand why people somehow support pollution. It's completely irrational, and I don't get it. Somewhere along the line, they bought into this fiction that one has to choose between the environment and business, which is just a complete falsehood and absurd.

Let's care for the land and water, heal our cherished planet, and promote wellness for all of her people. Water is life. Let's protect the natural resources that our lives depend upon.

From avoiding littering to encouraging local economy, there is a lot each one of us can do that will go a long way in keeping the country's cultural legacy intact.

I think now, with our technology, our capacity to grow food, our ability to stop raping the Earth and destroying the ecology and killing off fellow creatures, we have a chance to bring a new harmony and a new path to human development.

What keeps me motivated is going out to the field and seeing programs that incorporate a focus on both people and the planet, and seeing how mutually reinforcing they can really be.

The old rules may say we can’t protect our environment and promote economic growth at the same time, but in America, we’ve always used new technologies - we’ve used science; we’ve used research and development and discovery to make the old rules obsolete.

If humanity today succeeds in combining the new scientific capacities with a strong ethical dimension, it will certainly be able to promote the environment as a home and a resource for...all...and will be able to eliminate the causes of pollution and to guarantee adequate conditions of hygiene and health for small groups as well as for vast human settlements.

Scientists tell us that we have enough technology to save our planet. . . . Yet we don't take advantage of this new technology. . . . The technological has to work hand-in-hand with the spiritual. Our spiritual life is the element that can bring about the energies of peace, calm, brotherhood, understanding, and compassion. Without that, our planet doesn't stand a chance.

I understand it's seductive to use green technologies, for people who want to believe it. But it is a hoax in the sense that it's nothing more than another of the never-ending issues, political issues by the left, by the Democrat Party, to advance their ultimate agenda of bigger and bigger government and more and more control.

Humanity as a species must change dramatically and radically or our survival is at stake.

I believe that even 'returning-to-nature' and anti pollution activities, no matter how commendable, are not moving toward a genuine solution if they are carried out solely in reaction to the over development of the present age.

It's perilous and foolhardy for the average citizen to remain ignorant about global warming, say, or ozone depletion, air pollution, toxic and radioactive wastes, acid rain, topsoil erosion, tropical deforestation, exponential population growth. Jobs and wages depend on science and technology.

To appeal to contemporary man to revert, in this twentieth century, to a pagan-like nature worship in order to restrain technology from further encroachment and devastation of the resources of nature, is a piece of atavistic nonsense.

We need to make growth greener, to make our economic and environmental policies more compatible and even mutually-reinforcing. This is not just a matter of new technologies or new sources of renewable, safe energy. It is about how we all behave every day of our lives, what we eat, what we drink, what we recycle, re-use, repair, how we produce and how we consume

The earth, the sea and air are the concern of every nation. And science, technology, and education can be the ally of every nation.