Marc Reisner Quotes

We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us.

The wrecking ball is characteristic of our way with materials. We 'cannot afford' to log a forest selectively, to mine without destroying topography, or to farm without catastrophic soil erosion. A production-oriented economy can indeed live in this way, but only so long as production lasts.

If we go on using the Earth uncaringly and without replenishing it, then we are just greedy consumers.

If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.

If the world is presented as resources to be exploited, then, more than likely, you're going to exploit the world.

According to the U.N., more than 2.7 billion people will face severe water shortages by 2025. Many social scientists predict that the next big wars will be over water. Nevertheless, the average American family blissfully consumes 300 gallons a day, when you add in watering the lawn and washing dishes, clothes, and cars.

Rainforest land is mistakenly valued solely for the worth of its timber, mining and oil resources by short-sighted corporations and governments.

Water, like many other resources, is harvested, transported and used throughout all aspects of society. Unlike other resources, water is critical to the survival of all forms of life. The underlying question that sits at the core of my exploration is to what degree can we shape water before it begins to shape us.

California's drought affects everyone in the state, from farmers to fishermen, business owners to suburban residents, and everyone has a role to play in using precious water resources as wisely and efficiently as possible.

Civilization can never be sustainable.

There is a liquid more precious than oil – water!

We must subject the machine—technology—to control and cease despoiling the earth and filling people with goodies merely to make money.

Pollution and the exhaustion of natural resources depend and will depend in the future on the absolute level of total economic activity. This means that is necessary to restrain both the rate of growth of population and, at least in the developed countries, the rate of growth of consumption per head.

Water is one of the world’s great business opportunities. It promises to be to the 21st century what oil was to the 20th.

At about 9.5 billion people, the world will run out of fresh water.

How much longer, for instance, can we continue to crowd more and more people into this world? …. How long can we permit the uncontrolled use of the earth's resources when there is no possibility of replacing them? Indeed, how long will it be before we have completely used up everything our lives depend on? These issues are the politics of the future. Neither Republicans nor Democrats have begun to spell out in substantive fashion the means by which we can control population growth, environmental problems, and the conservation of our natural resources.

More than half the world’s people live in countries where water tables are falling.

Our forest policy is not to preserve forests because they are beautiful—though that is a good in itself—not to preserve them because they are refuges for wild creatures of the wilderness—though that is a good in itself—but rather to conserve them in order to guarantee a steady and continuous supply of timber, grass, and above all, water.

It'll go away only if we make it go away—by not using water.

In our wildest dreams we never thought water would be a zero-sum game.

There is enough water ... but the systems we have in place do not have enough flexibility to move water to the places where it is most needed.

Farmers had resisted transfers of water to cities at least since California’s water wars a century ago..

In 2012, Coke used more water than close to a quarter of the world’s population..

We often destroy ecology-based livelihoods in the name of employment creation.

Our nation's continued prosperity hinges on our ability to solve environmental problems and sustain the natural resources on which we all depend.