Martin Rees Quotes

Men are weak now, and yet they transform the Earth's surface. In millions of years, their might will increase to the extent that they will change the surface of the Earth, its oceans, the atmosphere, and themselves.

Every species becomes extinct; at some point, we will go extinct. The question is, as Homo sapiens, are we going to be able to adapt to the change that we're actually part of? We're causing such dramatic changes to the planet, so yes, you do stop and think, 'I wonder where we're headed.'

If we each take responsibility in shifting our own behavior, we can trigger the type of change that is necessary to achieve sustainability for our race or this planet. We change our planet, our environment, our humanity every day, every year, every decade, and every millennia.

We have altered the physical, chemical and biological properties of the planet on a geological scale. We have left no part of the globe untouched.

I'm a staunch believer that we are in an earth cycle. There's no question the planet is changing, and the fact that the Mayans had an end date and their history talks of change, I find that fascinating.

We have changed our environment more quickly than we have learned how to change ourselves.

People are spending way too much time thinking about climate change, way too little thinking about AI.

In 2007, I received a National Geographic Expeditions Council grant to go around the top of the world and talk to Arctic people about how they've been impacted by climate change.

As scientists have discovered - or perhaps explained is a better word, or perhaps identified - we now live in the age of the Anthropocene. The geologic age of the Anthropocene. Those high priests of material evidence have given us our own epoch like the Holocene, the Pleistocene! Apparently we now, it seems, have superhuman powers.

Human beings are definitely changing the planet, but how much impact they are having on climate, I don't know and I don't care.

With our evolved busy hands and our evolved busy brains, in an extraordinarily short period of time we've managed to alter the earth with such geologic-forcing effects that we ourselves are forces of nature. Climate change, ocean acidification, the sixth mass extinction of species.

Our population and our use of the finite resources of planet Earth are growing exponentially, along with our technical ability to change the environment for good or ill.

Every day, the temperature of Sol's surface increases by five billionths of a degree, a change of no consequence for thousands of millennia to come. But a few hundred million years from now, barring a fix by our descendants, this relentless heating will substantially change Earth's biosphere in ways that might not be survivable for us.

Believe it or not, very little research has ever been funded to search for natural mechanisms of warming... it has simply been assumed that global warming is manmade. Climate change - it happens, with or without our help.

The 'New Yorker' asked me to shoot a story on climate change in 2005, and I wound up going to Iceland to shoot a glacier. The real story wasn't the beautiful white top. It ended up being at the terminus of the glacier where it's dying.

Geoengineering involves humans making intentional, large-scale modifications to the Earths geophysical systems in order to change the environment.

Climate change is transforming the world in profound ways that continue to evolve.

With science, technology and globalization, man is changing the world faster than his evolution can keep up with the new dangers.

Our conservation laws are based on static ideas about nature—not landscapes that are rapidly changing because of something humans did.

I don't see it as coincidence that the great acceleration of the Anthropocene influences on Earth came during the same decades as our first exploration of the other planets.

What I'm interested in is the conversations going on about the Anthropocene and what it means to view ourselves as a part of Earth's geological history.

Climate change is sometimes misunderstood as being about changes in the weather. In reality it is about changes in our very way of life.

Earth's biosphere gave birth to humans and our thoughts, which are now reshaping its planetary cycles. A planet with brains? Fancy that.

What I wonder most about the Anthropocene is not when did it start - but when, and how, will it end? Will it end? Or is it possible that our own growing awareness of our role on Earth can itself play a pivotal role in shaping the outcome toward one that we would desire?

The environment is going to change very quickly.