Mo Udall Quotes

This Nation has realized significant environmental improvements over the last three decades.

I think my father would give me the Department of the Interior because of my love of the outdoors, so we can get that going.

Most of what I know about environmental conservation I learned from my father, who has been a leader within the movement for over 30 years.

There's been progress toward seeing that nature and culture are not opposing terms, and that wilderness is not the only kind of landscape for environmentalists to concern themselves with.

Protecting all this land, working with the President to establish all these monuments, to, you know... I think the President has a land protection record that's second to no one in this century, maybe Teddy Roosevelt.

In my 31 years in Congress, I have seen a lot of changes. We made some substantial policy changes that have improved our parks system and our public lands.

Last year, I co-sponsored the Highlands Conservation Act and in a bipartisan effort we passed the bill through Congress.

I was part of Environment Canada's work to stop acid rain, create national parks, clean up the Great Lakes, develop new environmental legislation and negotiate the treaty that saved the ozone layer.

What they [Jim deMint and the oil lobby] do care about is the precedent. If they open up ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge), they'll think they can do anything to the environment - anything at all. Drilling in Yosemite? In the Grand Canyon? What's next?

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.

Perseverance is my biggest lesson. When I started to get involved in environmental protection some years ago, my people did not take it seriously and they never considered it important. But today, people look at what I do and they truly recognize those efforts, and eventually they join you as "environmental activists" too!

We don't give a damn what you or anybody else on this planet thinks. We didn't sink those ships for you. We did it for the whales.

We have to create a sustainable environment, worldwide, and we're not doing it. The best thing we can do with the rest of this century is aggressively acquire - and put aside - the richest natural reserves that we can, and then do our best to manage the needs and desires of the 11 billion people we expect to have by the end of the century. This is where biology is headed. For that reason, the sooner we get on with mapping biodiversity on Earth, the better off biology will be - not to mention the whole subject of saving it before we carelessly throw it away.

I am gratified on a regular basis by the people I meet all across the country who dedicate their efforts to protecting the environment and public health and are making a difference. The great thing about working on important issues is all of the other people you meet doing the same thing.

I feel that our planet is in peril and that creating a sustainable planet for my children and my children's children is the most important thing I can do in this lifetime.

Our connection to nature grounds us, it makes us more spiritually aware. We must keep the legacy of nature materially alive for future generations.

The real wealth of the Nation lies in the resources of the earth soil, water, forests, minerals, and wildlife. To utilize them for present needs while insuring their preservation for future generations requires a delicately balanced and continuing program, based on the most extensive research. Their administration is not properly, and cannot be, a matter of politics.

There was a very important superintendent of Yellowstone, a man who was involved in the founding of the National Park Service itself, Horace Albright. And he became superintendent, which is the boss of Yellowstone Park, in 1919 - from 1919 to 1929. Later, he was director of the park service itself. Albright embraced the idea that in order for the national parks - and Yellowstone in particular - to have support from the American people and from politicians, there needed to be wildlife as spectacle.

That's a very hard thing to help the establishment know. We're still an establishment that thinks the average mentality is something like 13 years of age, that never forgot H.L. Mencken's notion that nobody lost money underestimating the intelligence of the American people. That's the horseshit the establishment has always lived with.

California will not wait for our federal government to take strong action on global warming. We won't wait for the federal government. We will move forward because we know it's the right thing to do. We will lead on this issue and we will get other western states involved. I think there's not great leadership from the federal government when it comes to protecting the environment.

I think Donald Trump does want a result. He clearly, in the meeting that we had was trying to sort of push the process along, realizing that the Senate has a role to play and that there are differences of opinion. I think he wants it to be a health care plan, proposal that we can go out there and defend and that he can defend and argue for to the American people.

The National Park Service today exemplifies one of the highest traditions of public service.

I think we need to address greenhouse gas emissions. But I try to get involved in issues where I see a legislative result... So I just leave the issue alone because I don't see a way through it, and there are certain fundamentals, for example nuke power, that people on the left will never agree with me on. So why should I waste my time when I know the people on the left are going to reject nuclear power?

I think that the environment is very a complicated question. I am very sympathetic to people who support the environment who live in the United States. I am very sympathetic to people who don't support the environment who live in a very poor country.

Sometimes it's hard to take everyday concerns seriously when you think about vanished ecosystems that existed 300 million years ago and were eradicated by giant explosions. My goals haven't changed, because my goal has always been to save the world!