James Lovelock Quotes

If industrial man continues to multiply his numbers and expand his operations he will succeed in his apparent intention, to seal himself off from the natural and isolate himself within a synthetic prison of his own making.

The world population 60 years ago was just over 2 billion and it's now more than 6 billion. This huge increase - an explosion really - has probably done more harm to the environment than anything else.

The strong evidence is that we're running out of space. We're collectively affecting the world's climate. This is due to the still-growing human population and our increase in consumption.

We're adding a billion people every decade. We're just spin doctors. Whatever we do is supposedly great, and yet it's always at the expense of diversity and nature. We're like elephants. The ecology of the elephant is more similar to human than any other.

In the years to come, the combination of climate change and population growth could have a devastating effect on the planet and, needless to say, on humanity.

One thought that occurs to me is that men will continue to withdraw from nature in order to create an environment that will suit them better.

Too many cars, too many factories, too much detergent, too much pesticides, multiplying contrails, inadequate sewage treatment plants, too little water, too much carbon dioxide - all can be traced easily to too many people.

Even a billion people is too much. There's no way back to the simplicity we once knew, but there may be a way forward to the simplicity that we once knew.

Because we're not in harmony with the environment, we're destroying the environment that supports us.

The destruction of the natural beauty, the ecosystems, and the majesty of mountains affect us in ways we're not even aware of. Every time a mountain is beheaded, we chop off a little part of our souls.

Like all animals, human beings have always taken what they want from nature. But we are the rogue species. We are unique in our ability to use resources on a scale and at a speed that our fellow species can't.

I don't believe in a biological apocalypse, but I think there is stormy biological weather ahead as the human population continues to grow.

All our environmental problems become easier to solve with fewer people and harder - and ultimately impossible to solve - with ever more people.

But as population became denser, the natural chemical and biological recycling processes became overloaded, calling for a redefinition of property rights.

The common liberal orthodoxy that living close to the land leads to eco-awareness is historically naive, considering that Mesopotamia, northern Africa, and the Mayan civilization were ruined by people who had lived there quite a long while.

We feel we have to put concrete on every inch of land. It disturbs the ecology, and it takes away the experience of a child going out into the woods and seeing all of nature.

Population growth is a global problem affecting all of us.

The key to understanding overpopulation is not population density but the numbers of people in an area relative to its resources and the capacity of the environment to sustain human activities; that is, to the area’s carrying capacity. When is an area overpopulated? When its population can’t be maintained without rapidly depleting nonrenewable resources.... By this standard, the entire planet and virtually every nation is already vastly overpopulated

Earth was not built for six billion people all running around and being passionate about things. The world was built for about two million people foraging for roots and grubs.

It saddens me that in the 21st century, with all our knowledge and power, we are hearing more and more stories of possible extinctions due to people's choice. We are responsible for our choices and the only ones capable of changing our future.

You will not understand your part within the framework of nature until you actually see yourselves in danger of tearing it apart.

The end of nature sours all my material pleasures. The prospect of living in a genetically engineered world sickens me. And yet it is toward such a world that our belief in endless material advancement hurries us. As long as that desire drives us, here is no way to set limits.

All nations are degrading and consuming their environment to a point beyond capacity. In the past 15 years in the U.S. we have added 1300 cities with populations over 100,000. When the environment is forced to file Chapter 11, the ecology collapses. Nations recover from war but not from a failed eco-system. The status of our environment is more threatening than all wars. It is forever.

Because normal human activity is worse for nature than the greatest nuclear accident in history.

Unfortunately, The End of Nature turns out to be correct, although I wish it were not so. The only places that I was incorrect was, as with environmental science at the time, the estimation of the speed at which we see the effects of global warming.