Jared Diamond Quotes

I'm not saying we don't have our set of problems - climate crisis, species extinction, water and energy shortage - we surely do. But ultimately we knock them down.

The world that you and I live in is increasingly challenged. Population growth, pollution, over-consumption, unsustainable patterns, social conflict, climate change, loss of nature... these are not good stories.

Albania is at risk and we are living in difficult times.

I worry about the world.

Climate change could produce a lot of misery and waste without necessarily leading to large-scale armed conflict, which depends more on ideology and bad governance than on resource scarcity.

The world is a tougher place to live in than it was back then, as we come into the computer age.

The countries of the Middle East have been losers in the age of globalization, out of step in an age of free markets, free trade, and democratic politics.

Asia is rich in people, rich in culture, and rich in resources. It is also rich in trouble.

Russia has nothing: no successful politics or economy.

I don't know if it's a uniquely American thing, but I associate it that way. People get excited by this idea of, 'Let's come together and defeat this huge enemy through innovation, by solving this crisis.' I think that's motivating and inspiring.

You can't really ignore what's going on in this planet, in our world, and the way it's all falling apart.

Globalization is very destructive to our species.

Our biggest national security threat is the environmental destruction of our planet and the arms race with ourselves.

No precautions, and no precautionary principle, can avoid problems that we do not yet foresee. We need a stance of problem-fixing, not just problem-avoidance.

No matter how complex global problems may seem, it is we ourselves who have given rise to them. They cannot be beyond our power to resolve

Mother Earth is in pain and ailing - bglobal warming. The world is dealing with issues of immigration, deindustrialization, and poverty. When I was born, there were 2.5 billion people living on the whole planet. Now there are 2.5 billion people living on less than $2 a day. That's the kind of reality we have to deal with.

Without those hackers, we wouldn't solve the problems we need to solve, especially security.

People say that the monetary system produces incentive. This may be true in limited areas, but it also produces greed, embezzlement, corruption, pollution, jealousy, anger, crime, war, poverty, tremendous scarcity, and unnecessary human suffering. You have to look at the entire picture.

Great leadership does not mean running away from reality. Sometimes the hard truths might just demoralize the company, but at other times sharing difficulties can inspire people to take action that will make the situation better.

Human use of fossil fuels is altering the chemistry of the atmosphere; oceans are polluted and depleted of fish; 80 per cent of Earth's forests are heavily impacted or gone yet their destruction continues. An estimated 50,000 species are driven to extinction each year. We dump millions of tonnes of chemicals, most untested for their biological effects, and many highly toxic, into air, water and soil. We have created an ecological holocaust. Our very health and survival are at stake, yet we act as if we have plenty of time to respond.

I'm not talking about losing [agricultural] diversity in the same way that you lose your car keys. I'm talking about losing it in the same way that we lost the dinosaurs: actually losing it, never to be seen again.

The clearest evidence that we are living beyond environmental means is the threat of dangerous climate change. The scale of this threat, to human life and to the natural resources and assets on which it depends, for everything from oxygen and clean water to healthy soils and flood defence, means that this simply must be our top priority

If someone says can't, that shows you what to do.

The global warming is going on. These are not single cases. These are all part of a general way we've been looking at the world. As long as we look at the world that way it's going to go on. Because the idea that the important thing is for some people get rich while the rest of the people work for them is very deeply dug in...