Union of Concerned Scientists Quotes

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

Collective human actions are transforming, even ravaging, the biosphere - perhaps irreversibly - through global warming and loss of biodiversity.

Human civilization has been changing the Earth's environment for millennia, often to our detriment. Dams, deforestation and urbanization can alter water cycles and wind patterns, occasionally triggering droughts or even creating deserts.

I think we can work through a lot of political and international problems, but what really frightens me is what's happening environmentally.

It was once religion which told us that we are all sinners because of original sin. It is now the ecology of our planet which pronounces us all to be sinners because of the excessive exploits of human inventiveness.

You know, the environment is fragmenting, and the environment is, in many places, absolutely hideous!

I don't think the planet can survive people. It's not the other way around. I don't think the planet can survive.

Yet, despite our many advances, our environment is still threatened by a range of problems, including global climate change, energy dependence on unsustainable fossil fuels, and loss of biodiversity.

Wild animals are just as confused as people are now. You've got toxins in the water, oil, sewage, all sorts of things.

I can't even consider the prospect of grandchildren because I don't know if there will be anything left for them on Earth. That's how serious the problem is. We can't drink the water or breathe the air, and we're all dying from some sort of cancer. How many generations can sustain that? It frightens me terribly.

When I was in the seventh grade I did a report about the environment and the loss of species. It was supposed to be only a few pages, but ended up being nearly 50.

We have serious challenges regarding climate change, unsustainable use of natural resources, water scarcity, loss of biodiversity, forests and farmland. Not to mention the huge inequality still prevailing in several parts of the planet.

We're not environmentally doing very good things to this planet, and we might not be around too long.

We are losing our environment so rapidly.

The losses of the natural world are our loss, their silence silences something within the human mind.

The ecosystem of our world is a closed system: it would run out of gas, collapse of its own weight.

The world's forests are being destroyed at the rate of one football field's worth every second. One Tennessee's worth every year.

In the case of the environment, there's no one to bail it out.

The alpine environment is very delicate. I've been able to see change in the mountains in the 20 years that I've been climbing full-time. Glaciers have receded. The tree-line is changing. That's very rapid to see nature changing in a 20-year period.

There's so much burying of heads in sand going on in the U.S., people are finally beginning to recognize that the environment is dying, but it's far too late, and I am conflicted.

This planet is our home and we're trashing and killing it.

One thing leads to the other. Deforestation leads to climate change, which leads to ecosystem losses, which negatively impacts our livelihoods - it's a vicious cycle.

The question of whether it's God's green earth is not at center stage, except in the sense that if so, one is reminded with some regularity that He may be dying.

The modern assault on the environment began about 50 years ago, during and immediately after World War II.

I think there are changes in the environment. There are a lot of items to contribute to it.