Anthony Doerr Quotes

We live in a disposable society. We throw so much away. But it doesn't come from nowhere. It comes from the planet and it comes from future generations' lives.

It feels like an easy sum to gauge the balance between forests and, say, the proliferating free newspapers that litter our public transport. This noxious combination of words and paper represents a clear-cut crime against the biosphere.

Future generations are not going to ask us what political party were you in. They are going to ask what did you do about it, when you knew the glaciers were melting.

We can no longer throw our waste away because there is no away.

If the rest of the world aspires to our way of life ... we'll bury ourselves in waste.

We are living beyond our means. As a people we have developed a life-style that is draining the earth of its priceless and irreplaceable resources without regard for the future of our children and people all around the world.

The waste products in Earth's crust are also the human in this expanded, spectral sense. One's garbage doesn't go 'away' - it just goes somewhere else.

I think about the world that we leave behind for our children.

Unfortunately, our affluent society has also been an effluent society.

It does seem really hard to get consumers to do the right thing. It is stupid that we use two tons of steel, glass, and plastic to haul our sorry selves to the shopping mall. It's stupid that we put water in plastic bottles in Fiji and ship it here.

If we take into account the existence of our planet, we have to recognise that we are guests that spend a short and very determined period in this world, and all we leave behind is nuclear waste.

I'm mad keen on recycling because I'm worried about the next generation and where all this waste we're producing is going. It has to stop. I wash out my plastic containers and recycle envelopes, everything I possibly can.

If we intend to provide a better life, and a better world, for future generations, we can't ignore the quality of the environment we leave them.

What we are doing to the future of our children, and the other species on the planet, is a clear moral issue.

We are borrowing money from future generations. We are borrowing the carbon impact, the resource impact from future generations to get stuff cheap now. We have swept the dirt and dust from our society under the carpet - but this carpet is on other side of the planet.

The Industrial Age is not sustainable. It's not sustainable in ecological terms, and it's not sustainable in human terms.

China leads the world in energy consumption, carbon emissions, and the release of major air and water pollutants, and the environmental impact is felt both regionally and globally.

What we owe future generations is the subject of growing debate by economists, philosophers, ethicists, public policymakers, and academics of all stripes. But for me as a mother, the moral implications are very clear. We owe them clean air and fresh water, a healthy planet and a secure future.

I watch people throw aluminum cans in the trash, and I think of all the stories I've heard about the over-mining of aluminum, the erosion that happens, and the trees that fall down.

Everything's plastic, we're all gonna die.

I suspect that a huge amount of the anxiety and suffering that we see around can be closely traced to our wanton misuse of our resources. Just look at any garbage dump and see what is wasted. In a sense, we've wasted our souls.

The cheap and easy days of waste disposal are over.

Every time there is an economic intensification, there is an ecological impact.

Humanity stands ... before a great problem of finding new raw materials and new sources of energy that shall never become exhausted. In the meantime we must not waste what we have, but must leave as much as possible for coming generations.

I have always seen pollution as theft.