Gilbert White Quotes

human ecology

Organic farming has been shown to provide major benefits for wildlife and the wider environment. The best that can be said about genetically engineered crops is that they will now be monitored to see how much damage they cause.

Part of my plan was not only to introduce all useful animals that I possibly could into this part of Australia, but also the most valuable plants of every description.

Chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans have been living for hundreds of thousands of years in their forest, living fantastic lives, never overpopulating, never destroying the forest. I would say that they have been in a way more successful than us as far as being in harmony with the environment.

If everybody switched to organic farming, we couldn't support the earth's current population - maybe half.

The nation that destroys its soil destroys itself.

Heartless though it may seem to some, among the least harmful things to eat are sustainably culled wild animals. In the absence of natural predators, deer populations in parts of Britain have reached such dense numbers that the woodlands they browse fail to regenerate.

People will be able to survive, of course, without honeycreepers and monk seals. But if the wolf spider is in trouble, we are in trouble, too.

We have an impact on nature, and nature has an impact on us.

We have to draw the line someplace with all the pesticides being used by the farmers.

When man decides he can control nature, he's in deep trouble.

I'm very aware of modern countryside issues, such as rewilding: how, as science progresses, we begin to understand that a healthy ecosystem is multiform.

The position I took at the time was that we hadn't really examined any of the potential environmental consequences of introducing genetically modified organisms.

I don't believe in messing with mother-nature too much.

I do believe very strongly that all of us and all of the other things in the context of our planet with Mother Nature, all of these things absolutely have a profound effect.

Whatever happens to the great systems of nature will also be what happens to us.

People in general romanticize nature, and they make it out to be something that it isn't because humans are so awful. And yes, we are absolutely screwing up this planet, but that is only because we have the capabilities to do so. Animals are not better than us. They are not nicer than us.

Probably the most visible example of unintended consequences, is what happens every time humans try to change the natural ecology of a place.

To preserve the buffalo as a species, the best thing we can do is eat them. Animals that people eat do not become extinct. That's why we have so many more chickens than bald eagles in this country.

No more wolves, wilderness or welfare.

A completely industrialized society is of no consequence to me.

Some environmentalists demands are counter productive. Avoiding pesticides for example means farming more land less efficiently, which leads to higher prices, more hunger, more disease …, and less biodiversity.

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.

Meat consumption is a part of our evolutionary heritage; meat production has been a major component of modern food systems. Carnivory should remain, within limits, an important component of a civilization that finally must learn how to maintain the integrity of its only biosphere.