John Hickenlooper Quotes

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

Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.

… human population growth within the ecosystem was closely analogous to the growth of malignant tumor cells within an organism: that man was acting like a cancer on the biosphere. The multiplication of human numbers certainly seems wild and uncontrolled... Four million a month - the equivalent of the population of Chicago... We seem to be doing all right at the moment; but if you could ask cancer cells, I suspect they would think they were doing fine. But when the organism dies, so do they; and for our own, selfish, practical, utilitarian reasons, I think we should be careful about how we influence the rest of the ecosystem.

Since the mid-1970s, people have been consuming more resources than the planet’s natural capital can replenish.

Man will survive as a species for one reason: He can adapt to the destructive effects of our power-intoxicated technology and of our ungoverned population growth, to the dirt, pollution and noise of a New York or Tokyo. And that is the tragedy. It is not man the ecological crisis threatens to destroy but the quality of human life.

The best "gift" anyone can give to humankind is to remain birth-free. It is a SIN for any person to birth while earth births exceed deaths. For what purpose would the world need more than 50,000 new Homo sapiens every year?

For every person in the world to reach the present U.S. level of consumption with existing technology would require four more planet earths.

...the chief cause for the impending collapse of the world - the cause sufficient in and by itself - is the enormous growth of the human population: the human flood. The worst enemy of life is too much life: the excess of human life.

I do not believe you can have infinite population or economic growth in a finite world. We are living on the shoulders of some awesome geometric curves.

Our population and our use of the finite resources of planet Earth are growing exponentially, along with our technical ability to change the environment for good or ill.

The affluent society has become an effluent society. The 6 percent of the world's population in the United States produces 70 percent or more of the world's solid wastes

The bulldozer and not the atomic bomb may turn out to be the most destructive invention of the 20th century

The United States has consumed in the last 50 years more natural resources than the rest of the entire human race for all of history.

A completely industrialized society is of no consequence to me.

Superdevelopment leads to a throwaway society and to enormous waste. Excessive access to all kinds of things,—sometimes called consumerism—enslaves people and does not make them happy.

No technical solution can rescue us from the misery of overpopulation. Freedom to breed will bring ruin to all.

It is our wish that the Indian title should be extinguished, and the Indians removed from our territory Utah and that for the best of reasons, because they are doing no good here to themselves or anybody else… Is it desirable that the barren soil of the mountain valleys should be converted into fruitful fields? Let the Indians be removed. Is it desirable that the way should be opened for a rapid increase of population into our new State or Territory

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

At about 9.5 billion people, the world will run out of fresh water.

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 new American finds his challenge and his love in the traffic-choked streets, skies nested in smog, choking with the acids of industry, the screech of rubber and houses leashed in against one another while the townlets wither a time and die. This is not offered in criticism but only as observation. And I am sure that, as all pendulums reverse their swing, so eventually will the swollen cities rupture like dehiscent wombs and disperse their children back to the countryside.

Cities are spreading like a cancer of the planet.

The current challenge facing the environmental authorities is how to properly deal with the environmental problems caused by economic development.

China is the world’s second largest economy, but the enormous costs of its growth are becoming apparent. Residents of its boom cities and a growing number of rural regions question the safety of the air they breathe, the water they drink and the food they eat. It is as if they were living in the Chinese equivalent of the Chernobyl or Fukushima nuclear disaster areas. The environmental hazards here are legion, and the consequences might not manifest themselves for years or even decades.

Growth can also involve producing services instead of goods. In particular, a major expansion of public and caring services (like child care, education, elder care, and other life-affirming programs) would generate huge increases in GDP and incomes, with virtually no impact on the environment.