George Monbiot Quotes

The throwaway economy that has been evolving over the last half-century is an aberration, now itself headed for the junk heap of history.

Sometimes I worry about the amount of paper I waste.

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.

What people need to do is conserve what they have, .. There is a supply out there; we just need to conserve it. Going up and loading up your tank is not going to do that much. It's just going to deplete the supply, and the problem will eventually catch up to you.

Going to a junkyard is a sobering experience. There you can see the ultimate destination of almost everything we desired.

We of an older generation can get along with what we have, though with growing hardship; but in your full manhood and womanhood you will want what nature once so bountifully supplied and man so thoughtlessly destroyed; and because of that want you will reproach us, not for what we have used, but for what we have wasted...So any nation which in its youth lives only for the day, reaps without sowing, and consumes without husbanding, must expect the penalty of the prodigal whose labor could with difficulty find him the bare means of life.

In my lifetime, I want to see humanity start being conscious of our waste, the things we buy, and how we can reuse and recycle things. I want people to live harmoniously with our planet. I hope everybody wakes up and appreciates life.

Reusing and recycling our materials is the most important thing we can do.

Consuming less means throwing away less, while reusing things actually helps to save the planet as well as the pennies.

I mean, if cans can be recycled, why not spirits?

When I joined Ford, in the late 1970s, I felt strongly we could not forever be a huge user of natural resources without there being consequences. But I was alone in my thinking in those days.

If you're not buying recycled products, you're not really recycling.

If you want grown-ups to recycle, just tell their kids the importance of recycling, and they'll be all over it.

There's this very vulnerable planet of ours with finite resources. Architects and designers have, I think, a fair responsibility for conserving energy and materials, and making things durable.

It makes a big difference to recycle. It makes a big difference to use recycled products. It makes a big difference to reuse things, to not use the paper cup - and each time you do, that's a victory.

Not everything needs to be recycled.

The purpose - where I start - is the idea of use. It is not recycling, it's reuse.

One man's trash is another man's treasure, and the by-product from one food can be perfect for making another.

At an ever accelerating rate we are now squandering the capital of metallic ores and fossil fuels accumulated in the earth’s crust during hundreds of millions of years. How long can this spending spree go on?

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

We must subject the machine—technology—to control and cease despoiling the earth and filling people with goodies merely to make money.

We intend to redesign our entire purchasing system to include a general preference for recycled products.

We have grown up in a culture thinking that our energy resources were inexhaustible and without impact.

Pollution is nothing but resources we're not harvesting. We allow them to disperse because we've been ignorant of their value.

Designers must be increasingly sensitive to our Earth's dwindling resources. It is our responsibility.