Lester R. Brown Quotes

Sustainable South Bronx advocates for environmental justice through sustainable environmental and economic development projects.

The goal of my work is to help assure that we can create a world of abundance in which we meet the basic needs of every man, woman and child.

People reserve their best thinking for their professional specialties and, next in line, for serious matters confronting the alert citizen—economics, politics, the disposal of nuclear waste, etc. The day's work done, they want to be entertained.

No doubt we have to have bigger projects, bigger industries, basic industries, but it is a matter of the highest importance that we look to the common man, the weakest element in the society.

We don't want to end up in a class war. We want everyone to have food, clean water, and a long life expectancy.

Europe has the potential to pioneer and supply a sustainable worldwide economy.

I know, for me, I want to live in a community where people's basic needs are met.

Advanced industrialised economies like ourselves cannot afford to go on growing, particularly if we want to give people in poorer countries a chance of being able to at least meet their basic needs.

We cannot sustain long-term growth in our economies if we do not protect and preserve our environment.

In 2005, I had a blog, where people discussed topics such as a sustainable economy, renewable energy, and broadband coverage.

Sustainable solutions based on innovation can create a more resilient world only if that innovation is focused on the health and well-being of its inhabitants. And it is at that point - where technology and human needs intersect - that we will find meaningful innovation.

Environmental protection and economic development are not in conflict. Environmental protection is not a burden but a source for innovation. It can increase competition, create jobs, and lifts the economy.

We need to transform the economy so it works for people and the planet.

It would be advisable to think of progress in the crudest, most basic terms: that no one should go hungry anymore, that there should be no more torture, no more Auschwitz. Only then will the idea of progress be free from lies.

We have to make our economy work for everyone - not just those at the top - protecting our country and protecting our planet.

You’re talking about Rwanda or Bangladesh, or Cambodia, or the Philippines. They’ve got democracy, according to Freedom House. But have you got a civilised life to lead? People want economic development first and foremost. The leaders may talk something else. You take a poll of any people. What is it they want? The right to write an editorial as you like? They want homes, medicine, jobs, schools.

Leadership has to be focused on some very radical ideas that only we as 21st Century people can talk about: making sure people have a livelihood, making sure people receive a living wage, making sure the environment, the Mother Earth, is embraced and cherished and not destroyed. Making sure people are healthy in what they eat, making sure we hold people and corporations accountable for the damage they do not only to our environment but to our institutions.

Leave the poor Some time for self-improvement. Let them not Be forced to grind the bones out of their arms For bread, but have some space to think and feel Like moral and immortal creatures.

It seems to me the mark of a civilized society that certain privileges should be taken for granted such as education, health care and the safety to walk the streets.

We tend to put the environment last because we think the first thing we have to do is eliminate poverty. But you can't reduce poverty in a vacuum. You are doing it in an environment.

I think that every town should have a park, or rather a primitive forest, of five hundred or a thousand acres, either in one body or several, where a stick would never be cut for fuel, not for the navy, not to make wagons, but stand and decay for higher uses - a common possession for instruction and recreation.

Call me communist, but I think that's something that everyone, regardless of their family's income, has a right to, and I was fortunate enough to have a mother who felt that way as well.

The absolute worst part of being depressed is the food. A person's relationship with food is one of their most important relationships. I don't think your relationship with your parents is that important. Some people never know their parents. I don't think your relationship with your friends are important. But your relationship with air-that's key. You can't break up with air. You're kind of stuck together. Only slightly less crucial is water. And then food. You can't be dropping food to hang with someone else. You need to strike up an agreement with it.

Quite often when you help poor people, they don't think about the environment. They think about survival.

If you think creating a world without any poverty is impossible, let's do it. Because it is the right thing to do.