Ralph Merkle Quotes

Planet Earth is far more resilient than humans and will certainly outlive us.

I never lose an opportunity to speak about my obsession: humankind and the environment.

My main issue is sustainability of the Earth, and protection of those animals and people who dwell here.

The planet will adapt to anything. Maybe we should start to use the heart and the brain that we've been given to organize ourselves. Because if we keep screwing up things, we may be just passing by in the history of the planet.

We're busily wrecking the chances for future generations at a rapid rate of knots by not recognizing the damage we're doing to the natural environment, bearing in mind that this is the only planet that we know has any life on it.

Genetic design is something we can use to fight the lack of sustainability we humans are forcing on the earth's environment.

The planet will survive. Whether we get to be here and enjoy it, or enjoy life as we've known it, is what's questionable.

Over the long haul of life on this planet, it is the ecologists, and not the bookkeepers of business, who are the ultimate accountants.

You would have thought that our first priority would be to ask what the ecologists are finding out, because we have to live within the conditions and principles they define. Instead, we've elevated the economy above ecology.

Clean air and water, a diversity of animal and plant species, soil and mineral resources, and predictable weather are annuities that will pay dividends for as long as the human race survives - and may even extend our stay on Earth.

We all live on the same planet, it is our only home, so... we used to rotate crops back in the day and, you know, who cares if you're going to make a profit if everybody's too dead or glowing in the dark to be able to purchase anything.

Over and over, the economy has determined the extent of our response, but how much value does it place on breathable air, drinkable water, edible food and stable weather and climate? Surely the economy is the means to a better future, not an end in itself. Surely it must be subordinate to a rich, diverse ecosphere that sustains all life.

How we treat the earth basically effects our social welfare and our national security.

Because the living environment is what really sustains us.

I do believe this period of the 1980's will be remembered as the time the planet struck back. The planet is telling us we can't treat it this way anymore.

To survive as a species on this planet, we're going to have to see ourselves as Earthlings.

Even the wealth of the U.S. cannot protect against the levels of environmental destruction that we are unleashing.

If we are serious about our human wellbeing - from local communities to the global world economy - we need to now reconnect our entire world to the planet.

We have all this very clever technology and all these abilities to manipulate the world in all these ways, yet we are faced with the very real question of whether we can be sustainable on this planet - whether or not, in fact, we can endure.

Most times, Mother Earth's resources are used up without the realisation that these thoughtless actions might just be the root cause for the hardships future generations may face. It is everyone's responsibility to hand over a green, clean, and healthy environment to them.

Unless we keep this planet healthy, everything else is for naught.

The most interesting thing about change in the environment is that for the most part the environment isn't changing.

We have the world to live in on the condition that we will take good care of it. And to take good care of it, we have to know it. And to know it and to be willing to take care of it, we have to love it.

I can't imagine anything more important than air, water, soil, energy and biodiversity. These are the things that keep us alive.

So often we talk about saving the planet, but what we really mean is to save the planet the way it is, so we can live here. So that is can sustain us. Because the planet doesn't need to be saved. It doesn't care if all the squirrels, elephants, and trees die and there's just a couple of amoebas floating around at the poles.