Diane Ackerman Quotes

The English countryside, its growth and its destruction, is a genuine and tragic theme.

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.

The Delaware Estuary has sustained a human population for thousands of years, but by the end of the 19th Century, increased population and industrialization had transformed much of the upper Estuary watershed.

A fascinating challenge facing today's environmental movement is how to best approach the reversal of past decisions that altered once-pristine environmental spaces for the sake of urgent man-made needs.

If people think nature is their friend, then they sure don't need an enemy.

The images of Earth's delicate biosphere, contrasting with the sterile moonscape where the astronauts left their footsteps, have become iconic for environmentalists: these may indeed be the Apollo programme's most enduring legacy.

That's the thing about Mother Nature, she really doesn't care what economic bracket you're in.

Why are ecologists and environmentalists so feared and hated? This is because in part what they have to say is new to the general public, and the new is always alarming.

We owe it to our children to be better stewards of the environment. The alternative? - a world without whales. It's too terrible to imagine.

We habitually engage in meddling with nature. Until this century most of this meddling was good. Witness the preservation of the European countryside. But since then we've smoked it up and littered it and dumped too much in too many waters. I don't think it's our privilege to behave this way.

What we are doing to the future of our children, and the other species on the planet, is a clear moral issue.

The more we exploit nature, The more our options are reduced, until we have only one: to fight for survival.

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.

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

What I have experienced over time is that environmental problems are easier to deal with in ways that don't go into their interconnections to the rest of what we are.

Nature doesn't need people - people need nature; nature would survive the extinction of the human being and go on just fine, but human culture, human beings, cannot survive without nature.

From first to last the civilization of America has been bound up with its physical environment.

Earth was not built to serve the needs of humans.

How much longer, for instance, can we continue to crowd more and more people into this world? …. How long can we permit the uncontrolled use of the earth's resources when there is no possibility of replacing them? Indeed, how long will it be before we have completely used up everything our lives depend on? These issues are the politics of the future. Neither Republicans nor Democrats have begun to spell out in substantive fashion the means by which we can control population growth, environmental problems, and the conservation of our natural resources.

I see how these beautiful forests are now open to destruction because of technology. Companies are able to get into more and more remote places that weren't economically viable before.

When you start traveling and thinking from a global perspective, you realize how small the planet is and how predatory we are to its ecology.

Humans have occupied a position in nature that they should not. It is impossible for humans to conquer nature.

I became an environmentalist because I love the living world, but I spend much of my life thinking about electricity, industrial processes and civil engineering.

Protecting our environment and natural resources is necessary for both our planet and our economy.

Good stewardship of the environment and our natural resources is necessary.