George Monbiot Quotes

Creating mechanisms for ending deforestation and promoting regeneration of the environment is one of the most effective ways of achieving net-zero emissions.

As a nation we have not yet come to have a proper respect for the forest and to regard it as an indispensable part of our resources—one which is easily destroyed but difficult to replace; one which confers great benefits while it endures, but whose disappearance is accompanied by a train of evil consequences not readily foreseen and positively irreparable.

There is more old growth forest today in California today than there was in 1850. The Indians had destroyed most of them.

Reversing deforestation is complicated; planting a tree is simple.

I travel all over the country speaking to young people, and I am always amazed at how engaged in environmental conservation they are.

Raising awareness on the most pressing environmental issues of our time is more important than ever.

We are aware only of the empty space in the forest, which only yesterday was filled with trees.

The places that are most likely to grow trees for carbon sequestration are places where trees aren't growing now.

Logging is an industry driven solely by greed. It prospers with government support and subsidies, and it is accelerating its rate of destruction, so that Tasmania is now the largest hardwood chip exporter in the world.

If you cut down a forest, it doesn't matter how many sawmills you have if there are no more trees.

You have to focus on what you're passionate about. For me it's the forests and of course, because I'm concerned about the forests, I'm concerned about the way paper is made.

China has led the world in new tree planting. Over the last several years China has planted 40 percent as many trees as the rest of the world put together. Since 198, all citizens of China over age 11 (and younger than 60) have been formally required at least three trees per year.

There are real and growing dangers to our simple and most precious possessions: the air we breathe, the water we bring, and the land which sustains us.... If we do not act, the world of the year 2000 will be much less able to sustain life than it is now.

Every acre of forest should belong to the people.

How can you save the rain forests, the planet's wildlife, without funds?

You cannot, for instance, sustainably protect the environment if the majority of the people are still in primitive agriculture leading to the encroachment of forest reserves.

We can halt the destruction of the world's rainforests - and even restore parts of them - in order to ensure that the forests do what they are so good at - in other words, storing carbon naturally.

Every other civilized nation in the world has been compelled to care for its forests, and so must we if waste and destruction are not to go on to the bitter end, leaving America as barren as Palestine or Spain.

If we tackle deforestation in the right way, the benefits will be far-reaching - greater food security, improved livelihoods for millions of small farmers and indigenous people, more prosperous rural economies, and above all, a more stable climate.

I only started to understand the concept of "environmental protection" 14 years ago. I was an ambassador for a charity event, and the staff told me that the consumption of disposable chopsticks in China, per year, could result in the devastation of unimaginable acres of forest.

I feel that our planet is in peril and that creating a sustainable planet for my children and my children's children is the most important thing I can do in this lifetime.

Sadly, it's much easier to create a desert than a forest.

If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.

Over and over, we hear politicians say they can't spend our tax dollars on environmental protection when the economy is so fragile.

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.