Gale Norton Quotes

Local innovation and initiative can help us better understand how to protect our environment.

We decided that the environment was an integral part of our policies and the political thrust of our government. We gave it the priority and we sustained it with the money required to make it happen.

The government should set a goal for a clean environment but not mandate how that goal should be implemented.

I wish politicians would put the environment at the centre of every agenda.

The only way forward, if we are going to improve the quality of the environment, is to get everybody involved.

Environmental policy must strike a balance between the earth's best interests and our citizen's pressing needs.

Even the government understands that the environmental challenge is so big that no single agency can handle it. It needs collaboration among all the stakeholders - companies, governments, NGOs and the public. Public accountability will be the ultimate driving force.

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

If you're a Conservative, why aren't you behind conserving the land?

We created the Cabinet Committee on the Environment to review the environmental implications of all government initiatives. I think what made us successful was the fact that it was a sustained approach. We did something new every year.

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

So I'm going to go on and work on preserving the ozone layer, encouraging everyone to recycle.

Being an environmentalist isn't all about doom and gloom.

This whole idea that we address environmental issues by not doing stuff just doesn't work.

The world is not going to be saved by legislation.

We don't have to sacrifice a strong economy for a healthy environment.

Conservation has been in eclipse in this country ever since Theodore Roosevelt’s day. It had barely gotten off the ground when Uncle Joe Cannon, the Speaker of the House in those days, issued his ultimatum: “Not 1 cent for scenery.” Well, today we are repealing Cannon’s law. We are declaring a new doctrine of conservation.

Everyone realizes that we have to clean up the environment, but no one likes the cost.

The central organizing principle of governments everywhere must be the environment.

There is a reason and a need to have an Environmental Protection Agency.

Real environmental change depends on us. We can't wait for our leaders. We have to focus on what our own responsibilities are and how we can make the change happen.

It's great that we can, however subtly, offer important lessons through cartoons that it's important to protect the environment.

I have been fighting climate change and working to improve our environment.

Try to leave the Earth a better place than when you arrived.

I'm a latecomer to the environmental issue, which for years seemed to me like an excuse for more government regulation. But I can see that in rich societies, voters are paying less attention to economic issues and more to issues of the spirit, including the environment.