Perry Anderson Quotes

If the rest of the world aspires to our way of life ... we'll bury ourselves in waste.

The biggest threat, when it comes to climate change and pollution, isn't going to come from us because we only have 300 million people. It's going to come from China with over 1 billion people and India with over 1 billion people.

The strong evidence is that we're running out of space. We're collectively affecting the world's climate. This is due to the still-growing human population and our increase in consumption.

Does this planet have enough resources so seven or eight billion can have the same level of consumption and waste that today is seen in rich societies? It is this level of hyper-consumption that is harming our planet.

We do not fully understand the consequences of rising populations and increasing energy consumption on the interwoven fabric of atmosphere, water, land and life.

It is undeniable that the looming environmental crisis is partly the consequence of population growth.

Unfortunately, our affluent society has also been an effluent society.

We're not going to persuade people in the developing world to go without, but neither can we afford a planet on which everyone lives like an American. Billions more people living in suburbs and driving SUVs to shopping malls is a recipe for planetary suicide. We can't even afford to continue that way of life ourselves.

Futurists don't consider overpopulation one of the issues of the future. They consider it the issue of the future.

Since 1850, burning of fossil fuels, coal, oil and natural gas has increased 100 times to produce energy as the world has industrialized to serve the world's more than 6 billion and growing population.

Human society sustains itself by transforming nature into garbage.

The combination of population growth and the growth in consumption is a danger that we are not prepared for and something we will need global co-operation on.

Energy is probably the most pressing demand on our planet.

Most of us feel some kind of uncertainty, with the population increasing and resources decreasing. We have to face these issues.

Our population and our use of the finite resources of planet Earth are growing exponentially, along with our technical ability to change the environment for good or ill.

We also know that China and India, as their economies ramp up, are using more and more energy.

We are living beyond our means. As a people we have developed a life-style that is draining the earth of its priceless and irreplaceable resources without regard for the future of our children and people all around the world.

The current challenge facing the environmental authorities is how to properly deal with the environmental problems caused by economic development.

Too many cars, too many factories, too much detergent, too much pesticides, multiplying contrails, inadequate sewage treatment plants, too little water, too much carbon dioxide - all can be traced easily to too many people.

We already have the statistics for the future: the growth percentages of pollution, overpopulation, desertification. The future is already in place.

Rapid population growth and technological innovation, combined with our lack of understanding about how the natural systems of which we are a part work, have created a mess.

The human overpopulation issue is the topic I see as the most vital to solve if our children and grandchildren are to have a good quality of life.

Pushing production out of America to nations without our environmental standards increases global environmental risks.

The doomsayers of the 1970s were wrong about how quickly the world would run out of oil, but not about the dangers that hydrocarbon consumption posed to the global environment, especially with respect to climate change.

Perhaps it has been too uncomfortable for those with vested interests to acknowledge, but we have spent the best part of the past century enthusiastically testing the world to utter destruction; not looking closely enough at the long-term impact our actions will have.