Donella Meadows Quotes

The world breaks a little bit every time we cut down a tree. It's so much easier to cut one down than to grow one. And so it's worth interrogating every time we do it.

We are putting value in the things that really are not valuable, things like commodities or disposable stuff that can bought, but the rainforest has been undervalued, because the value shouldn't be in the trees that you take out; it's should be with leaving the trees to preserve the life system that sustains life on the planet.

Right now there should be a moratorium on the cutting down of old growth in this country. That is a small thing to ask at this point. There is only four percent of old growth left. Ninety-six percent of it has been cut down.

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.

A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people.

There's a general culture in this country to cut all the trees. It makes me so angry because everyone is cutting and no one is planting.

Most of our political support for forest preservation comes from the Northeast where there are few forests. The Americans back East realize that they have made a historical mistake and failed to preserve and protect their original forests, and they don’t want the rest of the country to make the same mistake.

It is not enough to celebrate the earth and all its inhabitants, we must restore what we have destroyed.

I see a future in which nature gives us a helping hand. Instead of destroying the natural world, why can't we use it to solve the kinds of problems that we are facing?

Environment is of supreme importance. It is greater than will power.

We are now heading down a centuries-long path toward increasing the productivity of our natural capital - the resource systems upon which we depend to live - instead of our human capital.

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

The only way to save a rhinoceros is to save the environment in which it lives, because there's a mutual dependency between it and millions of other species of both animals and plants.

Sumatra has these lush forests and huge, amazing creatures like elephants, orangutans, and tigers. They're disappearing because of industry coming in and cutting down the forests.

I think the greatest challenge in environmentalism and the most rewarding challenge is trying to figure out how humans can meet their needs while protecting the environment.

Each generation takes the earth as trustees. We ought to bequeath to posterity as many forests and orchards as we have exhausted and consumed.

President Obama has expressed his commitment to responsible stewardship of our land, water, and other natural resources. And one way of restoring the land to its natural condition is what we are doing here today - breaking pavement for the People's Garden.

This Earth is our only home. Together, we must protect and cherish it.

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

We owe it to each other - and to our children and grandchildren - to leave our planet in a better state than when we found it.

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.

I wouldn't want anyone to destroy the earth.

Arbor Day is not like other holidays. Each of those reposes on the past, while Arbor Day proposes for the future.

Even if one tree falls down it wouldn't affect the entire forest.