Ecological Issue Quotes

Earth Day 1970 was irrefutable evidence that the American people understood the environmental threat and wanted action to resolve it.

It is really important to solve the problem of rational utilization and distribution of wate supplies. I dare say, the shortage of fresh water is the major ecological problem of this moment.

This [increasingly severe large forest fires] is actually a social problem. It's got ecological and climate explanations, but it's a social problem, and it will take us humans to solve it. Public support for these tools is poor. Prescribed burning and managed wildfires are not well-supported. We actually all simply want fires to magically go away and take that pesky smoke with them, don't we? But there is no future without lots of fire and lots of smoke. That option is actually not on the table. Until we, the owners of public lands, make it our high priority to do something about the current situation, we're going to experience continued losses to megafires. So it's up to us. We can spread this message to our lawmakers, folks who can help us manage our fires and our forests. If we're unsuccessful, where will you go to play when your favorite places are burned black? Where will you go to breathe deep and slow?

I think a lot of people in my circle are thinking that way or see the movie [Into the Forest] and then really think that way. I think it's hopefully tapping into sort of a consciousness right now in regards to our society's relationship with the environment and our own and our disconnect from it, myself included.

I believe everyone deserves access to clean air and water, and that climate change has exacerbated this challenge.

The environmental crisis is a global problem, and only global action will resolve it.

We should be treating, I think, the whole issue of climate change and global warming with a far greater degree of priority than I think is happening now.

The people who see the population explosion in the Malthusian way - as a geometric progression - forget that population growth is not a biological issue. People are not increasing in numbers out of stupidity and ignorance. Population growth is an ecological phenomenon linked very intimately to other issues, such as the usurpation of the resources which allow people to live.

Taking care of the world's ocean garbage problem is one of the largest environmental challenges mankind faces today.

We have a very old conservation movement, particularly in the United States, which has focused on campaigns to protect endangered species: the spotted owl, the old-growth forest. But usually it stops there. To me, biodiversity is the full spectrum. Species conservation is not only about wilderness conservation. It’s also about protecting the livelihood of people even while changing the dominant relationship that humans have had with other species. In India, it’s an economic issue, not just an ecological one.

Once upon a time, I was a climate-change skeptic.

I don't believe in a biological apocalypse, but I think there is stormy biological weather ahead as the human population continues to grow.

The facts are clear. Our oceans are a mess.

I wish climate change wasn't real.

At the start of my career, I fought to prevent offshore drilling along the Atlantic Coast.

I'd like to see the bay cleaned up before I die.

It's time we stopped ignoring the environment. Let's not let another election go by without making this a high priority.