If you live in a squalid environment, then of course you are going to want to get out of it, you are probably going to want to get into the country, because that's what it does.
While I am a great believer in the free enterprise system and all that it entails, I am an even stronger believer in the right of our people to live in a clean and pollution-free environment.
By adopting the control strategy, the nation's environmental program has created a built-in antagonism between environmental quality and economic growth.
We shouldn't measure everything in terms of GDP figures or economics. There is something called quality of life.
If we intend to provide a better life, and a better world, for future generations, we can't ignore the quality of the environment we leave them.
I don't think there's any evidence to support that kind of criticism. I think that what we have attempted to do is to say that environmental concerns should certainly be addressed. We're not suggesting that any kind of development trample upon the existing laws that are there to insure that we maintain as high a quality of environment as possible.
Nobody should live in an environment that's not healthy.
The issue of environmental quality is one which transcends traditional political boundaries. It is a cause which can attract, and very sincerely, liberals, conservatives, radicals, reactionaries, freaks, and middle-class straights.
The Invest in Iowa Act is a bold vision for Iowa that lowers the overall tax burden on Iowans, and invests significantly in mental health and water quality.
There are some, I know, who see beautification as a frill, as an extra, or as something that is luxurious enough to postpone. Well, they make me impatient because I am convinced that beauty and order in our environment are not frills. I am convinced that they are urgent necessities because they will determine whether our grandchildren can live in a decent land or whether they will be surrounded by glittering junkheaps.
A premise of the new city is that we want a society to be as egalitarian as possible. For this purpose, quality-of-life distribution is more important than income distribution. [And quality of life includes] a living environment as free of motor vehicles as possible.
I want to make it clear,if there is ever a conflict [between environmental quality and economic growth], I will go for beauty, clean air, water, and landscape.
Is wellbeing only economic growth? Only salaries? Or is wellbeing also being able to breathe clean air and drink clean water?
There's nothing greener than Washington state. They have the most beautiful vegetation on the planet. And the water is so clean.
We could be happy if the air was as pure as beer.
I've used the prestige and influence of having been a president of the United States as effectively as possible. And secondly, I've still been able to carry out my commitments to peace and human rights and environmental quality and freedom and democracy and so forth.
The only way forward, if we are going to improve the quality of the environment, is to get everybody involved.
The most meaningful engine of change, powerful enough to confront corporate power, may be not so much environmental quality, as the economic development and growth associated with the effort to improve it.
What our economists call a depressed area almost always turns out to be a cleaner, freer, more livable place than most.
Our goal is not just an environment of clean air and water and scenic beauty. The objective is an environment of decency, quality and mutual respect for all other human beings and all other living creatures.
On human rights, civil rights and environmental quality, I consider myself to be very liberal. On the management of government, on openness of government, on strengthening individual liberties and local levels of government, I consider myself a conservative. And I don't see that the two attitudes are incompatible.
Nobody yet knows how to improve working conditions and environmental quality without imposing heavy costs somewhere.
Los Angeles County is one of the most park-poor urban areas in the nation, and the San Gabriel Valley - stretching from Pasadena to Pomona - is especially starved for open space.
I am not here as a public official, but as a citizen of a troubled world who finds hope in a growing consensus that the generally accepted goals of society are peace, freedom, human rights, environmental quality, the alleviation of suffering, and the rule of law.
If you have a lot of nature in your city, it becomes a more enjoyable place. That's my own feeling about it.
