CO2 is the exhaling breath of our civilization, literally... Changing that pattern requires a scope, a scale, a speed of change that is beyond what we have done in the past.
I have no doubt that the fundamental problem the planet faces is the enormous increase in the human population
Only in the last few years did the science crystallize, revealing the urgency - our planet really is in peril. If we do not change course soon, we will hand our children a situation that is out of their control.
How do you actually green the supply chain is a challenge. The easier part is to do what we do; the difficult part is to get all your clients to long process will take time.
Environmental concern is a little like dieting or paying off credit-card debt - an episodically terrific idea that burns brightly and then seems to fade when we realize there's a reason we need to diet or pay down our debt. The reason is that it's really, really hard, and too many of us in too many spheres of life choose the easy over the hard.
There are days when you are busy even without having work as you are going for auditions. So you are not acting in a way. To sustain yourself mentally, physically, emotionally is challenging for sure.
There are a lot of problems in the world, a lot of tragic things that have to be addressed, economic, medical, political, all kinds of things, but, to my way of thinking, they pale in comparison to the overall problem of the environmental deadline.
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.
I believe, in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., that there is such a thing as being too late, and when it comes to climate change, that hour is almost upon us.
The big threat to the planet is people: there are too many, doing too well economically and burning too much oil.
There is a major problem of unsustainability of our environment, and we're seeing it in our natural resources, peak oil is probably upon us, and it can't be sustained. We're on an unsustainable path, and at this point in history we are responsible for that. We're going to have to change our ways. We're going to have to think through this problem.
We're told, often enough, that as a species we are poised on the edge of the abyss. It's possible that our puffed-up, prideful intelligence has outstripped our instinct for survival and the road back to safety has already been washed away. In which case there's nothing much to be done. If there is something to be done, then one thing is for sure: those who created the problem will not be the ones who come up with a solution.
My father's generation's crisis was fighting fascism. Ours is fighting climate change. It is much harder because you can't see it, it is not an obvious threat. But the solution is in our hands.
I feel like the world has just become a polyester suit that's smoldering, melting, and at some point we have to figure out how to extinguish it.
I don't care how pumped up or psyched you are to start a new diet or a new program - that emotion will fade.
Nobody yet knows how to improve working conditions and environmental quality without imposing heavy costs somewhere.
Under the current high energy / high entropy regime, sustainable development is a joke.
People think that saving the planet or finding their place in that effort is a really overwhelming thought.
Class of 2009: you are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on Earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating. Kind of a mind-boggling situation... but not one peer-reviewed paper published in the last thirty years can refute that statement.
I think calling it climate change is rather limiting. I would rather call it the everything change.
Why is it so easy to save the banks - but so hard to save the biosphere?
History and geology show what an eyeblink it's been since our current, comfortable culture came about. And yet that culture is using up absolutely everything at a ferocious rate.
