Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
You cannot do only one thing.
Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all.
We can't cure a shortage by increasing the supply.
The optimum population is, then, less than the maximum.
An attack on values is inevitably seen as an act of subversion.
No one should be able to enter a wilderness by mechanical means.
Never globalize a problem if it can possibly be dealt with locally.
(Technology reliability) x (Human reliability) = (System reliability)
Ecological differentiation is the necessary condition for coexistence.
Continuity is at the heart of conservatism: ecology serves that heart.
Every plausible policy must be followed by the question 'And then what?'
Ecology is the overall science of which economics is a minor speciality.
Everything we have developed over the last 100 years should be destroyed.
There is nothing more dangerous than a shallow thinking compassionate person
That there are billions of people over 60kg weight on this planet is recklessness.
Every measured thing is part of a web of variables more richly interconnected than we know.
The only thing we can really count on in this uncertain world is human unreliability itself.
The morality of an act is a function of the state of the system at the time it is performed.
In a competitive world of limited resources, total freedom of individual action is intolerable
The population problem has no technical solution; it requires a fundamental extension in morality.
What features of your daily life do you expect to be improved by a further increase in population?
In a finite world this means that the per capita share of the world's goods must steadily decrease.
Of course, a positive growth rate might be taken as evidence that a population is below its optimum.
The social arrangements that produce responsibility are arrangements that create coercion, of some sort.
A coldly rationalist individualist can deny that he has any obligation to make sacrifices for the future.
Throughout history, human exploitation of the earth has produced this progression: colonize-destroy-move on.
A finite world can support only a finite population; therefore, population growth must eventually equal zero.
The 20th century peatlands ditching in Finland was the worst human environmental destruction action in Europe.
Value is a relative concept: the value of each action is determined by comparing it with other possible actions.
It is a mistake to think that we can control the breeding of mankind in the long run by an appeal to conscience.
The essence of dramatic tragedy is not unhappiness. It resides in the solemnity of the remorseless working of things.
The only kind of coercion I recommend is mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon by the majority of the people affected.
The greatest folly is to accept expert statements uncritically. At the very least, we should always seek another opinion.
To say that we mutually agree to coercion is not to say that we are required to enjoy it, or even to pretend we enjoy it.
If there were a button I could press, I would sacrifice myself without hesitating, if it meant millions of people would die.
US academic institutions are being bought via funding by biotechnology firms which exert a vice-like grip on the US government.
Economists (and others) who are satisfied with nature-free equations develop a dangerous hubris about the potency of our species
To the Green movement in which infantilism is seen at its worst, authority is a far more serious evil than the destruction of life.
Indeed, our particular concept of private property, which deters us from exhausting the positive resources of the earth, favors pollution.
The difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter is a matter of perspective: it all depends on the observer and the verdict of history.
Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons.
It takes five years for a willing person's mind to change. Have patience with yourself and others when treading in an area protected by a taboo.
The composition of the Greens seems to be the same as that of the population in general - mainly pieces of drifting wood, people who never think.
But it is no good using the tongs of reason to pull the Fundamentalists' chestnuts out of the fire of contradiction. Their real troubles lie elsewhere.
But as population became denser, the natural chemical and biological recycling processes became overloaded, calling for a redefinition of property rights.
The rational man finds that his share of the cost of the wastes he discharges into the commons is less than the cost of purifying his wastes before releasing them.
The three filters [against folly] operate through these particular questions: Literacy: What are the words? Numeracy: What are the numbers? Ecolacy: And then what?
I could never find two people who are perfectly equal: one will always be more valuable than the other. And many people, as a matter of fact, simply have no value.
Using the commons as a cesspool does not harm the general public under frontier conditions, because there is no public, the same behavior in a metropolis is unbearable.
Why are ecologists and environmentalists so feared and hated? This is because in part what they have to say is new to the general public, and the new is always alarming.