Environment

One of the first laws against air pollution came in 1300 when King Edward I decreed the death penalty for burning of coal. At least one execution for that offense is recorded. But economics triumphed over health considerations, and air pollution became an appalling problem in England. – Glenn T. Seaborg, Atomic Energy Commission chairman, speech, Argonne National La

In the sixties, you could always insult a guy by calling him “plastic.” It meant he was phony or superficial. The opposite of plastic was “real.” – Elizabeth Royte, Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash, 2005

Racial injustice, war, urban blight, and environmental rape have a common denominator in our exploitative economic system. – Channing E. Phillips, speech, Washington, D.C., 22 April 1970

The desire to build a risk-free society has always been a sign of decadence. It has meant that the nation has given up, that it no longer believes in its destiny, that it has ceased to aspire to greatness, and has retired from history to pet itself. – Henry Fairlie, quoted in Conservation Foundation Letter, November 1981

The system of nature, of which man is a part, tends to be self-balancing, self-adjusting, self-cleansing. Not so with technology. – E.F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful, 1973

There is hope if people will begin to awaken that spiritual part of themselves, that heartfelt knowledge that we are caretakers of this planet. – Brooke Medicine Eagle

Those who wish to pet and baby wild animals “love” them. But those who respect their natures and wish to let them live normal lives, love them more. – Edwin Way Teale, Circle of the Seasons, 1953

To waste, to destroy our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand down to them amplified and developed. – Theodore Roosevelt, seventh annual message, 3 December 1907

Water flows uphill towards money. – Anonymous, saying in the American West, quoted by Ivan Doig in Marc Reisner, Cad

We shall continue to have a worsening ecologic crisis until we reject the Christian axiom that nature has no reason for existence save to serve man. – Lynn White, Jr., "The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis," 1967

The victory of Christianity over paganism was the greatest psychic revolution in the history of our culture. By destroying pagan animism, Christianity made it possible to exploit nature in a mood of indifference to the feelings of natural objects. – Lynn I. White, Jr., Science, 10 March 1967

The word “wilderness” occurs approximately three hundred times in the Bible, and all its meanings are derogatory. – René Dubos, The Wooing of Earth, 1980

When a man wantonly destroys one of the works of man we call him a vandal. When he destroys one of the works of god we call him a sportsman. – Joseph Wood Krutch

When some high-sounding institute states that a compound is harmless or a process free of risk, it is wise to know whence the institute or the scientists who work there obtain their financial support. – Lancet, editorial on the "medical-industrial complex," 1973

We have to shift our emphasis from economic efficiency and materialism towards a sustainable quality of life and to healing of our society, of our people and our ecological systems. – Janet Holmes à Court