Martin Cruz Smith Quotes

Because we're not in harmony with the environment, we're destroying the environment that supports us.

We humans are the greatest of earth's parasites.

The human juggernaut is permanently eroding Earth's ancient biosphere.

I look at it this way... For centuries now, man has done everything he can to destroy, defile, and interfere with nature: clear-cutting forests, strip-mining mountains, poisoning the atmosphere, over-fishing the oceans, polluting the rivers and lakes, destroying wetlands and aquifers... so when nature strikes back, and smacks him on the head and kicks him in the nuts, I enjoy that. I have absolutely no sympathy for human beings whatsoever. None. And no matter what kind of problem humans are facing, whether it's natural or man-made, I always hope it gets worse.

I don’t know if it is all (man’s fault) but the majority is, for the most part, it is man who continuously slaps down nature.

Man marks the earth with ruin - his control stops with the shore.

The 20th century peatlands ditching in Finland was the worst human environmental destruction action in Europe.

It's man's impact on our world that appeals to me more than just nature running wild.

What's it like to envision the ten-thousand-year environmental impact of tossing a plastic bottle into the trash bin, all in the single second it takes to actually toss it? Or the ten-thousand-year history of the fossil fuel being burned to drive to work or iron a shirt? It may be environmentally progressive, but it's not altogether pleasant.

Man is suddenly becoming aware that by an ill-considered exploitation of nature he risks destroying it and becoming in his turn the victim of this degradation. Not only is the material environment becoming a permanent menace - pollution and refuse, new illness and absolute destructive capacity - but the human framework is no longer under man's control, thus creating an environment for tomorrow which may well be intolerable. This is a wide-ranging social problem which concerns the entire human family.

The very fact that the planet is probably unsustainable with all that we've done to it and are doing to it, it's an appalling piece of evidence. It shows our complacency, our lack of passion or inclination to be authentic and really understand our true values. It's consistently depressing, but nevertheless, we carry on.

If industrial man continues to multiply his numbers and expand his operations he will succeed in his apparent intention, to seal himself off from the natural and isolate himself within a synthetic prison of his own making.

When geologists announced the beginning of a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene, humans destroying the environment, one of the main things they pointed to is the use of plastics in the earth.

To be modern is to destroy nature.

Any child born into the hugely consumptionist way of life so common in the industrial world will have an impact that is, on average, many times more destructive than that of a child born in the developing world.

We're destroying the planet, and the planet rebels.

Humans will take a rain forest and lose it and cover it with concrete. They will take the woods and turn it into a parking garage and I am not saying that's bad. I am just saying that's what we do. We occupy the planet with a vengeance. We seek to dominate it.

Modern society will find no solution to the ecological problem unless it takes a serious look at its lifestyle. In many parts of the world society is given to instant gratification and consumerism while remaining indifferent to the damage which these attitudes cause. Simplicity, moderation and discipline, as well as a spirit of sacrifice, must become part of everyday life, lest all suffer the negative consequences of the careless habits of a few.

The Earth is not dying-it is being killed. And the people who are killing it have names and addresses.

In America, I don't know how much longer the environment is going to exist. I sort of strongly believe that we're in danger.

Only rarely do we see beyond the needs of humanity, and he linked this blindness to our Christian and humanist infrastructure. It arose 2,000 years ago and was then benign, and we were no significant threat to Gaia. Now that we are over six billion hungry and greedy individuals, all aspiring to a first-world lifestyle, our urban way of life encroaches upon the domain of the living Earth.

Man is a great blunderer going about in the woods, and there is no other except the bear makes so much noise. ... The cunningest hunger is hunted in turn, and what he leaves of his kill is meat for some other. That is the economy of nature, but with it all there is not sufficient account taken of the works of man. There is no scavenger that eats tin cans, and no wild thing leaves a like disfigurement on the forest floor.

With its array of gadgets and machines, all powered by energies that are destructive of land or air or water, and connected to work, market, school, recreation, etc., by gasoline engines, the modern home is a veritable factory of waste and destruction. It is the mainstay of the economy of money. But within the economies of energy and nature, it is a catastrophe. It takes in the world's goods and converts them into garbage, sewage, and noxious fumes-for none of which have we found a use.

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.