E. O. Wilson Quotes

I think its time to change and balance the environment and growth. If we don't do that, we're going to suffer a hard landing one day very soon.

We're not going to persuade people in the developing world to go without, but neither can we afford a planet on which everyone lives like an American. Billions more people living in suburbs and driving SUVs to shopping malls is a recipe for planetary suicide. We can't even afford to continue that way of life ourselves.

The most important question we have to deal with is a combination of population control and the control of our environment - how to utilize the world in as effective a way as we can for the future of mankind.

We know it is impossible to go on finding, moving and wasting oil, leveling forests, paving land, dumping poisons, and multiplying our numbers. A new way of life, a new set of thoughts must be found.

How much longer, for instance, can we continue to crowd more and more people into this world? …. How long can we permit the uncontrolled use of the earth's resources when there is no possibility of replacing them? Indeed, how long will it be before we have completely used up everything our lives depend on? These issues are the politics of the future. Neither Republicans nor Democrats have begun to spell out in substantive fashion the means by which we can control population growth, environmental problems, and the conservation of our natural resources.

I've long believed the environmental issue is an economic issue and a political issue. The three are entwined. You can't build prosperity on any basis other than a long-term basis, and you can't do that if you don't have a healthy environment.

We can choose to address the twin issues of population and consumption to rebalance the use of resources to a more egalitarian pattern of consumption.

Further devastation of the air, land and sea is obviously a very real possibility, unless the attitudes of politicians and all who irresponsibly exploit our natural resources change significantly in the very near future and all collaborate and sacrifice for the good of the planet.

The destruction of our environment and resources cannot be stemmed unless the growth of the world's population is stemmed and ultimately reduced.

In the end, I think the majority of Romanian society will understand that if we respect environmental protection standards, if we have benefits in taxes, royalties, jobs, we should do what all the modern countries in Europe and beyond are doing to take advantage of their natural resources.

My role is not to choose between safeguarding the economy and protecting the environment - it's about doing both.

Energy is necessary for economic growth, for a better quality of life, and for human progress.

There are real and growing dangers to our simple and most precious possessions: the air we breathe, the water we bring, and the land which sustains us.... If we do not act, the world of the year 2000 will be much less able to sustain life than it is now.

The current challenge facing the environmental authorities is how to properly deal with the environmental problems caused by economic development.

I do worry about population growth and the preservation of the green belt space but I don't think these are insurmountable problems.

The Government needs to recognise that we live on a planet with finite resources - and start measuring our progress as a society by the quality of our lives, not the expansion of our GDP.

Yes, we have ruined the Earth and have done an exceptionally good job of it. Yes, we should look at sustainable development. But we cannot afford to do things sequentially, but parallelly and make sure that we do not repeat our mistakes.

It would be a mistake to believe that environmental protection and economic growth are mutually exclusive.

The growth that we want is one that brings real benefits to the people, raises quality and efficiency of development, and contributes to energy conservation and environmental protection.

For the record, I am sticking with my claim that the simultaneous degradation of air quality, water quality, water supply, food safety, soil quality, and other environment-related variables is the main challenge to China's continued development.

I think we are in the midst of this period where we are committing this suicide on the planet and everybody is just using up all of our natural resources like a bunch of insane people. That's what I worry about more than I worry about jazz.

If the world is presented as resources to be exploited, then, more than likely, you're going to exploit the world.

We need to remind ourselves that our ultimate goal is not to reduce greenhouse gases or global warming per se but to improve the quality of life and the environment. We all want to leave the planet in decent shape for our kids. Radically reducing greenhouse gas emissions is not necessarily the best way to achieve that.

Poverty and backwardness in the midst of clear waters and verdant mountains is no good, nor is it to have prosperity and wealth while the environment deteriorates.

The environment will continue to deteriorate until pollution practices are abandoned.