#environment

Here we are, the most clever species ever to have lived. So how is it we can destroy the only planet we have? ↗

— Jane Goodall

#environmentalism #nature #preservation #nature

One of the striking things about places heavily contaminated by radioactive nuclides is the richness of their wildlife. This is true of the land around Chernobyl, the bomb test sites of the Pacific, and areas near the United States’ Savannah River nuclear weapons plant of the Second World War. Wild plants and animals do not perceive radiation as dangerous, and any slight reduction it may cause in their lifespans is far less a hazard than is the presence of people and their pets. ↗

— James Lovelock

#environmentalism

Perhaps our and Gaia’s greatest error was the conscious abuse of fire. Cooking meat over a wood fire may have been acceptable, but the deliberate destruction of whole ecosystems by fire merely to drive out the animals within was surely our first great sin against the living Earth. It has haunted us ever since and combustion could now be our auto da fé, and the cause of our extinction. ↗

— James Lovelock

#environmentalism

Cutting a tree down doesn't kill it; it erases it from history. ↗

— The Wombat

#true #environmentalism

Even viewed conservatively, trees are worth far more than they cost to plant and maintain. The U.S. Forest Service's Center for Urban Forest Research found a ten-degree difference between the cool of a shaded park in Tucson and the open Sonoran desert. A tree planted in the right place, the center estimates, reduces the demand for air conditioning and can save 100 kilowatt hours in annual electrical use, about 2 to 8 percent of total use. Strategically planted trees can also shelter homes from wind, and in cold weather they can reduce heating fuel costs by 10 to 12 percent. A million strategically planted trees, the center figures, can save $10 million in energy costs. And trees increase property values, as much as 1 percent for each mature tree. These savings are offset somewhat by the cost of planting and maintaining trees, but on balance, if we had to pay for the services that trees provide, we couldn't afford them. Because trees offer their services in silence, and for free, we take them for granted. ↗

— Jim Robbins

#environment #trees #home

For bighorns, topography is memory, enhanced by acute vision. They can anticipate the land's every contour--when to leap, where to climb, when to turn, which footholds will support their muscular bodies. To survive, this is what the band would have to do: make this perfect match of flesh to earth. ↗

— Ellen Meloy

#environment #imagination

I had been to New Mexico many times. I loved it. It's a very exotic, interesting, severely crazy environment. I don't know if I could live there all year. It's such an intense place. ↗

— Campbell Scott

#could #crazy #environment #exotic #had

If we surrendered to earth's intelligence we could rise up rooted, like trees. ↗

— Rainer Maria Rilke

#nature #intelligence

If you use a philosophy education well, you can get your foot in the door of any industry you please. Industries are like the blossoms on a tree while philosophy is the trunk - it holds the tree together, but it often goes unnoticed. ↗

— Criss Jami

#business #businesses #careers #college #decisions

Contrary to the ecologists, nature does not stand still and does not maintain the kind of equilibrium that guarantees the survival of any particular species - least of all the survival of her greatest and most fragile product: man. ↗

— Ayn Rand

#man #philosophy #nature