I know that war and mayhem run in our blood. I refuse to believe that they must dominate our lives. We humans are animals, too, but animals with amazing powers of rationality, morality, society. We can use our strength and courage not to savage each other, but to defend our highest purposes. Donella Meadows Read Quote
Smart development invests in insulation, efficient cars, and ever-renewed sources of energy. Dumb growth crashes around looking for more oil. Donella Meadows Read Quote
Both the United States and the world economy have already reached – and surpassed – their sustainable physical limits. Ground water is being drawn down, soils eroded, forests cut faster than they grow, fish caught faster than they reproduce, non-renewable fossil fuels burnt without developing substitutes. Donella Meadows Read Quote
Recession-resistant development produces things people need. Unsustainable growth churns out tinsel products that consumers have to be seduced into buying – until times get tough, when they quickly give them up. Donella Meadows Read Quote
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. Donella Meadows Read Quote
Like the other great revolutions, an environmental revolution will require sacrifices and lead to enormous gains. It, too, will change the face of the land and human institutions, hierarchies, self-definitions, cultures. It will take centuries. If it happens. There is no guarantee, of course. Donella Meadows Read Quote
It’s a fair guess that at the rate we’re destroying habitat, especially but not exclusively in the tropics, we’re pushing to extinction about one species every hour. That doesn’t count the species whose populations are being reduced so greatly that diversity within the population is essentially gone. Donella Meadows Read Quote
Relative to most of the energy and material flows on Earth, the machinations of humankind are puny. The planet’s powers are much, much bigger than our own. But in a few sensitive places, we’re making an impact on a planetary scale, and that impact is not a good one. Donella Meadows Read Quote
We are dependent not so much on Earth, the third planet orbiting the sun, as on Gaea, the integrated system that includes, sustains and is shaped by life. Donella Meadows Read Quote
Everyone except the far right wing of the Republican Party realizes that oil, gas and coal burning are the main activities that have sent the climate into bigger floods, droughts, hurricanes, and El Ninos. Donella Meadows Read Quote
