Many scientists and economists also say putting a price on carbon through carbon taxes and/or cap-and-trade is necessary.
Exxon, one of the companies that has spent tens of millions of dollars denying climate change, denying any responsibility to deal with, taking government subsidies on a massive scale, now their ads are all about, ‘Oh, we want a clean future. We’re looking at clean energy and all that stuff.’
If you’re not being pessimistic, you’re not being very realistic. But I think one must always have hope, and when you have children, of course, you have no choice but to work your tail off to try and protect the future for your children. And that is infused by hope in the end.
You would have thought that our first priority would be to ask what the ecologists are finding out, because we have to live within the conditions and principles they define. Instead, we’ve elevated the economy above ecology.
Outright bans on plastic bags may not be the best solution, but education and incentives to get people to stop using them are necessary.
I’ve always been more interested in organisms that can move on their own than in stationary plants. But when I canoe or hike along the edge of lakes or oceans and see trees that seem to be growing out of rock faces, I am blown away. How do they do it?
Change is never easy, and it often creates discord, but when people come together for the good of humanity and the Earth, we can accomplish great things.
Although it’s the second largest country in the world, our useful area has been reduced. Our immigration policy is disgusting: We plunder southern countries by depriving them of future leaders, and we want to increase our population to support economic growth.
Japanese people cut their energy use by 25 percent immediately after Fukushima. They showed there was huge opportunity there. And instead, the government simply wants to get those plants up and running again.
Being an environmentalist isn’t all about doom and gloom.
Global trade has advantages. For starters, it allows those of us who live through winter to eat fresh produce year-round. And it provides economic benefits to farmers who grow that food.
Corporations are not people. They shouldn’t be funding. They shouldn’t be funding campaigns at all.
If we pollute the air, water and soil that keep us alive and well, and destroy the biodiversity that allows natural systems to function, no amount of money will save us.
What we are doing is, rather than living on the interest of our basic biological capital, we’re using up our capital, so we’re dipping into our capital. We’re using up what should be our children’s and grandchildren’s legacy.
I can’t imagine anything more important than air, water, soil, energy and biodiversity. These are the things that keep us alive.
We emerged out of nature, and when we die, we return to nature. We need to know there are forces impinging on us that we will never understand or control. We need to have sacred places where we go with respect, not just looking for resources or opportunity.
It’s time we stopped ignoring the environment. Let’s not let another election go by without making this a high priority.
We have altered the physical, chemical and biological properties of the planet on a geological scale. We have left no part of the globe untouched.
From year to year, environmental changes are incremental and often barely register in our lives, but from evolutionary or geological perspectives, what is happening is explosive change.
Doing all we can to combat climate change comes with numerous benefits, from reducing pollution and associated health care costs to strengthening and diversifying the economy by shifting to renewable energy, among other measures.
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