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Nature and Society Quotations used in the October-November 2006 edition If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten. Anthony Robbins If there are still people here in 200 years, they won’t be living the way we do. I can make that prediction with confidence, because if people go on living the way we do, there won’t be any people here in 200 years. I can make another prediction with confidence. If there are still people here in 200 years they won’t be thinking the way we do. I can make that prediction with equal confidence, because if people go on thinking the way we do, then they’ll go on living the way we do –and there won’t be any people here in 200 years. Daniel Quinn The destruction of the natural world is not the result of global capitalism, industrialization, ‘Western civilization’ or any flaw in human institutions. It is a consequence of the evolutionary success of an exceptionally rapacious primate. Throughout all of history and prehistory, human advance has coincided with ecological devastation. John Gray Sustainable and non-sustainable behaviour patterns are not innate; they are learned and acquired from a young age and are constantly reinforced culturally and socially. Upbringing, education and learning are very important here, with as much attention having to be paid to relearning as to new learning. German Man and the Biosphere report 1996 Each individual has to become aware that he or she takes responsibility for the present and future generations and for the environment with every action as well as non-action. German Man and the Biosphere report 1996 We are beginning to realize that the attempt to keep people from experiencing the physical reality of living on the planet has led us to a point where “being cold in winter” and “hot in summer” may be only a small part of the stresses we will be facing. Survival, rather than comfort, could be the question of the day. Pat Murphy The bottom line is that people can not be regulated in a way that leads to sustainability. Any efficiency gained in the process is used to increase population and consumption. It’s known as "Jevons’ Paradox" Jay Hanson What we must have (and nothing less) is a whole world full of people with changed minds, industrialists with changed minds, school teachers with changed minds, politicians with changed minds—though they’ll be the last of course. Which is why we can’t wait for them or expect them to lead us into a new era. Their minds won’t change until the minds of their constituents change. Changing people’s minds is something each one of us can do, wherever we are, whoever we are, whatever kind of work we’re doing. Changing minds may not seem like a very dramatic or exciting challenge, but it’s the challenge that the human future depends on. Daniel Quinn There is a second, very strong reason for supporting organic growing methods, and that is because chemical farming kills wildlife, by both stealing their habitats, and by poisoning them. So more organics means saving a few species, even if man turns out not to be one of them! Joseph Harris If your experience is that your water comes from the tap and that your food comes from the grocery store then you are going to defend the system that brings those to you because your life depends on that; if your experience is that your water comes from a river and that your food comes from a land base then you will defend those because your life depends on them. So part of the problem is that we have become so dependent upon this system that is exploiting and destroying us, it has become almost impossible for us to imagine living outside of it and it’s very difficult physically for us to live outside of it. Derrick Jensen, 12 August 2006 Technical progress leaves only one problem unsolved: The frailty of human nature. Unfortunately that problem is insoluble. John Gray Sustainable and non-sustainable behaviour patterns are not innate; they are learned and acquired from a young age and are constantly reinforced culturally and socially. Upbringing, education and learning are very important here, with as much attention having to be paid to relearning as to new learning. German Man and the Biosphere report 1996 Political independence and the ability to engage in society has a lot to do with from what position of autonomy do we stand. And if we stand totally dependent on a one or two or three day food supply chain we don’t really have any position of political autonomy. David Holmgren, Permaculture co-orginator CO2 emissions are part of the environmental impacts of the nuclear fuel chain, as are the emissions of low-level ionising radiation. However, I have to point out that coal-fired power stations emit more radiation than normally operating nuclear power stations. It is the risks of proliferation of nuclear weapons, terrorism, major accidents and high-level wastes that lift nuclear power into a high danger category all of its own. Dr Mark Diesendorf October-November 2006 edition accessible here
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