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The following are some famous environmental quotes centered on the theme of consumerism, capitalism, and the economic model. If you would like to go to the online environmental forum Click Here.
“There is a sufficiency in the world for man's need but not for man's greed.”
- Mohandas K. Gandhi
“Free Enterprise really means rich people get richer. They have the freedom to exploit and psychologically rape their fellow human beings in the process . . . Capitalism is destroying the earth.”
- Helen Caldicott
“You can't have everything; where would you put it?”
- Steven Wright
“Capitalism has destroyed our belief in any effective power but that of self interest backed by force.”
- George Bernard Shaw
“Economic advance is not the same thing as human progress.”
- John Clapham
“The message from Wal-Mart today to the rest of the business community is there need not be any conflict between the environment and the economy. We will find the way not only to reconcile (those), but to find new profits and new opportunities as we do the right thing.”
- Al Gore
“Business has to change the way it does business, or we will make no significant changes in the way we relate to the earth.”
- Dennis Weaver
“There is something fundamentally wrong in treating the Earth as if it were a business in liquidation.”
- Herman E. Daly
“Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.”
- John Maynard Keynes
“I hope the United States of America is not so rich that she can afford to let these wildernesses pass by, or so poor that she cannot afford to keep them.”
- Margaret Murie
“Sustainability means doing things better - not doing without.”
- David Suzuki
“We don't have to sacrifice a strong economy for a healthy environment.”
- Dennis Weaver
“Why is it that we judge development on what we have built rather than what we have preserved? We strive to protect what was built by man, but give little thought to protecting what was made by God.”
- Juanito G. Cambangay
“The idea that the American model of liberal capitalism offers the widest scope for individual opportunity is the great ideological hoax of our times.”
- David Clark
“Natural ecosystems will only be protected when society taxes the pumping of fresh water, the damming of rivers and the felling of virgin timber. As polluters pay more, and those who tread more lightly on the Earth pay less, incentives are created for people to do the right thing.”
- John Robbins
“It is sometimes argued that advertising really does little harm because no one believes it any more anyway. We consider this view to be erroneous. The greatest damage done by advertising is precisely that it incessantly demonstrates the prostitution of men and women who lend their intellects, their voices, their artistic skills to purposes in which they themselves do not believe, and that it teaches (in the words of Leo Marx) ‘the essential meaninglessness of all creations of the mind: words, images, and ideas.’ The real danger from advertising is that it helps to shatter and ultimately destroy our most precious non-material possessions: the confidence in the existence of meaningful purposes of human activity and respect for the integrity of man.”
- Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy
“By now it should be clear that environmental consumerism is not a fad or even a short-term trend. It is a way of life with broad support throughout our society.”
- Jacquelyn A.
“We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, militarism and economic exploitation are incapable of being conquered. A nation can flounder as readily in the face of moral and spiritual bankruptcy as it can through financial bankruptcy.”
- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.”
- Kenneth E. Boulding
“If you have great wealth, give alms out of your abundance; if you have but little, distribute even some of that. But do not hesitate to give alms.”
- Apocrypha
“In the long term, the economy and the environment are the same thing. If it's unenvironmental it is uneconomical. That is the rule of nature.”
- Mollie Beattie
“This is a government of the people, by the people and for the people no longer. It is a government of corporations, by corporations, and for corporations.”
- Rutherford B. Hayes
“If we want to move towards a low-polluting, sustainable society, we need to get consumers to think about their purchases.”
- David Suzuki
“The throwaway culture is passing and a new culture of sustainability is fast becoming the norm.”
- Gareth Mitchell
“I want to make it clear, if there is ever a conflict (between environmental quality and economic growth), I will go for beauty, clean air, water, and landscape.”
- Jimmy Carter
“Progress from now on has to mean something different.”
- Robert Redford
“We already have too much economic growth in the United States. Economic growth in rich countries like ours is the disease, not the cure.”
- Paul Ehrlich
“Making capitalism out of socialism is like making eggs out of an omelet.”
- Vadim Bakatin
“Localization means finding a balance that has been lost between local, regional, national and international markets. It does not mean that there is no open trade, but that companies have less control and communities more over what is produced and how. It means that what is traded is done fairly, to mutal advantage.”
- Ed Mayo
“The superior man seeks what is right; the inferior one, what is profitable.”
- Confucius