WIST Quotations

Kolbert, Elizabeth -- The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, ch. 9 “Islands on Dry Land” (2014)

Dave — Tue, 01 Aug 2023 19:24:26 +0000

One of the defining features of the Anthropocene is that the world is changing in ways that compel species to move, and another is that it’s changing in ways that create barriers — roads, clear-cuts, cities — that prevent them from doing so.

Elizabeth Kolbert (b. 1961) American journalist and author
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, ch. 9 “Islands on Dry Land” (2014)
(Source)

Diamond, Jared -- Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Part 4, ch. 16 (2005)

Dave — Mon, 25 Apr 2022 17:20:53 +0000

Because we are the cause of our environmental problems, we are the ones in control of them, and we can choose or not choose to stop causing them and start solving them. The future is up for grabs, lying in our own hands. We don’t need new technologies to solve our problems; while new technologies can make some contribution, for the most part we “just” need the political will to apply solutions already available.

Jared Diamond (b. 1937) American geographer, historian, ornithologist, author
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Part 4, ch. 16 (2005)
(Source)

Diamond, Jared -- Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Part 4, ch. 16 (2005)

Dave — Mon, 04 Apr 2022 16:14:41 +0000

Thus, because we are rapidly advancing along this non-sustainable course, the world’s environmental problems will get resolved, in one way or another, within the lifetimes of the children and young adults alive today The only question is whether they will become resolved in pleasant ways of our own choice, or in unpleasant ways not of our choice, such as warfare, genocide, starvation, disease epidemics, and collapses of societies. While all of those grim phenomena have been endemic to humanity throughout our history, their frequency increases with environmental degradation, population pressure, and the resulting poverty and political instability.

Jared Diamond (b. 1937) American geographer, historian, ornithologist, author
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Part 4, ch. 16 (2005)
(Source)

Stern, G. B. -- (Attributed)

Dave — Mon, 20 Apr 2015 12:10:49 +0000

Man is a complex being who makes deserts bloom and lakes die.

G. B. Stern (1890-1973) British writer [Gladys Bronwyn Stern]
(Attributed)

Also attributed (unsourced) to Gil Stern, Gil Scott-Heron, and Lawrence Peter.