David Suzuki is a respected scientist, environmentalist, and broadcaster known for his work in environmental advocacy and television programs. He might have been a prominent figure in sustainability efforts.
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.
We're in a giant car heading towards a brick wall and everyone's arguing over where they're going to sit.
For the sake of our health, our children and grandchildren and even our economic well-being, we must make protecting the planet our top priority.
Beyond reducing individual use, one of our top priorities must be to move from fossil fuels to energy that has fewer detrimental effects on water supplies and fewer environmental impacts overall.
Humans are distinguished from other species by a massive brain that enables us to imagine a future and influence it by what we do in the present. By using experience, knowledge and insight, our ancestors recognized they could anticipate dangers and opportunities and take steps to exploit advantages and avoid hazards.
I always felt that if someone shot me, it would be great for the environmental movement, because they would make me a martyr. Our biggest fear was our children, because there was a tremendous amount of threat and intimidation, and my wife was terrified that the children might be grabbed or assaulted in some way. That was the real fear.
We need love, and to ensure love, we need to have full employment, and we need social justice. We need gender equity. We need freedom from hunger. These are our most fundamental needs as social creatures.
The medical literature tells us that the most effective ways to reduce the risk of heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, Alzheimer's, and many more problems are through healthy diet and exercise. Our bodies have evolved to move, yet we now use the energy in oil instead of muscles to do our work.
Over and over, we hear politicians say they can't spend our tax dollars on environmental protection when the economy is so fragile.
The human brain had a vast memory storage. It made us curious and very creative. Those were the characteristics that gave us an advantage - curiosity, creativity and memory. And that brain did something very special. It invented an idea called 'the future.'
It's not unexpected that shooting massive amounts of water, sand, and chemicals at high pressure into the earth to shatter shale and release natural gas might shake things up. But earthquakes aren't the worst problem with fracking.
In the environmental movement, every time you lose a battle it's for good, but our victories always seem to be temporary and we keep fighting them over and over again.
The future doesn't exist. The only thing that exists is now and our memory of what happened in the past. But because we invented the idea of a future, we're the only animal that realized we can affect the future by what we do today.
If we want to address global warming, along with the other environmental problems associated with our continued rush to burn our precious fossil fuels as quickly as possible, we must learn to use our resources more wisely, kick our addiction, and quickly start turning to sources of energy that have fewer negative impacts.
Education has failed in a very serious way to convey the most important lesson science can teach: skepticism.
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.
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.
The human brain now holds the key to our future. We have to recall the image of the planet from outer space: a single entity in which air, water, and continents are interconnected. That is our home.
If America wants to retain its position as a global power, its president must listen to the people and show strong leadership at this turning point in human history.
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.
There are more humans than all of the rabbits on earth. There are more of us than all the wildebeests, than all the rats, than all the mice. We are the most numerous mammal on the planet. But because we're not like rabbits or rats or mice, we have technology, we have a consumptive appetite, we have a global economy.