Gaylord Nelson Quotes

Our air, water, soil, forests, oceans, rivers, lakes, scenic beauty, wildlife habitat, minerals, that is the wealth of the country.

The month of April 2000 will provide an unprecedented showcase for the clean energy options available to individuals, businesses and the government, .. As tens of millions of people take action to support clean energy during Earth Month, the ‘New Energy for a New Era’ campaign will catapult us toward a clean and affordable energy future.

Teddy Roosevelt of course was a great outdoorsman all his life.

There is no domestic issue more important to America in the long run than the conservation and proper use of our natural resources, including fresh water, clean air, tillable soil, forests, wilderness, habitat for wildlife, minerals and recreational assets.

Loads of chemicals and hazardous wastes have been introduced into the atmosphere that didn’t even exist in 1948. The environmental condition of the planet is far worse than it was 42 years ago.

If we continue to address the issue of the environment where we live as though we’re the only species that lives here, we’ll create a disaster for ourselves

As far as I know, most organizations are avoiding population issues because they’re politically frightened by the charge that comes from some proponents of immigration that if you oppose the immigration policy we have now, you’re a racist.. There is no way in the world we can forge a sustainable society without stabilizing the population. … There’s no practical way of stabilizing the population of the U.S. without reducing the immigration rate. When do we decide we have to do something, or do we wait until things are as bad here as they are in the countries people want to leave?

If we human beings learn to see the intricacies that bind one part of a natural system to another and then to us, we will no longer argue about the importance of wilderness protection, or over the question of saving endangered species, or how human communities must base their economic futures – not on short-term exploitation – but on long-term, sustainable development.

The issues are by some geometric number – 100 or 200 or 500 – times more complicated today than we appreciated them to be when Franklin Roosevelt was around.

All nations are degrading and consuming their environment to a point beyond capacity. In the past 15 years in the U.S. we have added 1300 cities with populations over 100,000. When the environment is forced to file Chapter 11, the ecology collapses. Nations recover from war but not from a failed eco-system. The status of our environment is more threatening than all wars. It is forever.

In the state of Wisconsin it’s mandated that teachers in the social sciences and hard sciences have to start giving environmental education by the first grade, through high school

There is a great need for the introduction of new values in our society, where bigger is not necessarily better, where slower can be faster, and where less can be more.