Environmental Stewardship Quotes

Who so hath his mind on taking, hath it no more on what he taketh. ~ Michel De Montaigne

Avoid participating in any religious community where the clear truth-claims of Scripture are ignored while contemplative and mystical practices are favored simply for their spiritual experience. Be careful of any church or ministry wherein acts of mercy and environmental stewardship are devoid of a theology of the cross and wind up being little more than the worship of created people and things. And be careful not to worship a good thing as a god thing for that is a bad thing. ~ Mark Driscoll

My belief is that what comes across on the television is a capture of my enthusiasm and my passion for wildlife. ~ Steve Irwin

There is a price to be paid for fabricating around us a society which is as artifical and as mechanized as our own, and this is that we can exist in it only on condition that we adapt ourselves to it. This is our punishment. ~ Philip Sherrard

Almost all these hotspots around the world, most have been destroyed to the point where there is no wildlife and very little of the natural world left. ~ Jim Fowler

The race of mankind would perish did they cease to aid each other. We cannot exist without mutual help. All therefore that need aid have a right to ask it from their fellow-men; and no one who has the power of granting can refuse it without guilt. ~ Walter Scott

The Earth is given as a common for men to labor and live in. ~ Thomas Jefferson

No man should think himself a zero, and think he can do nothing about the state of the world. ~ Bernard Baruch

All over the world the wildlife that I write about is in grave danger. It is being exterminated by what we call the progress of civilization. ~ Gerald Durrell

Our view of nature will influence the way we treat nature, and our view of human nature will affect our understanding of human responsibility. ~ Ian Barbour

Every time we lose a species webreak a life chain which has evolved over 3.5 billion years. ~ Jeff McNeely

We have not wondered enough at the delights God has given us to appreciate them, and be good stewards. We have overworked the land, poured pollutants into river and stream, fouled the air we breathe with gas fumes and chemical smoke spiraling up from industrial chimneys. We have sown the wind. We are reaping the whirlwind. ~ Madeleine L'Engle

Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere. ~ Blaise Pascal

For if one link in nature's chain might be lost, another might be lost, until the whole of things will vanish by piecemeal. ~ Thomas Jefferson

The future of our fragile, beautiful planet home is in our hands. As God's family, we are stewards of God's creation. We can be wantonly irresponsible, or we can be caring and compassionate. God says, "I have set before you life and death ... Choose life." ~ Desmond Tutu

We have probed the earth, excavated it, burned it, ripped things from it, buried things in it ... That does not fit my definition of a good tenant. If we were here on a month-to-month basis, we would have been evicted long ago. ~ Rose Bird

There is the GIS world that is largely managing authoritative data sources, supporting geocentric workflows like fixing roads, making cities more livable through better planning, environmental management, forest management, drilling in the right location for oil, managing assets and utilities. ~ Jack Dangermond

Once again, it must be reiterated that beliefs and practices that developed in response to earlier, and presumably different, environmental pressures tend to persist, and the result may come to be far less than efficient utilization of an environment ~ Don Edward Beck

If I try to make only enough money for my family' immediate needs, it may violate Scripture ... Even though earning just enough to meet the needs of my family may seem nonmaterialistic, it's actually selfish when I could earn enough to care for others as well. ~ Randy Alcorn

As a group, we want to follow good and green strategy. Setting targets is one element of that. The second part is to design products which meet environmental goals. ~ Jamshyd Godrej

We're gonna be using American produced, American energy that will create jobs in the United States, will create a far more secure source of energy for us and will make us better environmental stewards because we will be contributing less to climate change and burning much cleaner fuel. ~ Ray Mabus

Playing nice" comes naturally when our neuroception detects safety and promotes physiological states that support social behavior. However, pro-social behavior will not occur when our neuroception misreads the environmental cues and triggers physiological states that support defensive strategies. After all, "playing nice" is not appropriate or adaptive behavior in dangerous or life-threatening situations. In these situations, humans - like other mammals - react with more primitive neurobiological defense systems. To create relationships, humans must subdue these defensive reactions to engage, attach, and form lasting social bonds. Humans have adaptive neurobehavioral systems for both pro-social and defensive behaviors. ~ Stephen W. Porges

When we think about lung cancer, the biggest environmental factor is without doubt smoking. Um, that would make a huge impact and has made a huge impact on the incidence of lung cancer. We have to keep pushing that and making it clear to everybody why smoking is so dangerous. ~ Laurie Glimcher

Muslims have been an almost entirely benevolent force in the 20th century. They did not wreak the havoc the Western powers wreaked on the world. They have not come anywhere near to the environmental degradation that we've done to the planet. So I think Muslims need to be seen in the proper light. They're mostly decent, hardworking people, people with deep family values, and they want to live in peace. ~ Hamza Yusuf

Between the late 1950s and the late 1980s, more than 750 million tons of chemical wastes were discarded. ~ Sandra Steingraber

For nearly 40 years, while producing the now-banned industrial coolants known as PCBs at a local factory, Monsanto Co. routinely discharged toxic waste into a west Anniston creek and dumped millions of pounds of PCBs into oozing open-pit landfills. And thousands of pages of Monsanto documents-many emblazoned with warnings such as "CONFIDENTIAL: Read and Destroy"-show that for decades, the corporate giant concealed what it did and what it knew. ~ Michael Grunwald

I want Canada to be the country that is the best in the world at combining economic growth, social justice and environmental sustainability ... ~ Stephane Dion

On what reasonable grounds would sincere, informed environmentalists refuse to join animal advocates in a campaign to protect increasingly threatened fish populations from the snapping teeth of humanity? ~ Lisa Kemmerer

It is worth living long enough to outlast whatever sense of grievance you may acquire. ~ Marilynne Robinson

Our planet has not seen an extinction crisis as serious as the one in progress for 65 million years. ~ David Suzuki

The specific danger is us; we are rampant; this earth is our only friend; we are destroying it increment by increment at a horrific rate. We must understand that we can't buy it back. ~ William Kittredge

Future generations are not going to ask us what political party were you in. They are going to ask what did you do about it, when you knew the glaciers were melting. ~ Martin Sheen

Thanks to the growing strength of environmental organizations, there will always be some back country to provide us with a touch of wonder and a breath of fresh air. ~ Wallace Stegner

Throughout my life, I have never stopped to strategize about my next steps. I often just keep walking along, through whichever door opens. I have been on a journey and this journey has never stopped. When the journey is acknowledged and sustained by those I work with, they are a source of inspiration, energy and encouragement. They are the reasons I kept walking, and will keep walking, as long as my knees hold out. ~ Wangari Maathai

We are a part of everything that is beneath us, above us, and around us. Our past is our present, our present is our future, and our future is seven generations past and present. ~ Winona LaDuke

Until recently, most environmental organizations offered only token attention to children. Perhaps their lack of zeal stems from an unconscious ambivalence about children, who symbolize or represent overpopulation. So goes the unspoken mantra: We have met the enemy and it is our progeny. ~ Richard Louv

Char Miller's lively, insightful account of the life and world of American forester Gifford Pinchot fills a vitally important gap in environmental and conservation history. Anyone captivated by the issues and controversies surrounding the preservation and development of the nation's natural heritage should read this engaging, carefully researched biography. ~ Carolyn Merchant

Emerson writes that "no one expects the days to be gods." But now, as time flies and a baby will grow in a place of my choosing, I know. The days are gods. They are each unrepeatable and each a lesson in scope and wholeness, each worth honoring. I can hold and turn these days, consider their resonance, dim and bright moments, sound the depth and know the lullingly measured length. And know that for the time being my memories, and the days in which they are created, are not the only ones of which I'm in stewardship. ~ Liz Stephens

The secrets of evolution are death and time - the deaths of enormous numbers of lifeforms that were imperfectly adapted to the environment; and time for a long succession of small mutations. ~ Carl Sagan

The explosion of a terrorist's single nuclear device in a major metropolitan center would trigger an unparalleled humanitarian and environmental disaster. An accidental military launch of multiple warheads could result in a worldwide nuclear holocaust. Medical researchers and military analysts forebode grim consequences. ~ Alan Cranston

The future will either be green or not at all. ~ Bob Brown

The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

There are two problems for our species' survival - nuclear war and environmental catastrophe - and we're hurtling towards them. Knowingly. ~ Noam Chomsky

I think I owe it to myself and my fans in Britain to play one more Wimbledon. ~ Goran Ivanisevic

Environmental disaster is the gravest threat to China's continued development. That's according to me, but it is not some wacko view. ~ James Fallows

There is no question that photography has played a major role in the environmental movement. ~ Galen Rowell

Blessed are they who never read a newspaper, for they shall see Nature, and through her, God. ~ Henry David Thoreau

To avoid congestion, I get up at 5:10, grab a slice of raisin toast, and leave the house at 6 A.M. My husband, Tim Dunn, who works for an environmental agency, is still asleep when I slip out, and I find that rather annoying. ~ Ellen Stofan

Trees constitute the environmental quality committee - running air and water purification service 24-7. They're on every task force, from the historical society picnic to the highway department, school board, and library. When it comes to civic beautification, they alone create the crimson fall with little recognition. ~ Robin Wall Kimmerer

Tolstoy said, 'The antagonism between life and conscience may be removed either by a change of life or by a change of conscience.' Many of us have elected to adjust our consciences rather than our lives. Our powers of rationalization are unlimited. They allow us to live in luxury and indifference while others, whom we could help if we chose to, starve and go to hell. ~ Randy Alcorn

I don't know if acting is genetic. Maybe it's environmental. ~ Freddie Prinze, Jr.

The issue of environmental quality is one which transcends traditional political boundaries. It is a cause which can attract, and very sincerely, liberals, conservatives, radicals, reactionaries, freaks, and middle-class straights. ~ Russell Kirk

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. ~ David Suzuki

An economy that adds value through information, ideas, and intelligence-the Three I Economy-offers a way out of the apparent clash between material growth and environmental resources. ~ Charles Handy

The sharing of goods and resources, from which authentic development proceeds, is not guaranteed by merely technical progress and relationships of utility, but by the potential of love that overcomes evil with good. ~ Pope Benedict XVI

In May 2007, congressional Democrats and the Bush administration agreed to a plan to include environmental and international labor standards in upcoming trade agreements. ~ Nina Easton

Caretaking is the utmost spiritual and physical responsibility of our time, and perhaps that stewardship is finally our place in the web of life, our work, the solution to the mystery that we are. There are already so many holes in the universe that will never again be filled, and each of them forces us to question why we permitted such loss, such tearing away at the fabric of life, and how we will live with our planet in the future. ~ Linda Hogan

God is not glorified when we keep for ourselves (no matter how thankfully) what we ought to be using to alleviate the misery of unevangelized, uneducated, unmedicated, and unfed millions. The evidence that many professing Christians have been deceived by this doctrine is how little they give and how much they own. God has prospered them. And by an almost irresistible law of consumer culture (baptized by a doctrine of health, wealth, and prosperity) they have bought bigger (and more) houses, newer (and more) cars, fancier (and more) clothes, better (and more) meat, and all manner of trinkets and gadgets and containers and devices and equipment to make life more fun. They will object: Does not the Old Testament promise that God will prosper his people? Indeed! God increases our yield, so that by giving we can prove our yield is not our god. God does not prosper a man's business so that he can move from a Ford to a Cadillac. God prospers a business so that 17,000 unreached people can be reached with the gospel. He prospers the business so that 12 percent of the world's population can move a step back from the precipice of starvation. ~ John Piper