Quotes

Suggestions for additions to the list are welcome (but include a citation so I can verify).

Two gases in our atmosphere play a key role in the earth’s weather. They are carbon dioxide and water. These gases are responsible for the so-called “greenhouse” effect. They allow the sun’s short-wave heat rays to penetrate to the earth’s surface, but keep much of the long-wave heat radiated by the earth from escaping to outer space. This heats our atmosphere.

Our industrial civilization has been pouring carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at a great rate. By the year 2000 we will have added about 70% more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. If it remained, it would have a very marked warming on the earth’s climate, but most of it will probably be absorbed by the oceans. Conceivably, however, it could cause significant melting of the great icecaps and raise sea levels in time.

– Planet Earth, booklet about the International Geophysical Year 1957/58

The future is no longer… what it might have been if humans had known how to use their brains and their opportunities more effectively. But the future can still become what we reasonable and realistically want.

– Aurelio Peccei, 1981

We find ourselves, one way or another, in the midst of a large-scale experiment to change the chemical construction of the stratosphere, even though we have no clear idea of what the biological or meteorological consequences may be.

– F. Sherwood Rowland, 1986

All the evidence suggests that we have consistently exaggerated the contributions of technological genius and underestimated the contributions of natural resources… We need… something we lost in our haste to remake the world: a sense of limits, an awareness of the importance of earth’s resources.

– Stewart Udall, 1986

Can we move nations and people in the direction of sustainability? Such a move would be a modification of society comparable in scale to only two oter changes: the Agricultural Revolution of the late Neolithic and the Industrial Revolution of the past two centuries. Those revolutions were gradual, spontaneous, and largely unconscious. This one will have to be a fully conscious operation, guided by the best foresight that science can provide… If we actually do it, the undertaking will be absolutely unique in humanity’s stay on the Earth.

– William D. Ruckelshaus, 1989

I would like to draw three main conclusions. Number one, the earth is warmer in 1988 that at any time in the history of instrumental measurements. Number two, the global warming is now large enough that we can ascribe with a high degree of confidence a cause and effect relationship to the greenhouse effect. And number three, our computer climate simulations indicate that the greenhouse effect is already large enough to begin to effect the probability of extreme weather events like heat waves.

– James Hansen, in his testimony before the US Congress, 1988

If current predictions of population growth prove accurate and patterns of human activity remain unchanged, science and technology may not be able to prevent either irreversible degradation of the environment or continued poverty for much of the world.

– Royal Society of London and the US National Academy of Sciences, 1992

We’re living in a zoo. And we’re both the animals and the zookeepers now.

– David Keith