Biology is the only branch of 

science whose subject matter is 

rapidly disappearing.

~ E.O. Wilson

The most common form of terrorism in the USA is that carried on by bulldozers and chainsaws. It is not enough to understand the natural world; the point is defend and preserve it. Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul.

- Edward Abbey

A reasonable man adapts himself to suit his environment. An unreasonable man persists in attempting to adapt his environment to suit himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man. 

George Bernard Shaw 

"[Because of climate change] In the 21st century, we will all become homeless. We will no longer recognize our homes. They will no longer be the places where we once lived." 

-Paul Hawken

"We have become great because of the lavish use of our resources. But the time has come to inquire seriously what will happen when our forests are gone, when the coal, the iron, the oil, and the gas are exhausted.

"I recognize the right and duty of this generation to develop and use the natural resources of our land; but I do not recognize the right to waste them, or to rob, by wasteful use, the generations that come after us.

"Of all the questions which can come before this nation, short of the actual preservation of its existence in a great war, there is none which compares in importance with the great central task of leaving this land even a better land for our descendants than it is for us."

- Theodore Roosevelt, 1903

We have lived by the assumption that what was good for us would be good 

for the world.  We have been wrong.  We must change our lives, so that it 

will be possible to live by the contrary assumption that what is good for 

the world will be good for us.  And that requires that we make the effort 

to know what is good for it.  We must learn to cooperate in its 

processes, and to yield to its limits. But even more important, we must 

learn to acknowledge that the creation is full of mystery; we will never 

clearly understand it.  We must abandon arrogance and stand in awe.  We 

must recover the sense of the majesty of the creation, and the ability to 

be worshipful in its presence. For it is only on the condition of 

humility and reverence before the world that our species will be able to 

remain in it. 

--  Wendell Berry - Recollected Essays

"There is no sense and no sanity in objecting to the desecration of the American flag when we tolerate, encourage, and as a daily business promote the desecration of the Country for which it stands."

--  Wendell Berry

If the biota, in the course of aeons, has built something we like but 

do not understand, then who but a fool would discard seemingly 

useless parts?  To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution 

of intelligent tinkering. 

~ Aldo Leopold,  A Sand County Almanac

"If half the money being spent on terrorism was spent on hydrogen production, we'd have a permanent solution to terrorism,"

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,54456,00.html 

"I believe humans are hard-wired to compete, consume, and ultimately destroy the planet" - RFK Jr, Mother Earth News 2005

The Earth is not dying, it is being killed. You see it everyday, everywhere you look, and you can't just sit back and watch it. Direct action is vital to stopping environmental destruction and confronting corporate control. Direct action is taking personal action to directly improve your life, taking personal responsibility and living deliberately. Think of direct action as self-defense: defending yourself and the Earth against the forces that are destroying nature and wildness. Remember, you are a powerful person.

For members of the Church of Deep Ecology, direct action is a form of worship. Whether you're blocking bulldozers, pulling biotech crops, teaching organic gardening to kids, or biking rather than driving, you need to fill your days, and your nights, with direct action. Direct action to save the Earth is deliberately working toward a vision of species in balance on a healthy, living Earth.

Gather your own food. Walk to work. Eat local, organic food. Turn off the lights. Read by candlelight. Plant a fruit tree. Barter instead of buy. Identify the edible plants in your yard. Wake up with the sun. Sleep when you're tired. Eat when you're hungry. Meet your neighbors. Form a community. Compost. Take someone to your favorite wild place. Watch the squirrels. Watch the wasps. Watch the blue jays. Learn from them all.

You can host a straw bale construction workshop or start a bio-diesel cooperative. The more you can do for yourself, by yourself, the less negative impact you will have on the Earth. You can learn the ways of the Earth, and teach these to others. By learning the ways of the Earth, you will learn what's best for you, and for the Earth. Together we will destroy the class of experts who tell us that they know best, and instead listen to our natural instincts, taking our clues from our surroundings. Define the terms of your own survival, and then take action.

http://www.churchofdeepecology.org/action.htm

"If you want to be free, learn to live simply.
Use what you have and be content where you are." 
J. Heider

“This is a green world, with animals comparatively few and small, and all dependent on the leaves.

"By leaves we live.  Some people have strange ideas that they live by money.  They think energy is generated by the circulation of coins.  Whereas the world is mainly a vast leaf colony, growing on and forming a leafy soil, not a mere mineral mass: and we live not by the jingling of our coins, but by the fullness of our harvests.”  - Patrick Geddes

I am a misanthrope because I believe that wolves and tree voles and Darlingtonia have as much right to life and liberty as any gun toting redneck, crystal-worshipping dervisher or angry Indian with a ski mask. I am a misanthrope because I hate the fact that my species invented strip mines, clearcuts, fellerbunchers, sitcoms and oil spills. I am a misanthrope because in varying degrees, all of humanity is to blame for the current state of the planet. I am a misanthrope because I hate what the upper class gods of economics have done to my Earth, because I watched three children starve to death in Nicaragua after their parents were duped into having more children than they could support by the infallible Pope. I am a misanthrope not because I hate humans individually, but because I hate the culmination of humanity's imperialism on the natural world. I hate seeing the depravity of underprivileged humans in cities the world over. I hate war. I hate genocide and ethnic cleansing. I hate toxic water and barren hillsides. I am a misanthrope because I love humans as much as coyotes, kitty cats and Pileated woodpeckers and see that the only way for all of the aforementioned to live sustainably is to allow for a drastic decline in the population of the species Homo sapiens. I am a misanthrope because I love the Earth and all its inhabitants. I am a misanthrope because I love.

http://earthfirstjournal.org/article.php?id=31

I was in New York in the 30’s. I had a box seat at the depression. I can assure you it was a very educational experience. We shut the country down because of monetary reasons. We had manpower and abundant raw materials. Yet we shut the country down. We’re doing the same kind of thing now but with a different material outlook. We are not in the position we were in 1929–30 with regard to the future. Then the physical system was ready to roll. This time it’s not. We are in a crisis in the evolution of human society. It’s unique to both human and geologic history. It has never happened before and it can’t possibly happen again. You can only use oil once. You can only use metals once. Soon all the oil is going to be burned and all the metals mined and scattered.

M. King Hubbert, 1983

Treat the Earth well. It was not given to you by your parents. It was lent to you by your children.

- Kenyan Proverb

The economy is a wholly owned sudsidiary of the environment, not the other way around.

- Gaylord Nelson

The World Bank points out that “the grain required to fill the tank of a sports utility vehicle with ethanol … could feed one person for a year”(5)

At one point, as Haas and I soared through the skies, I glanced down and saw the sugar fields of Trujillo where I had played as a child, the rugged Pacific coast my brother and I had explored on horseback, the dense rain forest canopy under which my forebears had struggled against all odds to ride the Amazon until it coursed out to sea. All of it at this remove seemed oddly divorced from the sturm and drang of family history, free of the human condition. Something happens when we look on the earth in that way: Mankind becomes a mere anecdote against that staggering canvas; we see ourselves as we really are—bound to the natural world around us. Mites upon a mighty orb.

~ Marie Arana