Earthshakers Heroes Quotes

Rachel Carson
• writer, scientist and ecologist from rural
honouring our earthshakers

Pennsylvania
• seen by many as the patron saint
of the green movement
• author of Silent Spring, 1962 – a revelatory
account of the damage done by
unrestrained use of pesticides

Only within the moment of time
❝ represented by the present century
has one species – human –
acquired significant power
to alter the nature of the world.

❞

Aldo Leopold
• widely-acknowledged as the founder

of wildlife management and one of
the greatest US ecologists
• his writing on conservation and the
value of the wild to civilization are
highly regarded
• his most famous book: A Sand County
Almanac inspired many to follow in
his footsteps

A thing is right
❝ when it tends to preserve the integrity,
stability and beauty
of the biotic community.
It is wrong when it tends otherwise.

❞

Van Rensselaer Potter
• cancer researcher

• founder of modern bioethics
• bridge-builder between medical science
and ecology

What we must now face up to is
❝ the fact that human ethics cannot
be separated from a realistic
understanding of ecology....
The survival of the total ecosystem
is the test of our value system.
❞

Thomas Berry
• priest

• Leading cultural historian, social critic and
environmentalist
• For 40 years Fr. Berry has been developing
a comprehensive vision of a viable future
for the Earth Community.

❝ Each of us has a creative power and vision
far beyond any rational thought or
cultural creation of which we are capable.
Nor should we think of these as isolated
from our own being or from the earth
community. We have no existence except
within the earth and within the universe.
❞

Brian Swimme
• Mathematical cosmologist

• Views humanity as having evolved out of,
and being an integral part of the universe
as a whole
• His work focuses on the evolutionary
dynamics of the universe and the
relationship between scientific cosmology
and traditional religious visions

❝
We must “reinvent ourselves, at the species
level, in a way that enables us to live with
mutually-enhancing relationships.
Mutually-enhancing relationships -
not just with humans - but with all beings
so that our activities actually enhance
the world. At the present time,
our interactions degrade everything.
❞

Matthew Fox
• Ordained to the Roman Catholic priesthood

in 1967 but later forbidden to teach theology
and dismissed from the Dominican Order for
his “controversial” teachings. Later received
into the Episcopal Church
• Important figure in Creation Spirituality
• Notable books: Original Blessing (1983) and
The Coming of the Cosmic Christ (1996)
• Founder of the University of Creation
Spirituality in Oakland CA (1996)

The whole universe is a blessing.
❝ All creation is a blessing. The first
page of Genesis says it’s very good
and we humans are part of that.
But we have to act like it.
We have to take responsibility.
❞

Wendell Berry
• Poet, essayist, conservationist

• Cultural and economic critic and farmer
• Baptist Christian critical of the church
organization for failing to challenge
cultural complacency and environmental
degradation

It may be that when we no longer know
❝ what to do, we have come to our real work,
and that when we no longer know which
way to go, we have begun our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is
not employed. The impeded stream
is the one that sings.
❞

Sheila Watt-Cloutier
• Canadian Inuit activist

• Political representative for Inuit at regional,
national and international levels
• International Chair for the Inuit Circumpolar
Conference
• Works on a wide range of social and
environmental issues, most recently, persistent
organic pollution and global climate change
• Citation for lifetime achievement in the 1996
Canadian Environmental Awards

Our emotional, spiritual and cultural
❝ wellbeing and health depends on
protecting the land. We cannot find
our way with band-aid solutions. For
Inuit, the environment is everything.

❞

Wangari Maathai
• Africa’s “Tree Woman” and scientist

founded the green belt movement in
Kenya in 1977
• awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004
• facilitated the planting of over 10,000,000
trees in Kenya (planted by poor women)
• in 1998, helped defeat plans by Kenya’s
President to destroy forests for the building
of luxury housing

It’s the little things citizens do.
❝ That’s what will make the difference.
My little thing is planting trees!

❞

Vandana Shiva
• physicist and ecologist

• founding director of the Research
Foundation for Science, Technology and
Ecology in India
• a leader in the international forum on
globalization
• has had a vast impact on a range of issues
including forest conservation, and GM crops

Societies and economies can
❝ be destroyed by bombs. Societies
can also be destroyed by locking
in every aspect of life like provision
of food and water through
an economic war.
❞

Gro Harlem Brundtland
• former Norweigan Prime Minister during

the 1980s
• during that time presented radical views
on sustainable development that are now
common political language
• her 1987 report, Our Common Future, laid
the groundwork for the 1992 Rio Earth
Summit

❝
It is simple, really. Human health and the
health of the ecosystem are inseparable. ...
We are working towards a shared vision of
the future ... a vision that has poor people at
its centre. And a vision which focuses action
on the causes and consequences of the health
conditions that create and perpetuate poverty.
❞

Chico Mendes
• Brazilian rubber tapper

• unionist and environmental activist
• fought to stop logging in the Amazon
rainforest for cattle ranching
• murdered by ranchers opposed to his
activism

At first I thought I was fighting
❝ to save rubber trees.
Then I thought I was fighting
to save the Amazon.
Now I realize I am fighting
to save humanity.
❞

Dorothy Stang
• Sister of Notre Dame de Namur

• Worked for 40 years in Brazil to help the poor
build independent futures for their families
• Shot to death on February 12, 2005 in Brazil’s
rainforest for her defence of land reform

❝
I don’t want to flee, nor do I want to abandon
the battle of these farmers who live without
any protection in the forest. They have the
sacrosanct right to aspire to a better life on
land where they can live and work with
dignity while preserving the environment.
❞

David Suzuki
• Canadian science broadcaster

• Environmental activist
• His CBC series “The Nature of Things“
syndicated in 40 nations
• Founder of the David Suzuki Foundation
(1990) to work to find ways for society
to live in balance with the natural world
that sustains us.

We are in a giant car
❝ heading towards a brick wall,
and everyone is arguing
over where they’re going to sit.

❞

The Prince of Wales
• Green Royal

• has brought the issues of climate change,
the production of organic foods, and
architecture to the public attention
• is an organic farmer
• talks to his plants!

We should be treating, I think, the
❝ whole issue of climate change and
global warming with a far greater
degree of priority than I think is
happening now.

❞

David Attenborough
• TV naturalist

• the voice of wildlife, conservation, and all
things that wriggle, fly, and roam across
planet earth
• over 50 years, his programs have brought
the natural world into the homes of millions
and his contribution to public awareness of
natural science gained him a Fellowship of
the Royal Society

❝ The whole of science, and, one is tempted to
think, the whole of the life of any thinking
person, is trying to come to terms with the
relationship between yourself and the
natural world. Why are you here, and how
do you fit in, and what’s it all about?
❞

Ernst “Fritz” Schumacher
• Green economist

• in 1973, he wrote the book, Small is
Beautiful, challenging whether the
objectives of western economics were
desirable
• opposed nuclear power and the use of
chemicals in agriculture
• an early critic of economic growth as a
measure of national progress

Any intelligent fool can
❝ make things bigger, more complex,
and more violent. It takes a touch
of genius... and a lot of courage...
to move in the opposite direction.

❞

Al Gore
• former Vice President of the US

• long-lasting concern for environmental
matters and climate change in particular
• his film, An Inconvenient Truth, helped
drive the ecological issues onto the
mainstream agenda
• recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007

We seem increasingly eager to lose
❝ ourselves within the forms of culture,
society, technology, the media,
and the rituals of production and
consumption, but the price we pay
is the loss of our spiritual lives.
❞

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
• Environmental lawyer

• Founder of Waterkeeper Alliance
• Senior attorney for the Natural Resources
Council, a non-profit organization based in
New York, which works to expand
environmental laws and to restrict land use.
• Committed Roman Catholic whose faith
motivates his environmentalism

❝
Each time a person stands up for an idea, or
acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out
against injustice, (s)he sends forth a tiny
ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a
million different centres of energy and
daring, those ripples build a current that can
sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression
and resistance
❞

Margaret Wheatley
• writer and teacher, management professor

and consultant
• uses an ecological model to restore hope
and sanity to organizations
• recently published a third edition of
Leadership and the New Science

❝
Fortunately, life and its living systems offer us
great teachings on how to work with a world of
continuous change and boundless creativity.
And foremost among life’s teachings is the
recognition that humans possess capabilities
to deal with complexity and interconnection.
Human creativity and commitment
are our greatest resources.
❞

Mikhail Gorbachev
• The last head of state of the USSR, serving from 1985-1991
His reforms (perestroika and glasnost) contributed to the
end of the cold war
• Awarded Nobel Peace Prize in 1990
• During his leadership, saw unbridled industrialization, land
pollution, the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, and the collapse
of Soviet agriculture due to the use of chemicals.
Subsequently, passionate environmentalist, founder of
Green Cross International, a worldwide environmental
protection program.

❝
We need dramatic change in politics and
in our attitudes. If the world had more
(environmentally sensitive) leaders,
we would be better equipped to handle the
challenges of global warming, the decline
in ocean species, biological diversity, and
other global ecological issues of our time.
❞

Elizabeth May
• Environmentalist

• Activist
• Writer
• Lawyer
• Leader of the Green Party of Canada

We (the Green Party of Canada)
❝ will move the world ahead. We will
not wait for President George W. Bush.
We will save the climate. Together
we will stop fossil fuels
from destroying our future.
❞

Robert Bateman
• Canadian Artist

• Naturalist
• His show at the Smithsonian Institute in
Washington D.C. (1987) attracted the largest
ever crowd to view the paintings of a living
artist

❝ I can’t conceive of anything being more
varied and rich and handsome than the
planet Earth. And its crowning beauty
is the natural world. I want to soak it up,
to understand it as well as I can and to
absorb it and then I’d like to put it together
and express it in my painting. This is
the way I want to dedicate my life.
❞

Oral Ataniyazova
• Obstetrician, Medical scientist from Uzbekistan

• Internationally acclaimed for her environmental
work
• Director of “Perzent” (progeny) - a centre for
reproductive health and the environment (The
Centre has developed a women’s clinic, a 50-acre
organic farm and a publishing house in
Uzbekistan)
• Awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize in
2000

You don’t need guns
❝ to destroy a people.
You can just turn off their water.

❞

Arne Næss
• Foremost Norwegian philosopher of the

20th century
• Founder of “Deep Ecology”
• Environmental activist
• Noted mountaineer

❝
Every living being is connected intimately,
and from this intimacy follows the capacity of
identification and as its natural consequence,
practice of non-violence... Now is the time to
share with all life on our maltreated earth
through the deepening identification with all
life, foremost the greater units, the ecosystems
and Gaia, the fabulous old planet of ours.
❞

Bob Hunter
• Canadian Co-founder of Greenpeace

• Journalist
• Politician
• One of his notable campaigns led to the ban
on commercial whaling
• Named by “Time” as one of the ten
“eco-heroes” of the 20th century

❝
Hush The moon is 3 days dark
Nothing more will fly tonight
Good Tequila Bad salt!

In wickedness of pride is lost the light
to understand how little grace is earned
and how much given
❞

Jane Jacobs
• Urbanist, Writer, Activist

• Best known for her early book: The Death
and Life of Great American Cities (1961)
• Presented powerful critique of urban
renewal policies
• In 1970 founded “Energy Probe Research”
– an environmental organization that
demonstrated the environmental
advantages inherent in city life

I think ideologies,
❝ no matter what kind,
are one of the greatest afflictions
because they blind us to seeing
what is going on or
what is being done.
❞

Maude Barlow
• Canadian author and environmental activist

• Recipient of the Canadian Environmental
Awards Citation for Lifetime Achievement
• Chairperson of the Council of Canadians
• Co-founder of the Blue Planet Project –
working internationally to protect the right
to water

❝
We know that 5 million people, most of them
children, die every year from illnesses caused
by poor drinking water. If we do not change
our ways, by the year 2025, as much as
2/3 of the world will be living in either
water-scarcity or total water deprivation.
❞

Rosalie Bertell
• Member of the Grey Nuns of the Sacred Heart

• Epidemiologist
• Director of Research of the International
Institute for Concern for Public Health
• Writer: No Immediate Dangers

❝
The Concept of species annihilation means
a relatively swift, deliberately induced end to
history, culture, science, biological reproduction,
and memory. It is the ultimate human rejection
of the gift of life, an act which requires a new
word to describe it as “omnicide”.
❞

Wayne Sawchuk
• Photographer, Environmentalist, Part-time guide and
life-long trapper and hunter
• Past president of the Chetwynd Environmental Society
• Successfully spearheaded 14-year campaign to save the
largest tract of pristine wilderness in northern BC.
• In 1991, convened a series of meetings for trappers, guides,
environmentalists, and First Nations leaders to convince
governments that sustainable development and
wilderness protection were politically advantageous

It comes down to this:
❝ can we seize this opportunity,
in this one place, to protect
and sustain natural values
of global significance,
now and for ever?
❞

Jane Goodhall
• primatologist

• ethnologist
• English UN Messenger of Peace
• Carried out 45-year study of chimpanzees
and their habitat
• Global leader in conservation

The greatest danger
❝ to our future is
apathy.

❞

Bill Freedman
• Biology professor, Dalhousie University

• Awarded the gold-level Canadian
Environmental Award for Conservation
• Volunteers with the Nature Conservancy of
Canada

❝ I believe in the intrinsic value of the
natural world. For me, that’s a good
enough reason to engage in good, effective
conservation of natural habitats. If more
Canadians felt that good will toward
nature, they would be more likely to
support initiatives to conserve it.
❞

Pope John Paul II
• Pope (1978–2005)

• Actor
• Priest, theologian
• Leading voice for the protection
of the environment
• Initiated ecumenical environmental
statements
• Lover of nature and mountaineer

❝
Without doubt, the most important value at
stake when we look at the earth is the principle
that brings the earth back to her creator. The
earth belongs to God! If, with regard to natural
resources, especially under the pressure of
industrialization, an irresponsible culture of
“dominion” has been reinforced with
devastating ecological consequences, this
certainly does not correspond to God’s plan.
❞

Patriarch Bartholomew
• Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople

• theologian
• ardent environmentalist

❝
Beloved brothers and sisters, let us make every effort
possible, each from where God has placed us, to reign in
our wreckless overconsumption so that the harmonious
working of this planet, our common home, may be
restored, and that we and our children may enjoy peace
in all the good things which God in love for us has
created and offers to all men and women.
❞

Miriam Therese MacGillis
• Dominican sister

• Co-founder and Director of Genesis Farm,
a 140 acre haven for biodynamic agriculture
• Leader in the communication of the
“Universe Story” vision
• 2005 recipient of the Thomas Berry Award

It is no accident that we’ve been born
❝ into these times, that we find our lives
unfolding now with our particular
histories and gifts, our brokenness,
our experience, and our wisdom.
It is not an accident.
❞

Martin Royackers
• Canadian Jesuit priest

• Following his ordination he enjoyed six years
working at the farm in Guelph
• Brutally murdered in June 2001 for his
tireless efforts to find land for homeless
farmers in Jamaica, where he was a parish
priest

❝
Martin was fiercely intelligent. He loved the passion of “Insight:,
he loved knowledge, he loved literature ...Yet he gave up the joy of
that world of knowledge to live in an overly hot cinder-block shack
in a poor section of a little known place between Kingston and
Montego Bay among a people whose wisdom was not from books
but from the soil and from generations of suffering. Like the
Christ of Philippians 2: 1-11, Martin entered a poor place of this
world, filled with turmoil and despair. (Monty Williams, S.J.
Homily at the memorial Mass for Fr. Martin: Guleph, Ontario)
❞

Earthshakers Heroes Quotes

Empfohlen

Empfohlen

Weitere ähnliche Inhalte

Andere mochten auch

Andere mochten auch (7)

Ähnlich wie Earthshakers Heroes Quotes

Ähnlich wie Earthshakers Heroes Quotes (20)

Kürzlich hochgeladen

Kürzlich hochgeladen (20)

Earthshakers Heroes Quotes