We're in a giant car heading towards a brick wall and everyone's arguing over where they're going to sit.
David SuzukiRead
If we pollute the air, water and soil that keep us alive and well, and destroy the biodiversity that allows natural systems to function, no amount of money will save us.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Polluting the environment threatens our survival, and no wealth can reverse the damage done to nature.
David Suzuki emphasizes the critical importance of maintaining a healthy environment for human survival. He warns that pollution of essential resources like air, water, and soil, along with the loss of biodiversity, could lead to irreversible consequences, making it clear that economic wealth cannot substitute for a healthy natural world essential for life.
Themes
PollutionEnvironmentBiodiversitySurvivalNature
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about climate change, this quote can be used to emphasize the urgency of environmental protection.
More from David Suzuki
All quotes →As parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts we need to start getting out into nature with the young people in our lives. Families play a key role in getting kids outside.
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One of the joys of being a grandparent is getting to see the world again through the eyes of a child.
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The medical literature tells us that the most effective ways to reduce the risk of heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, Alzheimer's, and many more problems are through healthy diet and exercise. Our bodies have evolved to move, yet we now use the energy in oil instead of muscles to do our work.
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Do you know how much land is under ice, rock and snow? Do you know why 90 percent of us live within 100 kilometres of the U.S. border? We have this idea we're a vast country. But the reality is that a lot of it, a huge amount, is uninhabitable.
David SuzukiRead
We no longer see the world as a single entity. We've moved to cities and we think the economy is what gives us our life, that if the economy is strong we can afford garbage collection and sewage disposal and fresh food and water and electricity. We go through life thinking that money is the key to having whatever we want, without regard to what it does to the rest of the world.
David SuzukiRead
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