We cannot cheat on DNA. We cannot get round photosynthesis. We cannot say I am not going to give a damn about phytoplankton. All these tiny mechanisms provide the preconditions of our planetary life. To say we do not care is to say in the most literal sense that "we choose death."
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of fundamental natural processes for life on Earth and the consequences of ignoring them.
Barbara Ward's quote reflects the vital interconnections between various natural processes and life on our planet. By highlighting essential elements like DNA, photosynthesis, and phytoplankton, she insists that neglecting or dismissing these processes equates to a disregard for life itself. It serves as a warning that understanding and respecting the basic mechanisms that sustain life is crucial, as to turn a blind eye to them is essentially choosing death for ourselves and our environment.
In practice
In a speech on environmental conservation, one might quote this to emphasize the importance of respecting natural processes.
On the one hand, we are faced with the stewardship of this beautiful, subtle, incredibly delicate, fragile planet. On the other, we confront the destiny of our fellow man, our brothers. How can we say that we are followers of Christ if this dual responsibility does not seem to us the essence and heart of our religion?
There is a great difference between feeding parties to wild beasts and stirring up their finer feelings in an inquisition. One is the system of degraded barbarians, the other of enlightened civilized people.
You fall out of your mother's womb, you crawl across open country under fire, and drop into your grave.
Reality is a question of perspective; the further you get from the past, the more concrete and plausible it seems - but as you approach the present, it inevitably seems more and more incredible.
But she was waiting patiently. She no longer believed in talk. It never rescued anything. At seventy she had come to believe in time alone. ~pg 254
A city is where you can sign a petition, boo the chief justice, fish off a pier, gaze at a hippopotamus, buy a flower at the corner, or get a good hamburger or a bad girl at 4 A.M. A city is where sirens make white streaks of sound in the sky and foghorns speak in dark grays. San Francisco is such a city.
Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon.
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