I became an environmentalist because I love the living world, but I spend much of my life thinking about electricity, industrial processes and civil engineering.
Interpretation
The quote indicates that a passion for the environment can coexist with a focus on human-made systems and technology.
In this quote, George Monbiot reflects on the duality of his interests as an environmentalist who appreciates the beauty of the natural world, while also recognizing the importance and impact of technology and industrial processes. This balance highlights the necessity of integrating environmental consciousness with engineering and industrial advancements to create a sustainable future.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech at an environmental conference to emphasize the need for engineering solutions to ecological problems.
The notions that nature exists to serve us; that its value consists of the instrumental benefits we can extract; that this value can be measured in cash terms; and that what can't be measured does not matter, have proved lethal to the rest of life on Earth.
I believe that anyone who wants to stand in a national election should receive a course of psychotherapy. Completing the course should be a qualification for office. This wouldn't change the behaviour of psychopaths, but it might prevent some people who exercise power from imposing their own deep wounds on others.
Places that have become agricultural deserts, trashed by giant corporations, could be reforested, drawing carbon dioxide from the air on a vast scale. The ecosystems of land and sea could recover, not just in pockets but across great tracts of the planet.
Never underestimate the power of intrinsic values. They inspire every struggle for a better world.
Why is it so easy to save the banks - but so hard to save the biosphere?
It is a campaign not for abundance but for austerity. It is a campaign not for more freedom but for less. Strangest of all, it is a campaign not just against other people, but against ourselves.
Eventually, my eyes were opened, and I really understood nature. I learned to love at the same time.
Every day I see or hear something that more or less kills me with delight, that leaves me like a needle in the haystack of light.
Summer afternoon, summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.
There must be something strangely sacred about salt. It is in our tears and in the sea.
The tree that is beside the running water is fresher and gives more fruit.
To me the question of the environment is more ominous than that of peace and war...I'm more worried about global warming than I am of any major military conflict.
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