Do we want to be remembered as the generation that saved the banks and let the biosphere collapse?
Interpretation
The quote questions the ethical priorities of society regarding financial stability versus environmental preservation.
In this thought-provoking statement, George Monbiot challenges the values of a generation that prioritizes the rescue of financial institutions over the urgent need to protect the natural environment. It emphasizes the importance of considering the long-term consequences of our actions on the planet, suggesting that we must balance economic interests with ecological responsibility to ensure a sustainable future.
In practice
During a speech at an environmental conference, this quote can be used to emphasize the need for ecological awareness.
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.
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.
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?
Yes, it is Europe, from the Atlantic to the Urals, it is Europe, it is the whole of Europe, that will decide the fate of the world.
There is no nature at an instant.
That which corrodes the souls of the persecuted is the monstrous inner agreement with the prevailing prejudice against them.
"I beseech ye in the bowels of Christ, think that ye may be mistaken." I should like to have that written over the portals of every church, every school, and every courthouse, and, may I say, of every legislative body in the United States. I should like to have every court begin, "I beseech ye in the bowels of Christ, think that we may be mistaken."
The stool of repentance and the foot of the cross are the favorite positions of instructed Christians.
Only seven years ago we made a treaty by which we were assured that the buffalo country should be left to us forever. Now they threaten to take that from us also.
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