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?
The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem.
One open way of speaking introduces another open way of speaking, and draws out discoveries, like wine and love.
I greet you from Smyrna together with the Churches of God present here with me. They comfort me in every way, both in body and soul. My chains, which I carry about on me for Jesus Christ, begging that I may happily make my way to God, exhort you: persevere in your concord and in you community prayers.
America's answer to the intolerant man is diversity - the very diversity which our heritage of religious freedom has inspired.
Though leaves are many, the root is one; Through all the lying days of my youth I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun Now I may wither into the truth.
Taxing is an easy business. Any projector can contrive new impositions; any bungler can add to the old; but is it altogether wise to have no other bounds to your impositions than the patience of those who are to bear them?
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