What we are finding out now is that there are not only limits to growth but also to technology and that we cannot allow technology to go on without public consent.
David R. BrowerRead
Is the minor convenience of allowing the present generation the luxury of doubling its energy consumption every 10 years worth the major hazard of exposing the next 20,000 generations to this lethal waste?
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote questions whether short-term energy convenience is worth the long-term environmental consequences.
David R. Brower's quote addresses the critical issue of sustainability and the long-term effects of increased energy consumption on future generations. It emphasizes the importance of considering the environmental hazards that current generations may impose on their descendants, particularly regarding the management of waste that could remain hazardous for thousands of years. By framing this dilemma, Brower invites reflection on the trade-offs between present-day energy use and the health of the planet and its future inhabitants.
Themes
EnergySustainabilityEnvironmentWasteFuture Generations
In practice
Example use cases
In a seminar about environmental policy, one might quote Brower to highlight the importance of sustainable energy practices.
More from David R. Brower
All quotes →Perhaps most ridiculous of all is the suggestion that we 'keep' our radioactive garbage for the use of our descendants. This 'solution', I think, requires an immediate poll of the next 20,000 generations.
David R. BrowerRead
Without wilderness, the world's a cage.
David R. BrowerRead
To me, a wilderness is where the flow of wildness is essentially uninterrupted by technology; without wilderness the world is a cage.
David R. BrowerRead
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The lakes are something which you are unprepared for; they lie up so high, exposed to the light, and the forest is diminished to a fine fringe on their edges, with here and there a blue mountain, like amethyst jewels set around some jewel of the first water, - so anterior, so superior, to all the changes that are to take place on their shores, even now civil and refined, and fair as they can ever be.
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Thus we see that the lot of the duck hunter is not a happy one. He is the child of frustration, the collector of mishap, the victim of misfortune. He suffers from cold and wet and lack of sleep. He is punished more often than rewarded. Yet he continues. Why? Because one great day-- and great days do come, days when the ducks are willing and the gun swings true-- repays him many fold for all the others.
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There are unknown forces in nature; when we give ourselves wholly to her, without reserve, she lends them to us; she shows us these forms, which our watching eyes do not see, which our intelligence does not understand or suspect.
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