We all moan and groan about the loss of the quality of life through the destruction of our ecology, and yet every one of us, in our own little comfortable ways, contributes daily to that destruction. It's time now to awaken in each one of us the respect and attention our beloved Mother deserves.
Interpretation
We often complain about environmental issues while unknowingly contributing to them.
This quote highlights the hypocrisy in our attitudes towards environmental degradation. While we lament the declining quality of life related to ecological destruction, we often fail to recognize our individual roles in perpetuating it. Ed Asner calls for a collective awakening to the importance of respecting and caring for our planet, which he personifies as 'Mother', emphasizing the need for personal accountability and activism in the face of ecological crisis.
In practice
In a speech about climate change at a local community meeting, you can use this quote to highlight personal responsibility.
Never stand still. Only stand still enough to learn, and once you stop learning in that stance, move off. Always keep yourself engaged, in theater, in whatever job you can get. If you can't get an acting job, then go backstage. Or take tickets. But be around actors because that is where you will primarily learn.
As they used to say 'What if they gave a war and nobody came?' How worthwhile if they declared a day of peace and everybody came.
If religion and science could be united on the common ground of biological conservation, the problem would be soon solved. If there is any moral precept shared by people of all beliefs, it is that we owe ourselves and future generations a beautiful, rich, and healthful environment.
Sometimes I spend all day trying to count the leaves on a single tree... Of course I have to give up, but by then I'm half crazy with the wonder of it--the abundance of the leaves, the quietness of the branches, the hopelessness of my effort. And I am in that delicious and important place, roaring with laughter, full of earth-praise.
Our fantastic civilization has fallen out of touch with many aspects of nature, and with none more completely than with night.
We are already perilously close to killing off the top of the oceanic food chain - with catastrophic consequences that we can't begin to imagine. Let us not, in the heat of anger, reduce the already devastated population of great white sharks by one more member.
Why this cult of wilderness?... because we like the taste of freedom; because we like the smell of danger.
Oh, how beautiful is the summer night, which is not night, but a sunless, yet unclouded, day, descending upon earth with dews and shadows and refreshing coolness! How beautiful the long mild twilight, which, like a silver clasp, unites today with yesterday!
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