If you just hold your cell phone for 30 seconds and think backwards through its production, you have the entire techno-industrial culture wrapped up there. You can't have that device without everything that goes with it.
Douglas TompkinsRead
Resource efficiency is the wrong metric. We should use nature as the measure, using nature's wisdom as a template for our economic systems.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the importance of aligning economic systems with natural principles instead of merely focusing on resource efficiency.
Douglas Tompkins advocates for a fundamental shift in how we evaluate economic systems, suggesting that we should prioritize the wisdom found in nature rather than merely measuring efficiency in resource use. By using nature as a template, our systems can become more sustainable and harmonious with the environment, leading to a more responsible and thoughtful approach to economics.
Themes
NatureWisdomEconomicsSustainabilityEfficiency
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech on environmental policy, one might say, 'As Douglas Tompkins stated, resource efficiency is the wrong metric; we should look to nature for guidance.'
More from Douglas Tompkins
All quotes βI just realized at least what I was doing was making a lot of stuff that nobody needed and pushing a consumerist society. So I went to do something else.
Douglas TompkinsRead
The byproduct of the main thrust to protect the biodiversity of a given place is that you get especially young people out to the parks, because it will be future generations that will have to value these landscapes and these ecosystems and make sure that nobody is changing the law.
Douglas TompkinsRead
Similar quotes
The climate is nearing tipping points. Changes are beginning to appear and there is a potential for explosive changes, effects that would be irreversible, if we do not rapidly slow fossil-fuel emissions over the next few decades.
James HansenRead
Joy in looking and comprehending is nature's most beautiful gift.
Albert EinsteinRead
What does autumn go on paying for with so much yellow money?
Pablo NerudaRead
All our environmental problems become easier to solve with fewer people and harder - and ultimately impossible to solve - with ever more people.
David AttenboroughRead
Only God can shape a flower, but any foolish child can pull it to pieces.
Og MandinoRead
Nature does nothing in vain when less will serve; for Nature is pleased with simplicity and affects not the pomp of superfluous causes.
Isaac NewtonRead