Farming as we do it is hunting, and in the sea we act like barbarians.
Interpretation
The quote compares modern farming and fishing practices to primal hunting and barbarism, suggesting that they are destructive and unsustainable.
Jacques Yves Cousteau highlights the negative impact of modern agricultural and fishing techniques on the environment, equating them to the primitive ways of hunting and barbarity. This quote reflects a critical view on how humanity has lost its respect for nature, emphasizing the urgent need for sustainable practices that honor the ecosystems rather than degrade them.
In practice
During a speech on climate change, one might use this quote to highlight the urgent need for sustainable agricultural practices.
We must alert and organise the world's people to pressure world leaders to take specific steps to solve the two root causes of our environmental crises - exploding population growth and wasteful consumption of irreplaceable resources. Overconsumption and overpopulation underlie every environmental problem we face today.
No aquarium, no tank in a marine land, however spacious it may be, can begin to duplicate the conditions of the sea. And no dolphin who inhabits one of those aquariums or one of those marine lands can be considered normal.
It's terrible to have to say this. World population must be stabilized and to do that we must eliminate 350,000 people per day. This is so horrible to contemplate that we shouldn't even say it. But the general situation in which we are involved is lamentable.
The impossible missions are the only ones which succeed.
The sea, the great unifier, is man's only hope. Now, as never before, the old phrase has a literal meaning: we are all in the same boat.
The best way to observe a fish is to become a fish.
Active conservation [of gorillas] involves simply going out into the forest, on foot, day after day after day, attempting to capture poachers, killing-regretfully-poacher dogs, which spread rabies within the park, and cutting down traps.
January gray is here, like a sexton by her grave; February bears the bier, march with grief doth howl and rave, and April weeps -- but, O ye hours! Follow with May's fairest flowers.
Some national parks have long waiting lists for camping reservations. When you have to wait a year to sleep next to a tree, something is wrong.
As custodians of the planet it is our responsibility to deal with all species with kindness, love, and compassion. That these animals suffer through human cruelty is beyond understanding. Please help to stop this madness.
Wilderness is a resource which can shrink but not grow... the creation of new wilderness in the full sense of the word is impossible.
When you go to the mountains, you see them and you admire them. In a sense, they give you a challenge, and you try to express that challenge by climbing them.
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