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.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the difficult reality of overpopulation and the drastic measures needed to address it.
Jacques Yves Cousteau's quote highlights the grim necessity of stabilizing world population, suggesting that it has reached unsustainable levels. He presents the unsettling proposal of reducing the population significantly, underscoring the complexity and severity of global challenges related to overpopulation, while acknowledging the moral weight of such a discussion, reflecting on the broader existential concerns for humanity and the planet.
In practice
This quote could be used in a discussion about global sustainability challenges.
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.
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.
The sea is not a bargain basement.
The mere lapse of years is not life. To eat, to drink, and sleep; to be exposed to darkness and the light; to pace around in the mill of habit, and turn thought into an instrument of trade-this is not life. Knowledge, truth, love, beauty, goodness, faith, alone can give vitality to the mechanism of existence.
Each neighborhood of the city appeared to be made of a different substance, each seemed to have a different air pressure, a different psychic weight: the bright lights and shuttered shops, the housing projects and luxury hotels, the fire escapes and city parks.
Listen to me, my Friend! My beloved Lord is within.
Anxiety and spiritual searching have been consistent themes with me, and that figures into my worldview. But I tend to make my songs sound like relationship songs.
There lies at the back of every creed something terrible and hard for which the worshipper may one day be required to suffer.
A sick body with a good heart is more beneficial to future lives than a fit, healthy body that is used for self-cherishing.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.