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.
Pain may be said to follow pleasure as its shadow; but the misfortune is that in this particular case, the substance belongs to the shadow, the emptiness to its cause.
I have suffered the atrocity of sunsets.
You can live in the world of myth and be taken seriously.
I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.
Man never knows what he wants; he aspires to penetrate mysteries and as soon as he has, wants to re-establish them. Ignorance irritates him and knowledge cloys.
Poverty must be reduced not only for reasons of moral and justice, but also of security.
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