Dangerous climate change... It's important not to be alarmist but it is very important to be alarmed
David MilibandRead
Consuming three planets' worth of resources when in fact we have one is the environmental equivalent of childhood obesity - eating until you make yourself sick.
Interpretation
The quote compares overconsumption of resources to unhealthy eating, emphasizing the dangers of environmental neglect.
David Miliband uses the analogy of childhood obesity to highlight the unsustainable consumption of the Earth's resources. Just as overeating can lead to detrimental health consequences, consuming resources beyond our planet's means threatens environmental sustainability and the well-being of future generations.
In practice
During a public speech on environmental policy, you might say, 'As David Miliband puts it, consuming three planets' worth of resources is like eating until you make yourself sick β we must change our habits.'
Dangerous climate change... It's important not to be alarmist but it is very important to be alarmed
I can't admit to myself that the creation of a Palestinian state won't happen. What I know is that with each passing year it gets more and more difficult to happen, not least because there is more and more bloodshed, generation upon generation.
We are living as if we had three planets' worth of resources to live with rather than just one. We need to cut by about two-thirds our ecological footprint. For that we need one planet farming as well as one planet living - one planet farming which minimises the impact on the environment of food production and consumption, and which maximises its contribution to renewal of the natural environment
In the future, every industry should be an environmental industry. In a world where energy and carbon emissions are constrained, every business must take resource productivity seriously
And suns grow meek, and the meek suns grow brief, and the year smiles as it draws near its death.
There is a way of beholding nature which is a form of prayer, a way of minding something with such clarity and aliveness that the rest of the world recedes. It . . . gives the brain a small vacation.
Devising a vocabulary for gardening is like devising a vocabulary for sex. There are the correct Latin names, but most people invent euphemisms. Those who refer to plants by Latin name are considered more expert, if a little pedantic.
I see a world in the future in which we understand that all life is related to us and we treat that life with great humility and respect.
The lesson I have thoroughly learnt, and wish to pass on to others, is to know the enduring happiness that the love of a garden gives.
Let us leave a splendid legacy for our children...let us turn to them and say, this you inherit: guard it well, for it is far more precious than money...and once destroyed, nature's beauty cannot be repurchased at any price.
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