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
What this quote means
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.
Themes
EnvironmentSustainabilityResourcesConsumptionHealth
In practice
Example use cases
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.'
More from David Miliband
All quotes βI 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.
David MilibandRead
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
David MilibandRead
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
David MilibandRead
Similar quotes
Beetles and butterflies are sometimes restricted to small areas. Each mountain in a range, and even the different zones of a mountain, may have its own peculiar species. But the house-fly seems to be everywhere. I wonder if any island in mid-ocean is flyless.
John MuirRead
We feel the beauty of nature because we are part of nature and because we know that however much in our separate domains we abstract from the unity of Nature, this unity remains. Although we may deal with particulars, we return finally to the whole pattern woven out of these.
Ernest Everett JustRead
In most mills, only the best portions of the best trees are used, while the ruins are left on the ground to feed great fires which kill much of what is left of the less desirable timber, together with the seedlings on which the permanence of the forest depends.
John MuirRead
We have a responsibility to protect the rights of generations, of all species, that cannot speak for themselves today. The global challenge of climate change requires that we ask no less of our leaders, or ourselves.
Wangari MaathaiRead
No one person has to do it all but if each one of us follow our heart and our own inclinations we will find the small things that we can do to create a sustainable future and a healthy environment.
John DenverRead
What does autumn go on paying for with so much yellow money?
Pablo NerudaRead