Destroying a tropical rainforest for profit is like burning all the paintings of the Louvre to cook dinner.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the value of natural ecosystems, comparing their destruction for profit to the loss of priceless art.
E. O. Wilson's quote emphasizes the profound irresponsibility of destroying a tropical rainforest for commercial gain. It draws a vivid analogy between the irreplaceable beauty and significance of rainforests and the great works of art housed in the Louvre, suggesting that both are treasures that should be preserved rather than exploited for short-term benefits.
In practice
In a speech about environmental conservation, I could use this quote to emphasize the importance of protecting our natural resources.
Consider the nematode roundworm, the most abundant of all animals. Four out of five animals on Earth are nematode worms β if all solid materials except nematode worms were to be eliminated, you could still see the ghostly outline of most of it in nematode worms.
Nature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive and even spiritual satisfaction.
The worst thing that will probably happen-in fact is already well underway-is not energy depletion, economic collapse, conventional war, or the expansion of totalitarian governments. As terrible as these catastrophes would be for us, they can be repaired in a few generations. The one process now going on that will take millions of years to correct is loss of genetic and species diversity by the destruction of natural habitats. This is the folly our descendants are least likely to forgive us.
Humanity today is like a waking dreamer, caught between the fantasies of sleep and the chaos of the real world. The mind seeks but cannot find the precise place and hour. We have created a Star Wars civilization, with Stone Age emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology. We thrash about. We are terribly confused by the mere fact of our existence, and a danger to ourselves and to the rest of life.
Destroying rainforest for economic gain is like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal.
An Armageddon is approaching at the beginning of the third millennium. But it is not the cosmic war and fiery collapse of mankind foretold in sacred scripture. It is the wreckage of the planet by an exuberantly plentiful and ingenious humanity.
When the ancestors of the cheetah first began pursuing the ancestors of the gazelle, neither of them could run as fast as they can today.
It is the sweetest spring within the memory of man. So green, so mild, so beautiful! Ah, what a contrast between nature without and my own soul so torn with doubt and terror!
From all these trees, in the salads, the soup, everywhere, cherry blossoms fall.
A Sustainable Agriculture does not deplete soils or people.
It [the Earth] was breathtakingly beautiful, like something out of a fairy tale. There is no way to describe the joy of seeing the Earth. It is blue, and more beautiful than any other planet.
The grass as bristly and stout as chives and me wondering when the ground will break and me wondering how anything fragile survives
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