Eventually we'll realize that if we destroy the ecosystem, we destroy ourselves.
Nature is flexible and resilient. Nature likes redundancy and dispersion. It is approximate and deals in gradients. All boundaries are permeable. Nature nests small systems like molecules within larger systems like cells, which in turn are nested in systems called organs, organisms, ecosystems. We grew from ancient one-celled ancestors. Nature likes mergers: we contain multitudes of other life forms within us. We stand at the crest of four billion years, bacteria molded into wondrous form, burning with a slow fire and about to take the next step.
A large animal needs a large area. If you protect that area, you're also protecting thousands of other plants and animals. You're saving all these species that future generations will want - you're saving the world for your children and your children's children. . . . The destruction of species is final. If you lose a species, you lose the genes, you lose all the potential drugs and potential foods that could be useful to the next generations. The ecosystems will not function as they have.
We don't know nearly enough about the complexities of Nature. If we think we can eliminate natural ecosystems and substitute prosthetic devices, i. e. clean air or water with fusion energy - we are kidding ourselves.
We don't think a sustainable society need be stagnant, boring, uniform, or rigid. It need not be, and probably could not be, centrally controlled or authoritarian. It could be a world that has the time, the resources, and the will to correct its mistakes, to innovate, to preserve the fertility of its planetary ecosystems. It could focus on mindfully increasing quality of life rather than on mindlessly expanding material consumption and the physical capital stock.
I believe citizens are beginning to realize that their birthright, a healthy ecosystem, has been stolen, and they want it back.
The destruction of the natural beauty, the ecosystems, and the majesty of mountains affect us in ways we're not even aware of. Every time a mountain is beheaded, we chop off a little part of our souls.
A diverse ecosystem will also be resilient, because it contains many species with overlapping ecological functions that can partially replace one another. When a particular species is destroyed by a severe disturbance so that a link in the network is broken, a diverse community will be able to survive and reorganize itself. . . In other words, the more complex the network is, the more complex its pattern of interconnections, the more resilient it will be.
There is a deep interconnectedness of all life on earth, from the tiniest organisms, to the largest ecosystems, and absolutely between each person.
I'd like to help repair the earth's ecosystems, and to fully live until I'm fully dead.
We should not be living in human communities that enclose tiny preserved ecosystems within them. Human communities should be maintained in small population enclaves within linked wilderness ecosystems. No human community should be larger than 20,000 people and separated from other communities by wilderness areas. Communication systems can link the communities.
Basically, I think 21st century conservation is moving toward preserving ecosystems by dealing with the needs of people.
digital hub (center of our universe) is moving from PC to cloud - PC now just another client alongside iPhone, iPad, iPod touch,. . . - Apple is in danger of hanging on to old paradigm too long (innovator's dilemma) - Google and Microsoft are further along on the technology, but haven't quite figured it out yet - tie all of our products together, so we further lock customers into our ecosystem
The elk are the most abundant large herbivores in the Yellowstone ecosystem. There are thousands and thousands of them. They migrate in and out. And those migration routes need to stay open.
Ecosystems are holy. The word "environmental" is a deadly compromise itself. It's a policy word that lives only in the head, and barely there.
One degree turns out to be enough to really unhinge all sorts of earth's ecosystems.
The First Amendment has the same role in my life as a citizen and a writer as the sun has in our ecosystem.
The [film] industry is an ecosystem that's sick.
Sloths actually are like furry living ecosystems all by themselves! Algae grows on their fur and they are also home to "sloth moths" who call them home and drink their tears.
We are clearcutting virgin forests around the world, and 95 percent of species in the clearcut zone have never been studied. So we clearcut a part of the virgin forest and now part of our ecosystem has been wiped out. Some of it may grow back, and some of it won't.