Maurice Strong Quotes

What if a small group of world leaders were to conclude that the principal risk to the Earth comes from the actions of the rich countries?... In order to save the planet, the group decides: Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn't it our responsibility to bring that about?

Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class…involving high meat intake, consumption of large amounts of frozen and convenience foods, ownership of motor vehicles, golf courses, small electric appliances, home and work place air-conditioning, and suburban housing are not sustainable...

Either we reduce the world's population voluntarily or nature will do this for us, but brutally

Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn't it our responsibility to bring this about?

The concept of national sovereignty has been an immutable, indeed sacred, principle of international relations. It is a principle which will yield only slowly and reluctantly to the new imperatives of global environmental cooperation. It is simply not feasible for sovereignty to be exercised unilaterally by individual nation states, however powerful. The global community must be assured of environmental security.

Developed and benefited from the unsustainable patterns of production and consumption which have produced our present dilemma. It is clear that current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class-involving high meat intake, consumption of large amounts of frozen and convenience foods, use of fossil fuels, appliances, home and work-place air-conditioning, and suburban housing-are not sustainable. A shift is necessary toward lifestyles less geared to environmentally damaging consumption patterns.

We may get to the point where the only way of saving the world will be for industrial civilization to collapse.

Strengthening the role the United Nations can play...will require serious examination of the need to extend into the international arena the rule of law and the principle of taxation to finance agreed actions which provide the basis for governance at the national level. But this will not come about easily. Resistance to such changes is deeply entrenched. They will come about not through the embrace of full blown world government, but as a careful and pragmatic response to compelling imperatives and the inadequacies of alternatives.

The real goal of the Earth Charter is that it will in fact become like the Ten Commandments.

After all, sustainability means running the global environment - Earth Inc. - like a corporation: with depreciation, amortization and maintenance accounts. In other words, keeping the asset whole, rather than undermining your natural capital.

Licences to have babies incidentally is something that I got in trouble for some years ago for suggesting even in Canada that this might be necessary at some point, at least some restriction on the right to have a child.

I am a socialist in ideology, a capitalist in methodology.

A shift is necessary toward lifestyles less geared to environmental damaging consumption patterns.

I am convinced the prophets of doom have to be taken seriously.

It is the responsibility of each human being today to choose between the force of darkness and the force of light. We must therefore transform our attitudes, and adopt a renewed respect for the superior laws of Divine Nature.

We're either going to save the world or no one will be saved.

Nevertheless, the concept of sustainable development is now known - even amongst those who haven't accepted it - and it's recognized, debated and followed by an increasing number of businesses.

A citizen of an advanced industrialized nation consumes in six months the energy and raw materials that have to last the citizen of a developing country his entire lifetime.

The combination of population growth and the growth in consumption is a danger that we are not prepared for and something we will need global co-operation on.

I am retired from all my official roles, but I am still very active. I have close relationships at the U.N. I don't have any role at the U.N, but I'm still quite cooperative with a number of U.N. activities, in particular to China and that region.

What pleases me most is that sustainable development is on almost everybody's agenda now.

Also, it is interesting that developing countries, with China and India perhaps in the lead, where the future of the global environment will be decided are now on board with the case for sustainable development.

We need what I have often called an ecological approach to the management of these resources and we do not have that now. We have the inertia of past habits, unsustainable habits.

Occupy World Street is a masterpiece which deserves to get wide circulation and commitment by world leaders.

Ted Turner is still a leader. And he sets a great example. His ability financially has been reduced, but his influence and his example still is an important asset to the whole environmental movement.