“The AEC scientists were so narrowly focused on arming the United States for nuclear war that they failed to perceive facts – even widely known ones – that were outside their limited field of vision.”

After all, despite the economic advantage to firms that employed child labor, it was in the social interest, as a national policy, to abolish it – removing that advantage for all firms.

The modern technologist is less ‘sorcerer’ and more ‘sorcerer’s apprentice’.

Earth Day 1970 was irrefutable evidence that the American people understood the environmental threat and wanted action to resolve it.

What is needed now is a transformation of the major systems of production more profound than even the sweeping post-World War II changes in production technology.

The age of innocent faith in science and technology may be over.

It reflects a prevailing myth that production technology is no more amenable to human judgment or social interests than the laws of thermodynamics, atomic structure or biological inheritance.

No action is without its side effects.

The environmental crisis is a sign that the ecosphere is now so heavily strained that its continued stability is threatened. It is a warning that we must discover the source of this suicidal drive and master it before it destroys the environment-and ourselves.

If you can see the light at the end of the tunnel, you are looking the wrong way.

Nothing ever dies, nothing ever goes away.

The first law of ecology is that everything is related to everything else.—->I dont believe in environmentalism as the solution to anything. What I believe is that environmentalism illuminates the things that need to be done to solve all of the problems together.

Everything is connected to everything else. Everything must go somewhere. Nature knows best. There is no such thing as a free lunch.

Finally, since human beings are uniquely capable of producing materials not found in nature, environmental degradation may be due to the resultant intrusion into an ecosystem of a substance wholly foreign to it.

In nature, no organic substance is synthesized unless there is provision for its degradation; recycling is enforced.

Air pollution is not merely a nuisance and a threat to health. It is a reminder that our most celebrated technological achievements-the automobile, the jet plane, the power plant, industry in general, and indeed the modern city itself-are, in the environment, failures.

Science is triumphant with far-ranging success, but its triumph is somehow clouded by growing difficulties in providing for the simple necessities of human life on earth.

It is a fact of history that those who seek to withdraw from its great experiments usually end up being overwhelmed by them.

The fact of being reported increases the apparent extent of a deplorable development by a factor of ten.

In fact, not only do I support eliminating soft money, but I support full public financing for campaigns.

The ‘working poor,’ as they are approvingly termed, are in fact the major philanthropists of our society.

Great commanders write their actions with simplicity; because they receive more glory from facts than from words.

Disaster is rarely as pervasive as it seems from recorded accounts. The fact of being on the record makes it appear continuous and ubiquitous whereas it is more likely to have been sporadic both in time and place.

Reputations are shaped not by facts but by prejudices.

Facts mean nothing to wounded feelings.