Quotes

“Society functions when old men plant trees under which they won’t sit.” - Greek Proverb


“When the Last Tree is Cut Down, the Last Fish Eaten, and the Last Stream Poisoned, You Will Realize That You Cannot Eat Money.” - Cree/Osage Native Tribe


“The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is now.” - Chinese Proverb


“In the end we will conserve only what we love; we will love only what we understand; and we will understand only what we are taught.” -Baba Dioum, 1968.


“ One day everything will be well, that is our hope. Everything’s fine today, that is our illusion.” - Voltaire


“[…] People have lost connection to Nature, they’ve literally detached themselves from their natural habitat. […]” -Anonymous


“Human behavior is deeply influenced by social norms, and climate inaction is no exception. For years, sustainable practices were portrayed (by those in power) as niche or radical. Consequently, those who adopted environmentally friendly behaviors often felt isolated, while mainstream culture celebrated consumption and convenience. The ‘system’ defines success in terms of consumption. A better car, bigger house, luxurious vacations, status symbols. Sustainable lifestyles are stigmatized. Not only do people not want to be ostracized, they feel a competitive drive to keep up with their friends and neighbors.” -Collapse 2050


“People are too docile, comfortable and ignorant. Try talking to someone about anything real happening and they will avoid it like the plague. Anything other than football, netflix or some irrelevant bull-shirt no one wants to hear it.”

“But… we have to speak up, otherwise no one will hear.” -A commenter on the New Haven Independent


“Climate change will manifest as a series of disasters viewed through phones with footage that gets closer and closer to where you live until you’re the one filming it”

“47 million people face hunger in the U.S.- including nearly 14 million children. Hunger knows no boundaries- it touches every U.S. community, including yours.” -FeedingAmerica


“[…] we live in a zoologically impoverished world, from which all the hugest, and fiercest, and strangest forms have recently disappeared; and it is, no doubt, a much better world for us now that they have gone. Yet it is a marvelous fact, and one that has not been sufficiently dwelt upon, this sudden dying out of so many large Mammalia, not in one place but in half the land surface of the globe.” - Alfred Russel Wallace 1876

“Looking at the subject again, with the much larger body of facts at our command, I am convinced that the rapidity of the extinction of so many large Mammalia is due to Man’s agency acting in cooperation with those natural causes which at the culmination of each geologic era has led to the extinctions of the larger, the more specialized, or the most strangely modified forms.” -Alfred Russel Wallace 1911













There are five ingredients modern society is inexorably dependent upon: fresh drinking water, arable land (human habitat), a stable climate, a functioning ecosystem with interactions between plants and plants, animals and plants, and animals and animals, and most importantly: easily accessible metals (copper + aluminum) and fossil fuels with high energy density.




Trees contribute ecosystem services:

• Produce oxygen and sequester carbon
• Clean the air by trapping dust and pollution on leaf surfaces
• Add visual interest and beauty to human landscapes
• Manage the watershed: less storm water run-offLeaves break the speed of rainfall
• Tree roots act as a catchment:In winter, water is absorbed by osmosis and used to make new buds in Spring
• In Summer, trees loose moisture through leaf stomata, water is pumped through xylem by evapotranspiration
• Gravity slowly pulls water out of roots Percolation re-charges aquifers
• Trees reduce ambient temperatures through shade and cycling of water vapor
• Fruit trees reduce food scarcity and improve health
• Trees support wildlife: squirrels, cardinals, bluejays