37 Quotes by Alan Weisman

Change is the hallmark of nature. Nothing remains the same.

Murderous, mutual loathing between tribes was no more explicable, or complicated, then the genocidal urges of chimpanzees – a fact of nature that we humans, vainly and disingenuously, pretend our codes of civilization transcend.

Nobility is expensive, nonproductive, and parasitic, siphoning away too much of society’s energy to satisfy its frivolous cravings.

But the Earth holds ghosts, even of entire nations.

Most people would rather not hear about the environment because it’s scary, so my goal was to write something that was readable so that people would learn a lot and not be so depressed that they would throw the book away.

The Panama Canal,′ says Abdiel Perez, ’is like a wound that humans inflicted on the Earth – one that nature is trying to heal.

In New York, the European starling – now a ubiquitous avian pest from Alaska to Mexico – was introduced because someone thought the city would be more cultured if Central Park were home to each bird mentioned in Shakespeare.

Missing, however, are nearly all fauna adapted to us. The seemingly invincible cockroach, a tropical import, long ago froze in unheated apartment buildings. Without garbage, rats starved or became lunch for the raptors nesting in burnt-out skyscrapers.

For years, I have been looking for a way to look at the whole global environmental situation, which I have the privilege and burden of covering. And I wanted to give people a way to do something about it.