Environmental responsibility is everyone's responsibility. ~ EPA Administrator Steve Johnson

You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make. ~ Jane Goodall

Once the last tree is cut and the last river poisoned, you will find you cannot eat money. ~ Joyce Mclean.

In every walk with nature, one receives far more than he seeks. ~ John Muir

I cannot imagine the future, but I care about it. I know I am a part of a story that starts long before I can remember and continues long beyond when anyone will remember me. I sense that I am alive at a time of important change, and I feel a responsibility to make sure that the change comes out well. I plant my acorns knowing that I will never live to harvest the oaks. ~ Danny Hills

We can now destroy or we can cherish--the choice is ours. ~ Sir David Attenborough, Planet Earth

In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they're still beautiful. ~ Alice Walker

So much beauty in the world, so few eyes to see it. ~ Albert Cossery

Doomsday predictions can no longer be met with irony or distain. We may well be leaving to coming generations to breathe, desolation and filth. ~ Laudato Si', Pope Francis

Once in a golden hour, I cast to earth a seed, And up there grew a flower, That others called a weed. ~ Alfred, Lord Tennyson

The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world it leaves to its children. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect ~ Aldo Leopold

The most painful losses in war are those given unnecessarily. Likewise, the most painful loss of landscapes are those that died in vain, whether wasted beneath unplanned strip malls or brownfields arising from neglect. ~ Robert M. Thorson, 2007

Change is inevitable. Ugliness is not. - Scenic America

Anyone who believes in indefinite growth on a physically finite planet is eitehr mad, or an economist. ~ David Attenborough

When you embrace nature, nature embraces you. You are not outside of nature, nature is you. ~ John Scotland Chaney

A society wishing to endure must speak the language of caretaking, faith-keeping, kindness, neighborliness, and peace. ~ Wendell Berry

Those who are concerned about the world environment are, in my view, the abolitionists of this area, struggling to make an enlightened public aware that environmental depredation is an axe at the root of every culture, every freedom, every value. ~ From "Wilderness" in The Death of Adam, Essays on Modern Thought, Marilynn Robinson, 1998

Humans are "the most successful invasives of all time. ~ Diane Ackerman, The Human Age

What would the world be, once bereft of wet and wildness? Let them be left, O let them be left, wildness and wet; Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet. ~ Gerard Manley Hopkins

We have decisively changed the carbon cycle, the nitrogen cycle, and the rate of extinction. ~ Rob Nixon

When we try to pick out anything by itself in nature, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe. ~ John Muir

Nature is not mute, it is a man who is deaf. ~Terence Mckenna

The environment is not just around you, it's passing through you. ~ Michael Pollan

We are living in a false economy where the price of goods and services does not include the cost of waste and pollution. ~ Lynn Landes, Founder and Director of Zero Waste America.

The improved means to the unimproved end. ~ Thoreau

If it weren't for the sportsmen of this country, there would be no wild places. Remember Teddy Roosevelt? ~ Doug Koehouse, Sparta, MA

Just living is not enough...one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower. ~ Hans Christian Andersen

Winter solitude
in a world of one color
the sound of wind
~ Basho

You are one of the forces of nature. - Jules Michelet

If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change. ~ The Leopard, Guiseppe Di Lampedusa

Solve global warming, eliminate the nuclear threat, and we will still have to confront the vastness of our species and the way it diminishes, without thinking, all the other species around it. ~ Verlyn Klinkenborg

I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery—air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, "This is what it is to be happy.” ― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

The good Earth- we could have saved it, but we were too damn cheap and lazy. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

Activism is my rent for living on this planet. ~ Alice Walker

I truly believe we all want to do what is best for our family, community and environment. But sometimes we forget our good intentions due to time, energy and limited resources. ~ Melinda Myers, Birds & Blooms Magazine

The Stone Age did not end for lack of stone, and the Oil Age will end long before the world runs out of oil." ~ Saudi Arabian petroleum minister Ahmed Zaki Yamani, 1986

Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,
nothing is going to get better.
It's not. ~ The Lorax (Dr. Seuss)

The grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never dried all at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls. ~John Muir

You must be the change you wish to see in the world. ~Mohandas Gandhi, 1869-1948

Until mankind can extend the circle of his compassion to include all living things, he will never, himself, know peace. ~ Albert Schweitzer

CAFE is like trying to cure obesity by requiring clothing manufacturers to make smaller sizes.
~ Robert A. Lutz, former General Motors Executive, referring to the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin. ~ Shakespeare

If all the beasts were gone, men would die from a great loneliness of spirit, for whatever happens to the beasts also happens to man. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the Earth befalls the sons of the Earth. - Chief Seattle

The struggle of today is not altogether for today - it is for a vast future also. ~ President Abraham Lincoln, Annual Message to Congress, December 3, 1861

We are about to put up a tombstone, 'Here lies America's energy policy.'~ Chrysler Chairman Lee Iacocca, in response NHTSA lowering the fuel economy standard in response to lobbying by Ford and GM, 1986

A setting sun still whispers a promise for tomorrow. ~ Jeb Dickerson

If You Wanna Make The World A Better Place, Take A Look At Yourself, And Then Make A Change ~Michael Jackson, Man in the Mirror

The forest is a peculiar organism of unlimited kindness and benevolence that makes no demands for its sustenance and extends generously the products of its life activity; it affords protection to all beings, offering shade even to the axe-man who destroys it ~ Buddha

The nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased, not impaired, in value. ~ Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919)

Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Come with me, the river said, close your eyes and quiet your limbs and float with me into the wonder and mystery of the canyons, see the unknown and the little known, look upon the stone gods face to face, see Medusa, drink my waters, hear my song, feel my power, come along and drift with me toward the distant, ultimate and legendary sea.... ~ Edward Abbey, Beyond The Wall:

Be assured that our individual actions, collectively, make a huge difference. ~ Jane Goodall

I hope that while so many people are out smelling the flowers, someone is taking the time to plant some. ~Herbert Rappaport

Volunteers - good for nothing. ~ Jean Pillo

Nothing comes free. Nothing. Not even good, especially not good.~ from the play All the Way about President Lyndon B. Johnson

We're a part of nature. As we destroy nature, we destroy ourselves. It's a selfish thing to want to protect nature. ~ Yvonne Chouinard, rock climber

Do good, and it keeps coming back to you. ~ Nature's Path

There is no domestic issue more important to America in the long run than the conservation and proper use of our natural resources, including fresh water, clean air, tillable soil, forests, wilderness, habitat for wildlife, minerals and recreational assets. ~ Senator Gaylord Nelson in a 1963 letter to President John F. Kennedy

Fall is my favorite season in Los Angeles, watching the birds change color and fall from the trees.~ David Letterman

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. ~ Henry David Thoreau

The practice of conservation must spring from a conviction of what is ethically and aesthetically right, as well as what is economically expedient. A thing is right only when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the community, and the community includes the soil, waters, fauna, and flora, as well as people. - Aldo Leopold

Give a hoot, don't pollute ~ Woodsy Owl

Open space: it's more than just a pretty place.~ Jean Pillo

...to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter... to be thrilled by the stars at night; to be elated over a bird's nest or a wildflower in spring - these are some of the rewards of the simple life. ~ John Burroughs

Little drops of water, little grains of sand, Make the mighty ocean and the pleasant land. ~ Julia A. Fletcher Carney

The civilized people of today look back with horror at their medieval ancestors who wantonly destroyed great works of art or sat slothfully by while they destroyed. We have passed this stage.... Here in the U.S. we turn our rivers and streams into sewers and dumping grounds, we pollute the air, we destroy our forests and exterminate fishes, birds and mammals - not to speak of vulgarizing charming landscapes with hideous advertisements. But at best it looks as if our people were awakening. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

One thing you can't recycle is wasted time. ~ Anonymous

We can and should have an abundance of trails for walking, cycling, and horseback riding, in and close to our cities. In the backcountry we need to copy the great Appalachian Trail in all parts of America.
~ President Lyndon Johnson's "Natural Beauty" message on February 8, 1965

Every twenty minutes on the Appalachian Trail, Katz and I walked farther than the average American walks in a week. For 93 percent of all trips outside the home, for whatever distance or whatever purpose, Americans now get in a car. On average the total walking of an American these days -- that's walking of all types: from car to office, from office to car, around the supermarket and shopping malls -- adds up to 1.4 miles a week, barely 350 yards a day. ~ Bill Bryson, A Walk in the Woods

It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it. ~Dan Quayle

I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. ~ Nelson Mandela

Buy land. They've stopped making it. ~Mark Twain

Wilderness is an anchor to windward. Knowing it is there, we can also know that we are still a rich nation, tending our resources as we should -- not a people in despair searching every last nook and cranny of our land for a board of lumber, a barrel of oil, a blade of grass, or a tank of water.
~ Clinton P. Anderson.

Marriage is not just spiritual communion, it is also remembering to take out the trash. ~ Dr. Joyce Brothers

In wilderness, I sense the miracle of life, and behind it our scientific accomplishments fade to trivia.
~ Charles Lindberg

Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock. ~ Ben Hecht

To see a world in a grain of sand, and heaven in a wildflower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour. ~William Blake

You know, Lake Eerie actually caught on fire once from all the crap floating around in it. I wish I could've seen that. ~ T-Bird in the film The Crow, 1993

Conservation is a state of harmony between men and land. ~ Aldo Leopold

The night has a thousand eyes, the day but one....~ Francis William Bourdillon

It is not the horse that draws the cart, but the oats. ~ Russian proverb

If facts are the seeds that later produce knowledge and wisdom, then the emotions and the impressions of the senses are the fertile soil in which the seeds must grow. ~ Rachel Carson

The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do. ~ Galileo Galilei

How monotonous the sounds of the forest would be if the music came only from the Top Ten birds. ~ Dan Bennett

Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Ancient Mariner

The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet... As long as this exists... I know that then there will always be comfort for every sorrow, whatever the circumstances may be. ~ Anne Frank

My life is immeasurably enriched by taking personal responsibility to do what I can, with what I have, where I am.... ~ Robert Waldrop

What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know, it's what we know for sure that just ain't so.~ Mark Twain

It's not a pretty picture, but there are reasons for hope. ~Jane Goodall

If you think you're too small to make an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito. ~Variously attributed

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn. ~ John Muir

"it's too bad that we all can't live simple lives like Buddhist monks on straw mats. But you know something, it's not going to happen. Let's face it, people are not going to give up their energy‑burning plasma TVs. Maybe if the TV or the computer or the cell phone or the appliance would have a little smoke stack on it that shows you how much energy you use or how much greenhouse gas emissions there are, maybe it would make the people feel a little bit more guilty, but I doubt it. ~ Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, 2008, keynote address at Yale Climate Change conference.

SUVs were never the root cause of America's petroleum gluttony. That is still the result of having too many personal vehicles of all kinds hauling too few people too many miles. ~ Stan Cox, author of Sick Planet: Corporate Food and Medicine

Only from space can you see that our planet should not be called Earth, but rather Water, with speck-like islands of dryness on which people, animals, and birds surprisingly find a place to live. ~Oleg Makarov, The Home Planet, 1988

Water promises to be to the 21st century what oil was to the 20th century, the precious commodity that determines the wealth of all nations. ~ Fortune Magazine, 5/15/2000

Someone has to do something, and it's just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us. ` Jerry Garcia

Most of us resist change like a cat resists posing in cute clothing ~ Cecilia Goodnow, Seattlepi.com, 2007

It is not difficult to encourage a child's interest in wildlife. It is also important that we do - why should a child care about the extinction of a species if he or she has no idea what it is? ~Dr. Tim Coulson

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader. ~ John Quincy Adams

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit. ` Nelson Henderson

If you think you're too small to make a difference, you've obviously never been in bed with a mosquito. ~ Variously attributed, Michelle Walker?

This junkyard is an environmental nightmare, strewn with tree stumps, old tires, derelict vehicles, scrap metal and other waste. This owner may be failing to properly dispose of vehicle fluids and other contaminating chemical-laden trash, possibly imperiling groundwater and wells. He is junking the law as well as the environment. ~ Attorney General Richard Blumenthal on North Branford junkyard, 2009

Never doubt that a small, group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. ~ Margaret Meade

Who has decided - who has the right to decide - for the countless regions of people who were not consulted that the supreme value is a world without insects, even though it be also a world ungraced by the curving wing of a bird in flight? ~ Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, 1962

Environmentalism has gone mainstream, and with that shift has come a growing (if at times grudging) recognition that the way we live has cumulative and often dire consequences for the natural world. ~ Hartford Courant editorial.

A man's interest in a single bluebird is worth more than a complete but dry list of the fauna and flora of a town. ~ Letter, November 22, 1858, from Henry D. Thoreau to Daniel Ricketson, in The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, 1906

[Groundwater pollution control expert]: We're going to treat the groundwater. We can probably get the pH down to about 7 or 8. [Politician] That's not good enough! I won't be satisfied until the pH is ZERO! ~ Paraphrased from a real public meeting

As the pressure of population increasingly regiments us and crowds us closer together, an association with the wild, winged freedom of the birds will fill an ever growing need in our lives.
~ Edwin Way Teale, introduction to Songbirds in Your Garden, 1953

Birds are wonderful indicators of our overall environmental health, and as the environment is stressed and biodiversity reduced through habitat degradation and loss, the most sensitive species send out the signal first. ~ David Seideman, Audubon magazine, 2005

I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in tune once more. ~ John Burroughs

I'm not trying to recreate the ancient ecosystem. That is gone. I'm trying to create biodiversity.
~ Doug Tallamy, author of Bringing Nature Home

Cease to violate the laws of nature, and of nature's God, by the destruction of these his creatures, and by every available means afford them protection, and promote their comfort and consequent multiplication. ~ R. Michener, Agricultural Ornithology, 1863

You aren't really a farmer unless you can fix anything with just baling twine, duct tape and a knife.
~ Al Daigle

Because of the irreversibility of mixing formerly isolated species, biological invasions may have even more drastic effects than climate change.~ Mooney & Cleland 2001

Man is the only critter on earth who feels the need to label things as flowers or weeds. The rest of them just enjoy them for what they are.~ Modified by Keith Kridler, 2005

Mankind is the only species I know of that has a conscience about what it has destroyed to survive and restoring an ailing species, and is willing to give back something to attempt to atone it or do something to heal it. ~- Autumn L. Kruer, 2005

Not to hurt our humble brethren is our first duty to them, but to stop there is not enough. We have a higher mission - to be of service to them whenever they require it. ~Francis of Assisi

The passenger pigeon needs no protection. Wonderfully prolific, having the vast forests of the North as its breeding grounds, traveling hundreds of miles in search of food, it is here today and elsewhere tomorrow, and no ordinary destruction can lessen them, or be missed from the myriads that are yearly produced. ~Report from a select committee of the Ohio Senate in 1857 on a bill proposed to protect the Passenger Pigeon. The last known representative of the species -- named Martha -- died in captivity in the Cincinnati Zoo on September 1, 1914

There are so many ways to burn time. The glorious way to spend it is to add plants and wildlife that will have ripple effects far beyond our lives. ~ Ron Baltrunas, 2005

No joy can equal the joy of serving others. ~Sai Baba

The supreme reality of our time is….the vulnerability of our planet. ~John F. Kennedy, speech, 1963

I don't like to call it a disaster," because there has been no loss of human life. I am amazed at the publicity for the loss of a few birds. ~ Fred L. Hartley, president of Union Oil Co, after the 1969 Santa Barbara Oil Spill

It is sad that it was necessary that Santa Barbara should be the example that had to bring it to the attention of the American people. What is involved is the use of our resources of the sea and of the land in a more effective way and with more concern for preserving the beauty and the natural resources that are so important to any kind of society that we want for the future. The Santa Barbara incident has frankly touched the conscience of the American people. ~ U.S. President Richard Nixon, after the 1969 Santa Barbara Oil Spill

The ultimate test of man's conscience may be his willingness to sacrifice something today for future generations whose words of thanks will not be heard. ~ Gaylord Nelson, former governor of Wisconsin and founder of Earth Day

Use what talents you possess; the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best. ~ attributed to Henry Van Dyke, ornithologist, 1852-1933

We're not able to rely on individual decisions in the marketplace to solve the problem of climate change and to solve the problem of oil dependence - it takes collective action; it take's government action. ~ David L. Green, Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Individual choices and actions matter - they really do. It all adds up. ~John B. Heywood, Sloan Automotive Laboratory, MIT

Wild beasts and birds are by right not the property merely of the people today, but the property of the unborn generations, whose belongings we have no right to squander. ~Theodore Roosevelt

You cannot begin to preserve any species of animal unless you preserve the habitat in which it dwells. Disturb or destroy that habitat and you will exterminate the species as surely as if you had shot it. So conservation means that [we] have to preserve forest and grassland, river and lake, even the sea itself. This is vital not only for the preservation of animal life generally, but for the future existence of man himself—a point that seems to escape many people. ~ Gerald Durrell, The Nature Conservancy

We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.
~ usually attributed to Albert Einstein - authenticity?

We exist temporarily through what we take, but we live forever through what we give.~Vernon Jordan, in a speech at Howard University, 2002

As suitable wildlife habitat continues to decrease, wise management of existing habitat, such as power-line corridors, assumes greater importance. ~ Greg Chasko, 1982

You begin by sharing with your friends and neighbors and before you know it they pass on the information to a wider circle. It takes time for you to see the results because the seed you plant today may take a decade or more to mature. ~ Keith Kridler, Bluebird_L, 2007

That's a lot of money we can be using for wildlife conservation. ~ Rachel Levin, spokeswoman for U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, on why the agency won't spend $300,000 to fix a duck stamp that mistakenly lists a phone-sex number to reorder stamps.

Conservation is not just an ideal that we read about; it works. ~ Roger Tory Peterson

Americans have been the greatest destroyers of land of any race or people, barbaric or civilized. ~ Hammond Bennett, in the mid-1930s (Dust Bowl era)

The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Whether we fail or not, we shall not be kept from continuing our mission by those who claim it can't be done. ...Indeed the whole of agricultural and livestock science and even human medicine, if sound, is merely the business of discovering certain natural patterns already in existence, putting together the various pieces and discovering their relationship to the whole universe; indeed such a process is science itself. ~Louis Bromfield, 1954, From My Experience, founder of Malabar Farm

Look deep, deep into nature, and you will understand everything better. ~Albert Einstein

What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility - a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task. This is the price and the promise of citizenship. ~ President Barack Obama, Inaugural address, 2009

In the end we will conserve only what we love; we will love only what we understand; we will understand only what we have been taught. ~ Baba Dioum, Senegalese ecologist

Nature wants children to be children before they are adults. ~ Rosseau, 1762

I'm not trying to recreate the ancient ecosystem. That is gone. I'm trying to create biodiversity.
~ Douglas W. Tallamy, scientist and author of Bringing Nature Home

Transparency is all about letting in and embracing new ideas, new technology and new approaches. No individual, entity or agency, no matter how smart, how old, or how experienced, can afford to stop learning. ~ Gina McCarthy, CTDEP Commissioner, 2009

The world ’s thirst for water is likely to become one of the most pressing resource issues of the 21st st century. In some cases, water withdrawals are so high, relative to supply, that surface water supplies are literally shrinking and groundwater reserves are being depleted faster than they can be replenished by precipitation. ~ World Resources Report, 1999

Although two thirds of our planet is water, we face an acute water shortage. The water crisis is the most pervasive , most severe, and most invisible dimension of the ecological devastation of the earth. ~ Vandana Shiva, Water Wars, 2002

There is simply no way to overstate the water crisis of the planet today. ~ Maude Barlow, Blue Gold, 2001

We have the power to make the world we seek, but only if we have the courage to make a new beginning .... ~ President Barack Obama, 2009

It is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon men's hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality of air that emanates from old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

For all its silliness, Groundhog Day carries some seriousness at its core. It stems in part from an urgency to know - if unreliably- the future. Not long ago, when agriculture was a more common means of subsistence, an early spring coudl mean the difference between prosperity and ruin. At the same time, our conscripting a critter to spy the future suggests that, for all our learning (not to mention satellite data), the fugure often remains terra incognita ~ Timothy Chambers, philosphy professor at U of Hartford, Hartford Courant 02/2010

The great virtue of a diversified food economy, like a diverse pasture or farm, is its ability to withstand any shock. The important thing is that there be multiple food chains, so that when any one of them fails--when the oil runs out, when mad cow or other food-borne diseases become epidemic, when the pesticides no longer work, when drought strikes and plagues come and soils blow away--we'll still have a way to feed ourselves. ` Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma

- If all 7,000-plus species of bees disappeared from the Earth, those ripples would grow into tsunamis ruffling entire ecosystems. In some ecosystems, bees are “keystone” species – a reference to an arch’s top stone, without which both sides collapse. As the plants that rely on bees died off, species that relied on those plants would suffer, leading to the decline or death of species that rely on them, and so on. ~ thedailygreen.com, 06/22/2007

...farms produce a lot more than food; they also produce a kind of landscape and a kind of community.
~ Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma

Mother Nature does not do bailouts. ~ Al Gore, 2009

Eating is an agricultural act, ~ Wendell Berry

Buying local or regional produce is an easy way to help preserve farmlands. ~Sandi Rose, Rose's Berry Farm, South Glastonbury, CT 2009

If you buy from local farmers, you are buying green space.  You are keeping us here.  That’s a decision people can make every time they shop. ~Sandi Rose, Rose's Berry Farm, South Glastonbury, CT 2009

A lot of local farmers use less pesticides because their product doesn't have to make a 3,000 mile trip. We don't know what happens in Mexico or other parts of the world. ~Dave Yandow, FreshPoint Connecticut, 2009

It has to come from the consumer.  You have to go to the store and say, ‘How come these green peppers got a sticker on it staying its from Mexico when you can have local peppers in season?'  If the consumer demands it, they’re going to get it.” ~ Nelson Ceccarelli, Ceccarelli Farm, Northford, 2009

Always we try to put the wild in a cage. ~ John Fowles, The Blinded Eye

Tremendous volumes of natural resources are displaced and ecosystems disrupted in the uncounted extraction processes that fuel modern human existence. ~ Dave Tilford, Sustainable Consumption: Why Consumption Matters (2000 Sierra Club article)

Animals love and suffer, cry and laugh; their hearts rise up in anticipation and fall in despair...they feel.
~ Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, When Elephants Weep; The Emotional Lives of Animals

Seldom are the financial costs of invasive species and the ethic costs of capturing, commodifying and caging wildlife factored into what is another tragedy of the commons. ~ Robert Thorson, High Cost of Pets is Borne by All, Hartford Courant, 2009

Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, Nothing is going to get better. It's not. ~Dr. Seuss, from The Lorax

Adopting an environmental 'ethic' is easy and relatively painless for most of us because it imposes the primary burden to act on someone else. ~Tom Worthly, The Case for Intelligent Consumption: Changing the Definition of Normal, UCONN College of Ag and Natural Resources Journal Summer 2007

Gardening is "our national art form with the power mower and spade as the paint brushes of modern culture." ~ Mark Francis and Randolph Hester, environmental philosophers

Place matters because 'place' is more than a geographical term; it is an emotional one as well. And places have meanings that are given to them by people - whether they are elaborate architectural edifices or beloved landscapes. ~Toni Gold, Hartford Courant

They paved paradise and put up a parkin' lot With a pink hotel, a boutique, and a swingin' hot spot Don't it always seem to go That you don't know what you got till it's gone ~Joni Mitchell, 1970, lyrics of the song Big Yellow Taxi

People need open space. People need to bring their children into an area where they can play without restriction.” And I was told, “This is development.” And I said, “That is not development, definitely not sustainable development, definitely not responsible development. People need fresh air. They can do without buildings. They can do without concrete. But they cannot do without fresh air. ~ Wangari Maathai, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and author of The Green Belt Movement, 2005

Local conservation programs can help our communities shape thoughtful growth. ~Will Rogers, Trust for Public Land President

There are plenty of eco-luxuries available that are quite costly, but there are plenty of green choices you can make that cost little or save you money.~ Glenn Croston, author of 75 Green Businesses You Can Start to Make Money and Make A Difference

We are a species that has lost its way. Everything natural, every flower or tree, and every animal have important lessons to teach us if we would only stop, look, and listen. ~Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose

In wilderness is the preservation of the world. ~Thoreau?

...when the last individual of a race of living things breathes no more, another heaven and another earth must pass before such a one can be again. ~ William Beebe, 1906

Bumper Stickers:

• No farms, no foods
• Eat your view!
• The only stock I buy is livestock
  
• Historic Preservation - the Ultimate Recycling
• Open Space: once lost, gone forever
• Mall-Wart - your source for cheap plastic crap
• Be a better neighbor and you'll have a better neighborhood.
• The earth does not belong to us - it belongs to the earth
• Children should be seen and heard and believed
• We are defined not only by what we have created but by what we refuse to destroy