Curt Stager > Quotes

“We humans may think of ourselves as solid objects, all flesh and bone. But take a close look, and it’s clear our bodies are composed largely of oxygen and hydrogen. We are essentially ephemeral – akin as much to wind water, and fire as to earth.”
― Curt Stager, Your Atomic Self: The Invisible Elements That Connect You to Everything Else in the Universe

“One thing about the greenhouse effect that makes it so difficult for some of us to take seriously is that it’s invisible.”
― Curt Stager, Our Future Earth

“The idea that a sizable fraction of our carbon dioxide could stick around for hundreds of thousands of years hasn’t reached mainstream consciousness yet,”
― Curt Stager, Our Future Earth

“atomic motions cause the waxing and waning of rivers, so too do they produce the transient body that you—whatever “you” means—currently inhabit before its substance flows back into the great global sea of atoms. Consider, then, the particles that are departing your body at this very moment. There is no need to wait for death to scatter you to the winds, waters, and soils of the world. It is already happening.”
― Curt Stager, Your Atomic Self: The Invisible Elements That Connect You to Everything Else in the Universe

“the environmental consequences of our actions today are so large, powerful, and long-lived that they cannot be fully understood from a mere century-scale point of view.”
― Curt Stager, Our Future Earth

“nerve cells within the olfactory bulb and hippocampus of a human brain are continuously regenerated. This means that when a whiff of something sparks a memory, be it a smoky campfire or a familiar perfume, the neurons that originally encoded those sensations may no longer be with you, and the memories may now be preserved by cells that never experienced them.”
― Curt Stager, Your Atomic Self: The Invisible Elements That Connect You to Everything Else in the Universe