Keya Chatterjee > Quotes

“There is a phenomenon known as “single action bias,” which indicates that most people will only take one action in support of the environment and then feel that they have checked off the box on being an “environmentalist.”
― Keya Chatterjee, The Zero Footprint Baby: How to Save the Planet While Raising a Healthy Baby

“In 2009, the International Institute for Environment and Development released a report which showed that, in most cases, urban centers have fewer emissions per capita than do rural areas.”
― Keya Chatterjee, The Zero Footprint Baby: How to Save the Planet While Raising a Healthy Baby

“Some scientific conclusions or theories have been so thoroughly examined and tested, and supported by so many independent observations and results, that their likelihood of subsequently being found to be wrong is vanishingly small. Such conclusions and theories are then regarded as settled facts. This is the case for the conclusions that the Earth system is warming and that much of this warming is very likely due to human activities.” —The National Academy of Sciences, May 19, 2010”
― Keya Chatterjee, The Zero Footprint Baby: How to Save the Planet While Raising a Healthy Baby

“2010 study showed that people overestimate the benefits of their conservation actions dramatically, and underestimate the benefits of buying more efficient appliances and gadgets.”
― Keya Chatterjee, The Zero Footprint Baby: How to Save the Planet While Raising a Healthy Baby

“How can you gracefully ask your in-laws and parents to give fewer gifts? First, tell them that you would very much like them to respect your wishes and not give gifts. If they want a further reason, try talking about your concern about the amount of raw materials needed to produce the toys and clothes for the baby. If they don’t care for the environmental argument, try telling them you don’t have room for more items. If all else fails, simply tell them that they can buy items, but the toys and clothes they buy need to stay at their house for use during visits. Since most baby clothes can only be worn for a couple months, this should cut down on the purchase of new clothes. And the grandparents also probably only have so much room for new toys!”
― Keya Chatterjee, The Zero Footprint Baby: How to Save the Planet While Raising a Healthy Baby

“(A step-by-step guide for what your team can do at each gathering can be found in the book The Low Carbon Diet by David Gershon.”
― Keya Chatterjee, The Zero Footprint Baby: How to Save the Planet While Raising a Healthy Baby

“As a parent, it is your job to feed your baby and keep your baby warm, dry and safe. It is also your job as a parent to leave your child a habitable planet that is not devastated by climate change. These two jobs are not in contradiction. Taking care of a baby requires a lot of love and patience, but not a lot of “things.”
― Keya Chatterjee, The Zero Footprint Baby: How to Save the Planet While Raising a Healthy Baby

“meet their goal of 80 percent renewable energy by 2050.12 While not having children is definitively the best choice for the environment, it is not the choice that many environmentalists make, however. Paul Ehrlich, author of The Population Bomb, has one child, as does Bill McKibben, who has energized a generation of young climate activists, and Michael Mann, the climate scientist behind the famous “hockey stick” figure showing rapid global warming. As my husband and I were trying to decide whether to have a child or not, I could not help but look at the choices that those around me had made.”
― Keya Chatterjee, The Zero Footprint Baby: How to Save the Planet While Raising a Healthy Baby