From Naked Ape to Superspecies Quotes

“The way we’ve set up corporations, even a majority vote of stockholders cannot demand that a corporation’s policies reflect the public good or preserve the environment for future use. That’s because profit is the one and only motive. It’s up to government and it’s up to people to protect the public interest. Corporations are simply not allowed to.”
― David Suzuki, From Naked Ape to Superspecies: Humanity and the Global Eco-Crisis

“The way we live has less to do with individual choices and more to do with the general bent of our society than many of us realize. We forget that we don’t need everything.”
― David Suzuki, From Naked Ape to Superspecies: Humanity and the Global Eco-Crisis

“Human beings are often at their best when responding to immediate crises — car accidents, house fires, hurricanes. We are less effective in the face of enormous but slow-moving crises such as the loss of biodiversity or climate change. When the crisis is environmental and global,”
― David Suzuki, From Naked Ape to Superspecies: Humanity and the Global Eco-Crisis

“Human beings are often at their best when responding to immediate crises — car accidents, house fires, hurricanes. We are less effective in the face of enormous but slow-moving crises such as the loss of biodiversity or climate change.”
― David Suzuki, From Naked Ape to Superspecies: Humanity and the Global Eco-Crisis

“We repeat like a religious mantra the unquestioned benefits and power of science, information and economics, without inspecting the structures and methodology on which they are built. Many of these beliefs are insupportable and dangerous. For example, the notion that human beings are so clever that we can use science and technology to escape the restrictions of the natural world is a fantasy that cannot be fulfilled. Yet it underlies much of government’s and industry’s rhetoric and programs.”
― David Suzuki, From Naked Ape to Superspecies: Humanity and the Global Eco-Crisis

“A balance between sustainable ecology and sustainable human life, on the one hand, and the unfettered drive for profit, on the other, is just an oxymoron.”
― David Suzuki, From Naked Ape to Superspecies: Humanity and the Global Eco-Crisis

“Virtually all of the extremely important services that nature provides are completely ignored by conventional economics. The ozone layer, for example, shields all life from DNA-damaging ultraviolet radiation.”
― David Suzuki, From Naked Ape to Superspecies: Humanity and the Global Eco-Crisis

“The economy — and the need to keep it strong and growing — has somehow become the most important aspect of modern life. Nothing else is allowed to rank higher. The economy is suffering; the economy is improving; the economy is stable or unstable — you’d think it was a patient on life support in an intensive-care unit from the way we anxiously await the next pronouncement on its health. But what we call the economy is nothing more than people producing, consuming and exchanging things and services.”
― David Suzuki, From Naked Ape to Superspecies: Humanity and the Global Eco-Crisis

“Corporations easily bully governments by threatening to deprive even democratic nations of their wealth. If we try too hard to control them, they say they’ll leave and take their jobs with them.”
― David Suzuki, From Naked Ape to Superspecies: Humanity and the Global Eco-Crisis

“The media have indeed informed the public about threats to our air, water and food. Ever since 1962, when Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, more and more information has been made available. And the public has responded. About fifteen years ago, public interest in the environment reached its height. In 1988, George Bush Senior promised that, if elected, he would be an environmental president. In the same year, Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney was re-elected, and to indicate his ecological concern he moved the minister of the environment into the inner Cabinet. Newly created environment departments around the world were poised to cut back on fossil-fuel use, monitor the effects of acid rain and other pollutants, clean up toxic wastes, and protect plant and animal species. Information about our troubled environment had reached a large number of people, and that information, as expected, led to civic and political action. In 1992, it all reached its apex as the largest-ever gathering of heads of state in human history met at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. “Sustainable development” was the rallying cry, and politicians and business leaders promised to take a new path. Henceforth, they said, the environment would be weighed in every political, social and economic decision. Yet only two weeks after all the fine statements of purpose and government commitments were signed in Rio, the Group of Seven industrialized nations met in Munich and not a word was mentioned about the environment. The main topic was the global economy. The environment, it was said, had fallen off the list of public concerns, and environmentalism had been relegated to the status of a transitory fad.”
― David Suzuki, From Naked Ape to Superspecies: Humanity and the Global Eco-Crisis

“Monsanto, at least, has found a way to make the victims of genetic contamination pay for the privilege, and for a very wealthy corporation, the costs of lawyers and legal wrangling are part of the cost of doing business. Individual farmers have to assume enormous costs by themselves. Plant scientist E. Ann Clark points out, “Monsanto is the only biotech company that sues for patent infringement [italics ours]. The others use other strategies, for example, embedding their patented traits in hybrid canola, which the farmer cannot save as seed anyway, to safeguard their patented genes.”
― David Suzuki, From Naked Ape to Superspecies: Humanity and the Global Eco-Crisis

“Protection of intellectual property is clearly not the only, or perhaps even the main reason for Monsanto’s strategy in threatening to bring thousands of farmers into court. The purpose is to generate fear, and hence, compliance, in order to force the purchase of more GM seed. — E. ANN CLARK, PLANT AGRICULTURIST”
― David Suzuki, From Naked Ape to Superspecies: Humanity and the Global Eco-Crisis

“Patent law is a very interesting form of property,” she says. “With all other forms of property, you have ownership rights; but along with them, you have responsibilities.” If you build a building that falls down or a car engine that blows up, you can be sued by both the buyers and government agencies. This is not true in the case of patent owners. “Patent law is a kind of ownership law in which there is no liability,” says Shiva. “There’s no responsibility. There are only rights to exclude others from the use of whatever is your patent.”
― David Suzuki, From Naked Ape to Superspecies: Humanity and the Global Eco-Crisis