Monday 25 July 2011

Henry David Thoreau

Today’s Green Thought comes from the American philosopher/naturalist Henry David Thoreau (1817 – 1862) and is taken from Page 51 Vol. 10 of The Writings of Thoreau.

If some are prosecuted for abusing children, others deserve to be prosecuted for abusing the face of nature committed to their care.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_David_Thoreau

Monday 18 July 2011

Sir Fred Hoyle - 'Of Men and Galaxies'

Today’s Green Thought comes from the cosmologist Sir Fred Hoyle in a lecture series titled, Of Men and Galaxies, given at the University of Washington, 1964 ; emphasis added.

It has often been said that, if the human species fails to make a go of it here on Earth, some other species will take over the running. In the sense of developing high intelligence this is not correct. We have, or soon will have, exhausted the necessary physical prerequisites so far as this planet is concerned. With coal gone, oil gone, high-grade metallic ores gone, no species however competent can make the long climb from primitive conditions to high-level technology. This is a one-shot affair. If we fail, this planetary system fails so far as intelligence is concerned. The same will be true of other planetary systems. On each of them there will be one chance, and one chance only.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Fred_Hoyle

Monday 11 July 2011

Aldo Leopold - 'A Sand County Almanac'

This weeks Green Thought is taken from Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac ( written in the 30’s and 40’s).

(From ‘The Land Ethic’ in ‘A Sand County Almanac’.)

‘quit thinking about decent land-use as solely an economic problem. Examine each question in terms of what is ethically and aesthetically right, as well as what is economically expedient. A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise’.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldo_Leopold

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Sand_County_Almanac

Monday 4 July 2011

George Orwell’s ‘The Road to Wigan Pier’

Today’s Green Thought comes from George Orwell’s ‘The Road to Wigan Pier’ (1937).

The tendency of mechanical progress is to frustrate the human need for effort and creation….(and) the logical end of mechanical progress is to reduce the human being to something resembling a brain in a bottle. The implied objective of ‘progress’ is – not exactly, perhaps, the brain in the bottle, but at any rate some frightful subhuman depth of softness and helplessness.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Orwell