Arnold Toynbee - A Study of History

The destruction which has overtaken a number of civilizations in the past has never been the work of any external agency, but has always been in the nature of an act of suicide.

This weeks green thought comes from the British historian Arnold Toynbee’s 1961 book A Study of History.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_J._Toynbee#Study_of_History

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

 

Vanadana Shiva - Outsourcing pollution and energy-intensive production

We can either destroy the conditions for human life on this planet while clinging to “free market” fundamentalism or we can secure our future and create climate justice by requiring that commerce works within the laws of ecological sustainability and within the laws of social justice.

Taken from Vanadana Shivas essay ‘Outsourcing pollution and energy-intensive production’ in the 2012 book The Energy Reader edited by Tom Butler, Daniel Lurch and George Wuerthner and published by The Foundation for Deep Ecology in collaboration with Watershed Media and the Post Carbon Institute.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Energy-Reader-ebook/dp/B00AXS5IRE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1370460662&sr=8-1&keywords=The+Energy+Reader

David Thoreau

A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.

 

This weeks green thought comes from the American author, poet, philosopher Henry David Thoreau

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

 

Ivan Illich - Deschooling Society

School is the advertising agency which makes you believe that you need the society as it is.

 

Taken from 1971 book Deschooling Society by the late Ivan Illich (1926 – 2002) an Austrian philosopher and "maverick social critic"

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

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

Samuel Langhorne Clemens

“civilization is the limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities.”

 

Todays Green Thought comes from Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835 -1910), better known by his pen name Mark Twain, the American author and humorist.

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