Important
Quotes
These
quotes were gathered from many reliable sources.
They are offered as tools to use in whatever way you chose
to participate in the good work of righting what we know is
wrong.
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"In Our
Every Deliberation, We Must Consider the Impact of Our Decisions
on the next Seven Generations."
From the Great Law of
the Iroquois Nation
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The element carbon has become
one of the largest waste products of modern civilization.
During 1988, some 5.66 billion tons were produced by the combustion
of fossil fuels - more than a ton for each human being. Another
1 to 2 billion tons were released by felling and burning forests.
Each ton of carbon emitted into the air results in 3.7 tons
of carbon dioxide (co2). Thus, at least 24 billion tons of
co2 entered the atmosphere from these processes in 1988 alone.
United States, is by far the most carbon intensive country
in the world. With less than 5 percent of the world's population,
the U.S. causes 24 percent of the world's carbon emissions,
at more than 5 tons of carbon (18.5 tons of co2) per person,
compared to the United Kingdom at 2.73 tons carbon per person,
Italy at 1.78, France 1.7, Mexico 0.96, China 0.56, Indonesia
0.16.
From Worldwatch Institute Paper 91,
Oct 1989:
"Slowing Global Warming: a Worldwide Stragedy",
by Christopher Flavin
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United States emitted almost
1.5 billion tons of carbon (5.2 billion tons of co2) in 1995
from fossil-fuel burning, gas flaring and cement manufacturing,
5.6 tons of carbon (20.7 tons co2) per U.S. resident.
Oak Ridge National Laboratories, 1997
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The single biggest volcanic eruption
in modern times was Mount Tambora in the Java Sea in 1815.
It blasted about 100 million tons of carbon dioxide into
the atmosphere. In comparison, by burning fossil fuels,
human beings are now putting as much carbon dioxide into
the air, each year, as one hundred Tamboras.
From "The Next One Hundred Years",
by Jonathan Weiner
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"Dense clouds of pollution
are turning Earth into a gray planet. It is much heavier
than during my first space flight ten years ago," says
Paul Weitz, commander of the space shuttle Challenger on
its maiden flight in March 1983. " Our environment
is apparently fast going downhill. We're fouling our own
nest. The crud level gets higher and higher."
CHICAGO TRIBUNE, April 24, 1983
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People will look back and say,
'What in the world were they doing? How could they have
been so immoral as to poison it all, wreck it all, use it
all up, occupy it all and squander it? With no thought for
the future?"
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Lighting uses about a fourth of all
electricity used in the U.S., consuming the energy produced
by 120 large powerplants (about 4/5 directly and 1/5 in
extra airconditioning energy to remove unwanted heat). By
using the most efficient sources of electric light in the
most efficient ways, and by capturing more of the daylight
reaching our homes and businesses, we can profitably reduce
our electricity consumption by up to 90 percent.
Each CFL (compact fluorescent lamp) we replace for an incandescent
bulb prevents the emission of 1,000-2,000 pounds of global
warming carbon dioxide from powerplants, and 8-16 pounds
of sulphur dioxide that causes acid rain. Each CFL also
eliminates the need to produce and dispose of up to a dozen
incandescent bulbs. In addition, each CFL saves you roughly
$25-50 over the lifetime of the bulb. As Amory Lovins puts
it: "This isn't just a free lunch, it's a lunch you're
being paid to eat!"
The Rocky Mountain Institute building in Snowmass, Colorado
uses no fossil fuels, about one-tenth of the amount of electricity
used in comparable buildings, and about one-half the water.
There is no sacrifice of comfort or convenience. All savings
are achieved by the use of solar energy, excellent insulation,
and efficient electrical devices and toilets. The net additional
cost of the energy-saving features (after subtracting the
savings from not needing a furnace) is on the order of $6,000.
Compared with normal local building practices and with the
cheapest conventional fuels (wood and propane), the building
saves more than $7,100 worth of energy per year. This saving
repays its own cost in about ten months.
From Rocky Mountain Institute
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During the first half
of 1991, tankers spilled 450,000 tons (110 million gallons)
around the world, 10 times the amount spilled by Exxon Valdex
in Alaska.
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The Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge in Alaska is estimated to contain roughly 3.2 billion
barrels of oil, approximately the amount the U.S. consumes
in 6 months.
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Transportation consumes 63% of
total oil used in the U.S.
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"The total energy consumed
by U.S. agriculture per year is equivalent to more than 30
billion gallons of gasoline (714,285,000 barrels). This represents
more than 5x the energy content of the food produced."
THE AMERICAN FARM, by Maisie and Richard Conrad
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"292 million barrels of
oil per year are used to make chemical fertilizers, while
millions of tons of manure from cows, poultry and swine are
left to pollute the nations groundwater and surface waters."
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Price supports, soil-bank arrangements,
direct payments, export controls, research-and-development
funds, disaster-assistance payments, marketing agreements,
tax write-offs - all have been designed to work chiefly to
the benefit of the largest, usually corporate, farmers. The
Farmers Home Administration underwrites loans every year overwhelmingly
for chemical-based, machine-intensive, monocultural, large-scale
farms, thus setting the pattern for local banks and credit
institutions, and also for equipment and chemical suppliers.
And because federal funds have accounted one way or another
for between 20 and 40 percent of all farm income since 1955
- easily the largest single income - what the Federal government
does is the single greatest element determining the character
of American agriculture.
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Like high-input agriculture,
genetic engineering is often justified as a humane technology,
one that feeds more people with better food. In both cases,
nothing could be further from the truth.
Monsanto has patented cotton seed containing genes for Bt
(Bacillus thuringiensis). Advertised as being effective against
bollworms without the use of additional pesticides, 1,800,000
acres in five southern states were planted with this transgenic
seed in 1996, at a cost to the farmers of not only the seed
itself but an additional $32-per-acre "technology fee"
paid to Monsanto. Heavy bollworm infestation occurred in spite
of the special seed, forcing farmers to spray expensive insecticides
anyway. Those farmers who wanted to use the seeds from surviving
plants to replace the damaged crop found that Monsanto's licensing
agreement, like most others in the industry, permitted them
only one planting.
Monsanto also manufactures rBGH (recombinant bovine growth
hormone) which is injected into lactating cows to make them
yield more milk. This is done despite our nation's milk glut
and despite the fact that rBGH will probably accelerate the
demise of the small dairy farm, since only large farms are
able to take on the extra debt for the more expensive feeds,
high-tech feed-management systems, and the added veterinary
care that go along with its use. The substance causes cows
to suffer many problems: bloat, diarrhea, diseases of the
feet and knees, feeding disorders, fevers, reduced hemoglobin
levels, cystic ovaries, uterine pathology, reduced pregnancy
rates, smaller calves, and, most common of all, mastitis.
Cows treated with rBGH require more antibiotics, which can
transmit to the milk, and which then accelerate the antibiotic
resistance among bacteria that cause human disease.
From "A Cruel and Transient Agriculture", lecture
by David Ehrenfeld, professor of biology at Rutger's University,
author of "Beginning Again: People and Nature in the
New Millenium."
In Harper's Magazine, October 1997
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The U.S. National Research Council (NRC)
estimates that no information on toxic effects is available
for 79 percent of the more than 48,500 chemicals listed in
EPA's inventory of toxic substances. Fewer than a fifth have
been tested for acute effects, and fewer than a tenth for
chronic (for example, cancer-causing), reproductive, or mutagenic
effects. Pesticides are purposefully designed to alter or
kill living organisms, and they have generally received more
extensive testing, but there, too, serious gaps remain.
Between 400,000 and 2 million pesticide poisonings occur worldwide
each year, most of them among farmers in developing countries.
The 10,000 to 40,000 such poisonings that are thought to result
in death each year dwarf the 2000 deaths caused by the toxic
gas leak at the pesticide manufacturing plant in Bhopal, India.
While an entrenched agrochemicals industry continues to propound
the virtues and necessity of reliance on pesticides, the facts
cry out for new solutions to pest problems.
As of 1984, USDA had supervised non-toxic IPM (Integrated
Pest Management) on 40 different crops, collectively covering
11 million hectares. Farmers have benefited economically.
For instance, a Texas farmer had net returns per hectare averaging
$282 higher than other cotton farmers. Apple growers in New
York and almond growers in California, using IPM techniques,
had per-hectare profits $528 and $769 greater, respectively,
than nonusers.
From Worldwatch Institute Paper 79, "Defusing
the Toxic Threat: Controlling Pesticides and Industrial Wastes"
by Sandra Postel.
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"Without the modern inputs of chemicals,
pesticides, antibiotics, herbicides we simply could not do
the job of feeding America. Before we go back to organic agriculture
in this country, somebody must decide which 50 million Americans
we are going to let starve or go hungry."
Earl Butz, former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture
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CHEMICALS LEFT AS RESIDUES ON FOOD CROPS:
ON APPLES: Benomyl, Captafol, Captan, Chlordimeform, Daminozide,
Dicofol, Dinoseb, Folpet, Lead Arsenate, Mancozeb, Maneb,
Methomyl, Metiram, O-Phenylphenol, Permethrin, Phosmet, Pronamide,
Silvex, Simazine, Toxaphene, Zineb.
ON TOMATOES: Benomyl, Calcium Arsenate, Captafol, Captan,
Chlorimeform, Chlorothalonil, Daminozide, DDVP, Dicofol, Folpet,
Heptachlor, Lead Arsenate, Mancozeb, Methomyl, Metiram, O-Phenylphenol,
Parathion, Permethrin, Phosmet, Toxaphene, Zineb.
From: "A Study of Carcinogenic Pesticides Allowed in
Sixteen Foods and Found in Water: Guess What's Coming to Dinner",
by Hind and Spink, U.S. Public Interest Research Group, Washington,
D.C. 1989.
Published in by LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS in
THE NATIONAL VOTER, Oct/Nov 1989.
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In 1977 the Rodale Research Institute
began a study on the effectiveness of alternative farming
techniques. Employing a system of crop rotation, animal
manures, and soil-conserving techniques, they successfully
reduced costs by 10 percent, soil loss by 50 percent, and
produced crops that equaled or exceeded comparable conventional
systems.
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In Florida, it is estimated
that at least three-quarters of all homes are treated with
pesticides four to six times a year, and half the lawns
are treated with herbicides.
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United States generated about
266 million tons of hazardous wastes in 1983, more than
one ton for every American. About two-thirds of this waste
is disposed of in or on the land through the use of injection
wells, and lagoons, pits, ponds and landfills, which inevitably
eventually leak into the nations groundwater, causing widespread
contamination.
From Congressional Budget Office (CBO)
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"The chemical industry
discharges an estimated 68 million pounds of toxic chemicals
directly into U.S. surface waters each year, and 1.6 billion
pounds into public sewage systems."
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The military dumped radioactive wastes for 2 decades into
the National Marine Sanctuary off San Fransisco, damaging
the richest marine habitat on the west coast. But 95% of
all radioactivity emitted by nuclear wastes came from the
civilian sector - primarily from nuclear power plants. In
the 90's it was three times more than in the 80's and 20
times more than in the 70's. Despite this increase, not
a single one of the 25 nations producing nuclear power had
found a solution to the nuclear waste problem that stood
up under close scrutiny.
For decades, in their haste to build nuclear weapons, U.S.
weapons manufacturers vented nuclear wastes directly into
the air or dumped it on the ground, where it found its way
into the groundwater. Radioactive wastes ended up in the
Colombia River, contaminating shellfish hundreds of kilometers
away in the Pacific Ocean. These facilities accumulated
some 379,000 cubic meters (379 million kilograms, 833 million
pounds) of liquid high-level nuclear waste from reprocessing,
which was emitting 1.1 billion curies of radioactivity at
the end of 1989. The wastes are stored in steel tanks at
the Hanford Reservation in Washington State and the Savannah
River Plant in South Carolina. Tanks have a history of leaking
radioactive liquids and accumulating internal buildups of
explosive hydrogen gas. Although DOE pledged to clean up
these facilities (at a projected cost of $300 billion),
it has downplayed the severity of the problems to government
regulators and Congressional overseers.
From Worldwatch Paper 106, "Nuclear
Wastes: The Problem That Won't Go Away", by Nicholas
Lenssen.
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"No matter how far removed
from the centers of industrial activity, people are unable
to escape exposure to toxic chemicals. PCBs and DDT, for
example, can be detected in the soil and in the bodies of
wild animals almost anywhere in the world, as well as in
people living in regions of the world still untouched by
industry.
The latest research on dioxin and related toxins indicates
that these compounds are capable of wreaking silent havoc
on the endocrine system, the immune system, the nervous
system, and reproductive functions of animals at levels
of exposure that are perilously close to those encountered
by the average American."
World Watch, April 1993
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In Holland, Dioxin and Furan
levels in milk from farms near municipal waste incinerators
was found to be 3x higher than normal. The milkfat was separated
and sent to hazardous waste incinerators to be destroyed.
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Dead Beluga whales in the St.Lawrance
estuary were found to be so laden with toxic chemicals that
they qualified as hazardous wastes.
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"U.S. industry generates
about 90 billion pounds of hazardous wastes yearly. Less than
10% is disposed of safely."
EPA, Reported in Environmental Action, March
1980
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Love Canal, on the Niagara river, became
a symbol of the problem of hazardous waste dumps in the United
States. The four largest dumps hold enough hazardous wastes
to fill 10,000 tanker trucks.
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An EPA study completed in the early
eighties found that more than 70 percent of the 80,000 pits,
ponds and lagoons containing hazardous chemicals did not have
liners to guard against seepage. The geologic settings of
nearly half the sites were such that any seepage that did
occur would quickly reach the groundwater. All factors considered,
72,000 impoundments - 90 percent of the total - are thought
to pose a threat of groundwater contamination.
The clean-up of some 10,000 toxic waste sites in the U.S.
is estimated to cost over $100 billion dollars, roughly $400
for every U.S. resident.
Worldwatch Paper 79: Defusing the Toxic Threat:
Controlling Pesticides and industrial Wastes, by Sandra Postel
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Approximately 65 percent of North America's
uranium deposits lie inside Native American reservation. But
these reservations have been home to 80 percent of all uranium
mining and 100 percent of the processing, largely because
reservations fall outside the jurisdiction of most state and
federal environmental laws, and reservation residents have
no authority to make their own protective regulations.
With such large reserves of the valuable ore, and given the
federal government's historical commitment to nuclear development,
many Native American communities should by now have become
quite wealthy. But thanks largely to federal land managers,
whose goal was to provide preferred companies with the cheapest
possible exploitation rights, Native Americans have tended
to receive as little as 3.4 percent of the market value for
uranium extracted from their lands. Native Americans also
have the lowest per capita income of any demographic group
in America and the highest per capita rate of malnutrition,
disease, and infant mortality.
The Navajo community in particular has suffered from cancer,
respiratory ailmants, miscarriages and birth defects caused
by radiation. In almost all cases, the people who worked in
the mines never received protective clothing or medical checkups
or even basic information about the risks of exposure to uranium,
and virtually no victims have ever gained any type of compensation.
To this day, many Native American communities have to live
with illegally high levels of lead, thorium, radium and other
toxins that have seeped into their water and soil from tailings
ponds and processig plants.
Worldwatch Institute, Paper 127: Eco-Justice:
Linking Human Rights and the Environment, by Aaron Sachs.
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In 1990 Australians experienced a 20%
increase in UV radiation, and had the world's highest rate
of skin cancer. In Queensland, more than 75% of people who
had reached the age of 65 had some form of skin cancer.
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"At the turn of the century, when
I entered the Army, the target was one enemy casualty at the
end of a sword or rifle or bayonet. Then came the machine
gun, designed to kill by the dozen. After that, the heavy
artillery, raining death by the hundreds. Then the aerial
bomb, to strike by the thousands, followed by the atom explosion
to reach the hundreds of thousands. Now, electronics and other
processes of the sciences have raised the destructive potential
to encompass millions. And with restless brains they work
feverishly in dark labs to find the means to destroy all at
one blow."
General Douglas MacArthur.
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In the United States, about 70 percent
of all public R&D (Research and Development) outlays goes
to the military. In Israel, about the same, in France about
30 percent, in Italy, Canada and Argentina about 8 percent.
From Worldwatch Paper 89, Michael Renner,
1989
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In the 90's, children's TV shows contained
an average of 26 acts of violence per hour, up from 18 acts
of violence in the 80's.
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The U.S. military budget is roughly
$350 billion per year (this was back around 1997), more than
one trillion dollars for three years. To put this into a perspective
that our minds can grasp I offer the following quote found
by William Sloane Coffin in an airline magazine:
"Let's talk a trillion. For one trillion dollars, you
could build a $75,000 house, place it on $5,000 worth of land,
furnish it with $10,000 worth of furniture, put a $10,000
car in the garage and give all this to each and every family
in Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Colorado and Iowa.
Having done this, you would still have enough left to build
a $10 million hospital and a $10 million library in each of
250 cities and towns throughout the six-state region. After
having done all that, you would still have enough money left
to build 500 schools at $10 million each for the communities
in the region, and after having done all that you would still
have enough left from the original trillion to put aside,
at 10% annual interest, a sum of money that would pay a salary
of $25,000 per year for an army of 10,000 nurses, the same
salary for an army of 10,000 teachers, and an annual cash
allowance of $5000 for each and every family throughout the
six-state region - not just for one year, but forever.
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"....the principal
threat to our future come less from the relationship of nation
to nation, more from the relationship between ourselves and
the natural systems on which we depend."
Lester Brown, Worldwatch Institute
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In the Philippines, 39 children
filed a lawsuit calling on the environment minister to cancel
all timber licenses. The youngsters said they were acting
on behalf of their own generation and those in the future.
37 million acres of virgin forest had already been destroyed,
leaving only 2.1 million standing. Devastation of the same
magnitude is happening in Russia, in the northwest and northeast
USA, in Sweden, as well as in Africa, South America and New
Guinea.
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"Along with the possibility
of the extinction of mankind by nuclear war, the central problem
of our age has become the contamination of man's total environment
with substances of incredible potential harm - substances
that accumulate in the tissues of plants and animals and even
penetrate the germ cells to shatter or alter the very material
of heredity upon which the shape of the future depends."
SILENT SPRING, Rachel Carson
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"So important are
insects and other land-dwelling arthropods that if all were
to disappear, humanity probably could not last more than a
few months. Most of the amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals
would crash to extinction about the same time. Next would
go the bulk of the flowering plants and with them the physical
structure of most of the forests and other terrestrial habitats
of the world."
From DIVERSITY OF LIFE, by E.O. Wilson
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"If we do not change the
direction we are going, we are likely to end up where we are
headed."
CHINESE PROVERB
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"Some of the changes needed
will be relatively simple to implement. Others will be more
difficult. But all will require the courage to see things
as they are, to avoid deceiving ourselves, to train ourselves
to recognize when sophisticated imbecilities are substituted
for serious analysis."
"Typically, we cite hugely inflated estimates of the
expense involved in changing our current policies, with no
analysis whatsoever of the expense associated with the impact
of the changes that will occur if we do nothing."
"When future generations wonder how we could go along
with our daily routines in silent complicity with collective
destruction of the earth, will we, like the Unfaithful Servant,
claim that we did not notice these things because we were
morally asleep?
From EARTH IN THE BALANCE, by Al Gore
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"Have we fallen into
a mezmerized state that makes us accept as inevitable that
which is inferior or detrimental, as though having lost the
will or the vision to demand that which is good?"
Rachel Carson
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A sustainable society is one
that satisfies its needs without jeopordizing the prospects
of future generations.
From Saving the Planet, Worldwatch Environmental
Alert Series
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If we want to realize the American Dream
we must first wake up.
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"Never doubt that
a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change
the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has."
Margaret Mead
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"The
darker the epoch in which we live, the more we must love it,
penetrate it with our love, until we have displaced the heavy
matter standing in the way of the light which shines from
the other side."
Walter Rathenau
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The truth shall set us
free.
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Go within to find out.
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"Go placidly among
the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be
in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good
terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly,
and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too
have their story. Avoid loud and aggressive persons, for they
are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare yourself with
others you may become vain or bitter, for always there will
be greater and lesser persons than yourself."
On the wall of an old church in a small Scottish
village.
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"Never before have
the potentials for humanity been so great, nor have the dangers
ever been so extreme."
Peter Russell
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"Whatever you do
may seem insignificant, but it is very important that you
do it."
Gandhi
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Let us
never forget :
We Have a Choice.
Let us
never forget:
In Our Every
Deliberation,
We Must Consider the Impact of Our Decisions on the Next
Seven Generations.
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