Karen Bartle

“There is no environment "out there" that is separate from us. We can't manage our impact on the environment if we are our surroundings. Indigenous people are absolutely correct: we are born of the earth and constructed from the four sacred elements of earth, air, fire and water. (Hindus list these four and add a fifth element, space.)”
― David Suzuki, The Sacred Balance: Rediscovering Our Place in Nature

“You needn’t be confused about which “expert” to believe, just talk to elders around you, people who have lived in your part of the world for the past seventy or eighty years. Ask them what they remember about the air, about other species, about the water, about neighbourhoods and communities, about caring between people and the ways they communicated and entertained each other. Our elders tell us of the immense changes that have occurred in the span of a single human life; all you have to do is to project the rate of change they have experienced into the future to get an idea of what might be left in the coming decades. Is this progress? Is this way of life sustainable?”
― David Suzuki, The Sacred Balance: Rediscovering Our Place in Nature

“If we humans are good at anything, it’s thinking we’ve got a terrific idea and going for it without acknowledging the potential consequences or our own ignorance.”
― David Suzuki

“The environment is so fundamental to our continued existence that it must transcend politics and become a central value of all members of society.”
― David Suzuki, The Sacred Balance: Rediscovering Our Place in Nature