Friday, May 25, 2007

Rachel Carson Quotations On The Environment

Read these quotes by Rachel Carson about her perception and motherly feel for the Earth and it's environment. Note how she is long on emotionally evocative poetic prose, and short on facts. It is easy to make a connection from this to the modern environmentalist movement, and now what we call "being green".

We conveniently ignore the facts and reality of the world and we go with our "feelings". People "feel" the climate is warming. They "feel" sure it is causing the worst extremes of weather, and they "feel" certain "The End" is near unless we take drastic action soon. Listen to the words and phrases used by environmentalists. They all express a longing to protect, and be protected by a caring, loving Mother Earth. It is as if they all want to return to the safety of the womb rather than face the sometimes harsh realities of the real world.

Feelings don't make good laws; facts, good science, and cool-headed thinking do.
Peter


Rachel Carson Quotes
From Jone Johnson Lewis,Your Guide to Women's History.FREE Newsletter. Sign Up Now!

Rachel Carson (1907-1964)
Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring documenting the impacts of pesticides on ecology. Because of this book, Rachel Carson is often credited with reviving the environmentalist movement.
Selected Rachel Carson Quotations

• If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children, I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life.

• For all at last returns to the sea -- to Oceanus, the ocean river, like the everflowing stream of time, the beginning and the end.

• Those who dwell, as scientists or laymen, among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life.

If facts are the seeds that later produce knowledge and wisdom, then the emotions and the impressions of the senses are the fertile soil in which the seeds must grow.

• If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in.

• It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the earth and in the contemplation of her beauties to know of wonder and humility.

• Only within the moment of time represented by the present century has one species -- man -- acquired significant power to alter the nature of his world.

• Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.

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