Today the environmental movement has become opposed to issues of justice. You can see this in the way issues are framed. It's a permanent replay of jobs-versus-the-environment, in nature-versus-bread. These are extremely artificial dichotomies. Vandana Shiva More Quotes by Vandana Shiva More Quotes From Vandana Shiva We are either going to have a future where women lead the way to make peace with the Earth or we are not going to have a human future at all. Vandana Shiva making-peace earth-day way We share this planet, our home, with millions of species. Justice and sustainability both demand that we do not use more resources than we need. Vandana Shiva home justice needs The time has come to reclaim the stolen harvest and celebrate the growing and giving of good food as the highest gift and the most revolutionary act. Vandana Shiva growing revolutionary giving An organic farmer is the best peacemaker today, because there is more violence, more death, more destruction, more wars, through a violent industrial agricultural system. And to shift away from that into an agriculture of peace is what organic farming is doing. Vandana Shiva agriculture today war The liberation of the earth, the liberation of women, the liberation of all humanity is the next step of freedom we need to work for, and it's the next step of peace that we need to create. Vandana Shiva next-steps humanity needs I do not allow myself to be overcome by hopelessness, no matter how tough the situation. I believe that if you just do your little bit without thinking of the bigness of what you stand against, if you turn to the enlargement of your own capacities, just that itself creates new potential. Vandana Shiva overcoming believe thinking Diversity creates harmony, and harmony creates beauty, balance, bounty and peace in nature and society, in agriculture and culture, in science and in politics. Vandana Shiva agriculture diversity balance Seed is not just the source of life. It is the very foundation of our being. Vandana Shiva source-of-life foundation source I think the American people should see that the corporations abandoned them long ago. That people will have to build their own economies and rebuild democracy as a living democracy. The corporations belong to no land, no country, no people. They have no loyalty to anything apart from the base-line - their profits. And the profits today are on an unimaginable scale; it has become illegitimate, criminal profit - profits extracted at the cost of life. Vandana Shiva loyalty country thinking Uniformity is not nature's way; diversity is nature's way. Vandana Shiva diversity brotherhood nature When the forest is destroyed, when the river is dammed, when the biodiversity is stolen, when fields are waterlogged or turned saline because of economic activities, it is a question of survival for these people. So our environmental movements have been justice movements. Vandana Shiva justice rivers people Nature shrinks as capital grows. The growth of the market cannot solve the very crisis it creates. Vandana Shiva growth nature food We've moved from wisdom to knowledge, and now we're moving from knowledge to information, and that information is so partial – that we're creating incomplete human beings. Vandana Shiva creating information moving Genetic engineering has never been about saving the world, it's about controlling the world. Vandana Shiva engineering saving world In nature's economy the currency is not money, it is life. Vandana Shiva currency economy You cannot insert a gene you took from a bacteria into a seed and call it LIFE. You have not created life, instead you have only polluted it. Vandana Shiva bacteria genes seeds Water must be free for sustenance needs. Since nature gives water to us free of cost, buying and selling it for profit violates our inherent right to nature's gift and denies the poor of their human rights. Vandana Shiva rights giving water You are not Atlas carrying the world on your shoulder. It is good to remember that the planet is carrying you. Vandana Shiva atlas inspiring inspirational Gandhi is the other person. I believe Gandhi is the only person who knew about real democracy — not democracy as the right to go and buy what you want, but democracy as the responsibility to be accountable to everyone around you. Democracy begins with freedom from hunger, freedom from unemployment, freedom from fear, and freedom from hatred. To me, those are the real freedoms on the basis of which good human societies are based. Vandana Shiva real responsibility believe A single, one-dimensional way of thinking has created a monoculture of the mind. And the monoculture of the mind has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is the root of why we have pitted equity against ecology and sustainability against justice. Vandana Shiva self roots thinking
