You don't protect the world's forests by coming out with big picture commitments for their own sake. You can only (do it) by giving people who live in and depend on those forests a proper economic stake in that set of decisions. Jonathon Porritt More Quotes by Jonathon Porritt More Quotes From Jonathon Porritt Peace, non-violence, human rights and the environment - if only everybody saw these as the seamless whole that they are Jonathon Porritt futurevisionrights The future will be green, or not at all. This truth lies at the heart of humankind's most pressing challenge: to learn to live in harmony with the Earth on a genuinely sustainable basis. Jonathon Porritt earth-dayheartlying The future will be green, or not at all Jonathon Porritt futuregreenvision If something is sustainable, it means we can go on doing it indefinitely. If it isn't, we can't Jonathon Porritt futurevisionmean Any regeneration project that fails to put environmental and social benefits at its very heart is unlikely to achieve anything more than a very short-lived spasm of spurious prosperity Jonathon Porritt futurevisionheart We're never going to scare people into living more sustainably! We have to be able to demonstrate just how dynamic and aspirational such a world could be Jonathon Porritt futurevisionpeople A combination of very rapid population growth over the last 50 years and reckless economic growth during the same time has stored up massive problems for societies the world over. No nation is immune. The scientific evidence tells us all we need to know: carry on with business-as-usual growth-at-all-costs, and we're stuffed Jonathon Porritt growthusualyears Many ideas have struggled over the centuries to dominate the planet. Fascism. Communism. Democracy. Religion. But only one has achieved total supremacy. Its compulsive attractions rob its followers of reason and good sense. It has created unsustainable inequalities and threatened to tear apart the very fabric of society. More powerful than any religion, it has reached into every corner of the globe. It is consumerism Jonathon Porritt futurepowerfulideas As more and more people wake up to the fact that further growth does not necessarily bring improvements in quality of life (and often exactly the opposite), sustainability is going to become one of the key characteristics with which places want to be associated. Jonathon Porritt keysbusinessopposites Keeping people on side is a precondition of making any progress on sustainability issues Jonathon Porritt futureissuespeople ...the core values that underpin sustainable development - interdependence, empathy, equity, personal responsibility and intergenerational justice - are the only foundation upon which any viable vision of a better world can possibly be constructed Jonathon Porritt empathyresponsibilityjustice Climate change is not an environmental issue, but much more to do with security and economics Jonathon Porritt environmentalissuesclimate I am unapologetic about asking people to connect up their own responsibility for their total environmental footprint and how they decide to procreate and how many children they think are appropriate. Jonathon Porritt responsibilitychildrenthinking What may be possible for a minority of humankind, albeit at great cost, simply cannot work for the humankind. Our kind of progress depends on lacerating the Earth,on gouging out its riches, on stripping is life-sustaining skin of soil and forest Jonathon Porritt progressminoritiesskins We are now running out of time, and the question now is not what is happening to the climate, but how bad will it be before the world starts doing enough? Jonathon Porritt climaterunningworld ...deficit consumption is, in effect, drawing down on the capital entitlements of future generations Jonathon Porritt futuredrawingvision The World Health Organization recently published some data showing that each overweight person causes and additional one tonne of CO2 to be emitted every year. With one billion people overweight around the world-of whom at least 300 million are obese-that's an additional one billion tonnes. Jonathon Porritt dataorganizationyears The huge arrogance of the companies developing GMO crops and their determination to destroy the line of accountability which links the developer to the product is breath-taking. When something goes wrong, as it inevitably will, there will be a great benefit to those who have taken a stance against genetically modified organisms. Jonathon Porritt gmosdeterminationtaken I think we will work our way towards a position that says that having more than two children is irresponsible. Jonathon Porritt twochildrenthinking ...living more sustainably means living happier, more balanced and potentially more fulfilled lives than most of us 'choose' to live today, whatever Jeremy Clarkson may have to say about that! Jonathon Porritt futurevisionmean
