Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn't it our responsibility to bring this about?
Interpretation
The quote suggests that the collapse of industrialized civilizations may be necessary for the hope of a better planet, urging us to take responsibility for this change.
Maurice Strong's quote reflects a critical view of industrialization's impact on the environment, positing that the current civilization's structure may be detrimental to the planet's health. It challenges us to rethink our role in society and the ecological crisis, implying that we might need to take drastic actions to ensure a sustainable future for the Earth. The quote provokes thought about our collective responsibilities toward environmental issues and the potential necessity of radical change to attain a healthier planet.
In practice
During a conference on climate change, this quote can be used to provoke thought about our current trajectory and the need for drastic measures.
The concept of national sovereignty has been an immutable, indeed sacred, principle of international relations. It is a principle which will yield only slowly and reluctantly to the new imperatives of global environmental cooperation. It is simply not feasible for sovereignty to be exercised unilaterally by individual nation states, however powerful. The global community must be assured of environmental security.
After all, sustainability means running the global environment - Earth Inc. - like a corporation: with depreciation, amortization and maintenance accounts. In other words, keeping the asset whole, rather than undermining your natural capital.
A citizen of an advanced industrialized nation consumes in six months the energy and raw materials that have to last the citizen of a developing country his entire lifetime.
Sometimes there's just no way to hold back the river.
If women would today would rise en masse and demand their emancipation, the men would be compelled to grant it.
A careless way of sauntering across the earth and breaking open its treasures, a terrible dependency on sucking out the world's best juices for ourselves-these may also be our enemies. The changes we dread most may contain our salvation.
We have a structural problem because you can simultaneously understand the medium to long-term risks of climate change and also come to the conclusion that it is in your short-term economic interest to invest in oil and gas. Which is why, you know, anybody who tells you that the market is going to fix this on its own is lying to you.
In some ways, [the student anti-sweatshop movement] is like the anti-apartheid movement, except that in this case its striking at the core of the relations of exploitation. Much of this was initiated by Charlie Kernaghan of the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights.
Change will not come from above, it will come from below, from the small and medium size businesspeople. They do dare to show their faces. They applaud us and help us financially.
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