That's one of the ironies of our time: Right when we're on the edge of serious improvements in health care, we're also cooking the planet.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the paradox of advancing health care while simultaneously harming the environment.
Kim Stanley Robinson reflects on the ironic situation of modern society where significant strides in health care and medical advancements are being made at a time when human activities are severely damaging the planet. This juxtaposition raises important ethical and environmental concerns about sustainability and the impact of progress on future generations.
In practice
In a discussion about the future of medicine at a conference, this quote could be used to emphasize the need for environmentally friendly health practices.
Economics was like psychology, a pseudoscience trying to hide that fact with intense theoretical hyperelaboration. And gross domestic product was one of those unfortunate measurement concepts, like inches or the British thermal unit, that ought to have been retired long before.
If the amount of money going into the war economy were invested in landscape restoration, we would be in a far more positive position. It may get a little dire before we pull together, but I think when the prosperous nations, and in particular the U.S., realize they're wrecking their own kids' lives, there will be a mass change in value.
If there is anything that can bind the heavenly mind of man to this dreary exile of our earthly home and can reconcile us with our fate so that one can enjoy living,-then it is verily the enjoyment of the mathematical sciences and astronomy.
Civilization as it is known today could not have evolved, nor can it survive, without an adequate food supply.
Science has eradicated smallpox, can immunise against most previously deadly viruses, can kill most previously deadly bacteria. Theology has done nothing but talk of pestilence as the wages of sin.
A good hypothesis in science must have other properties than those of the phenomenon it is immediately invoked to explain, otherwise it is not prolific enough.
Evolution is a process of constant branching and expansion.
More women should actively participate in space flight. There are many well educated women working in the space industry; they are very good candidates.
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