Maurice Strong Quotes (36 Quotes)

I've developed a huge regard for Toyota for its environmental awareness, for its immense commitment to research and development in this field, and for its leadership in developing hybrids which others are now following.

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.

We need what I have often called an ecological approach to the management of these resources and we do not have that now. We have the inertia of past habits, unsustainable habits.

I believe we are going to move into a situation where the more effective conferences will be smaller, more specialized, more focused, with occasional large gatherings to get the attention of the larger world.

The United Nations has concentrated on helping the international community to prepare an economic package for the North that could help resolve the nuclear issue.

One of the things that I've always thought I would like to do is to develop an environmental index. Then people can measure their own environmental performance on an index as they do in other ways.

Ted Turner is still a leader. And he sets a great example. His ability financially has been reduced, but his influence and his example still is an important asset to the whole environmental movement.

We may get to the point where the only way of saving the world will be for industrial civilization to collapse.

Don't accept that you can't make a difference. Because if you can't make a difference, you won't make a difference, and if you put a multiplier on that we will continue on an unsustainable pathway.

Soon you'll be able to buy a hybrid four-wheel drive. They are not here in Canada yet, but they soon will be and they are available in Japan.

We must, from here on in, all go down the same path... There may not be another chance.

We in the industrialized world make a greater difference because our ecological footprint, our impact on the condition of the environment, is 40 to 50 times larger than that of people in the developing world.

I do wish I could assist my many friends and colleagues in all the organizations I belong to, to remake the political and economic landscape.

Well they do have a use, but we should never believe that any international conference is going to suddenly solve problems like the condition of the global environment.

Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse Isn't it our responsibility to bring about

We're either going to save Ihe world or no one will be saved.

Not to say that corporations are perfect today, but even grand corporations like Dupont have made immense progress in translating some of their past environmentally damaging practices into new profit opportunities.

I was with Ted Turner when he came to see Kofi Annan - the Secretary-General of the UN - to announce his decision to put $1 billion to the service of UN projects and programs.

Also, it is interesting that developing countries, with China and India perhaps in the lead, where the future of the global environment will be decided are now on board with the case for sustainable development.

Licences to have babies incidentally is something that I got in trouble for some years ago for suggesting even in Canada that this might be necessary at some point, at least some restriction on the right to have a child.

A shift is necessary toward lifestyles less geared to environmental damaging consumption patterns.

The latest scientific studies make it clear that some of the main, traditional sources of fish are in various states of depletion and are endangered.

I am President of the UN created University for Peace, which has a strong commitment to the relationship between peace, security and the environment. I meet with young people around the world and I always come away enthused and encouraged.

We owe at least this much to future generations, from whom we have borrowed a fragile planet called Earth.

The tendency is to keep doing things the way you have done them.

I am on the board of corporations who contribute both to environmental problems and their solutions. And I am on the NGO side: the Earth Council and other organizations.

The Prime Minister of India, at a meeting that I co-chaired a few months ago, stated that any development that is not sustainable is not development.

So, what we do as individuals matters. It adds up.

If you want to maintain a sustainable supply of fish you have to farm the fish, rather than mine them. So putting your money into fishing fleets that are going to exacerbate the problem by over-fishing is not the way to preserve the underlying asset.

Inertia is a powerful force in human and political affairs.

In addition to this, they already have a fuel cell car on the road in Japan. It is subsidized from within the corporation because they are still at a high cost.

What pleases me most is that sustainable development is on almost everybody's agenda now.

It is perfectly proper for NGOs to seek corporate support. But it is also important that, in doing so, they not sell their soul for that support.

I am convinced the prophets of doom have to be taken seriously.

Toyota was the first to put a commercial fuel cell powered car on the road, and I have no doubt that Toyota will continue to be in the front lines in the development of competitive fuel cell vehicles.

Nevertheless, the concept of sustainable development is now known - even amongst those who haven't accepted it - and it's recognized, debated and followed by an increasing number of businesses.