Denis Hayes Quotes

#1. There are a few obvious consequences and perhaps one subtle possibility. One obvious thing is that, to stimulate the economy, President Obama has committed to creating millions of green jobs that will leave a legacy - much as Roosevelt's public works did during the new deal.

Denis Hayes

#2. When we held the first Earth Day, everyone said it was a success because of the huge turnout. It was probably the largest planned event across the country.

Denis Hayes

#3. We shouldn't fuel the future with the polluting methods of the past, ... We have the technology to power our future in ways that don't threaten our health or poison our planet. Let's choose to use it.

Denis Hayes

#4. Build high-speed, electrified trains over the most-traveled corridors. It'sreally hard to power carbon-free airplanes, but electrified trains are much easier. We'll be a half century behind the Japanese, but better late than never.

Denis Hayes

#5. We've made some heroic efforts, but the Earth as a whole is in worse shape today than 30 years ago, ... There's been 30 more years of greenhouses gases, species extinctions and population growth.

Denis Hayes

#6. When civilization stands at the edge of a cliff, a step forward doesn't make much sense.

Denis Hayes

#7. I would love to see a fundamental re-thinking of whether we truly want to be the world's largest debtor nation, feeding an insatiable desire for mall-crawling with cheaply made crap from all over the world.

Denis Hayes

#8. America has the technology and resources to meet all its energy needs while safeguarding the earth's climate. The urgent question now is, 'Do we have the will?' At least one city does, and I'm proud to live in it.

Denis Hayes

#9. Listen up, you couch potatoes: each recycled beer can saves enough electricity to run a television for three hours.

Denis Hayes

#10. We got everyone's attention, but we didn't solve any environmental problems.

Denis Hayes

#11. That said, I'm embarrassed and furious that so many coal-state Democrats in the U.S. Senate are paralyzing international progress to protect the short term interests of a dying industry that ravages the environment from mine to slag heap.

Denis Hayes

#12. I feel more confident than ever that the power to save the planet rests with the individual consumer.

Denis Hayes

#13. Earth Day gathered up those strands, and dozens more, and knitted them together in the public consciousness as "environmental" issues. The nation was pretty startled when 20 million people hit the streets. Congress, which had adjourned for the day to go back to its districts, was blown away.

Denis Hayes

#14. Under communism, prices were not allowed to reflect economic reality. Under capitalism, prices don't reflect ecological reality. In the long run, the capitalist flaw
if uncorrected
may prove to be the more catastrophic.

Denis Hayes

#15. the qualities ascribed to the cowboy are identical to those of the English knight.18

Denis Hayes

#16. Asbestos, EMFs, and CFCs have given us a degree of humility. When yesterday's "triumph of modern chemistry" turns out instead to be today's deadly threat to the global environment, it is legitimate to ask what else we don't know.

Denis Hayes

#17. There really wasn't an environmental movement 30 years ago. The Sierra Club national office in 1969 consisted of one full-time volunteer.

Denis Hayes

#18. We presently have the technology ... fuel cells, solar cells, hydrogen ... the opportunities are amazing for clean energy.

Denis Hayes

#19. I suppose I'd characterize myself as having a faith-based optimism. My faith is parental and Darwinian.

Denis Hayes

#20. It is already too late to avoid mass starvation

Denis Hayes

#21. An acre of windy prairie could produce between $4,000 and 10,000 worth of electricity per year - which is far more than the value of the land's crop of corn or wheat.

Denis Hayes

#22. By the year 2000, such renewable energy sources could provide 40 percent of the global energy budget; by 2025, humanity could obtain 75 percent of its energy from solar resources.

Denis Hayes

#23. The sunshine that strikes American roads each year contains more energy than all the fossil fuels used by the entire world.

Denis Hayes

#24. These are not exhortations from overwrought extremists, but carefully phrased warnings from some of the world's finest scientists,

Denis Hayes

#25. There was almost a universal acceptance of unhealthy conditions. Sulfur dioxide in smokestack emissions were the price, or smell, of prosperity,

Denis Hayes

#26. Whether you are buying a car or casting a ballot, choosing a job or planning a family, follow your moral compass. Don't let others define you. Don't let advertisers mold you; don't let zealots ensnare you; don't let conventional wisdom trap you ... you are part of a much larger whole.

Denis Hayes

#27. Zeroes are important. A million seconds ago was last week. A billion seconds ago, Richard Nixon resigned the presidency. A trillion seconds ago was 30,000 BC, and early humans were using stone tools.

Denis Hayes

#28. As a student of conservation biology, I believe that characteristics with survival value will ultimately prevail. There is no survival value in pessimism. If you think failure is inevitable, that view will probably become self-fulfilling.

Denis Hayes