Sharp Quotes
By D-Sector
Editorial Team
Interesting,
profound or out of the box comments on various
issues.
"We must look to the consequences of our own demand and consumption: the energy we use, the kind of cars we drive, the products we buy, the food we eat, and our individual impact on the natural world."
- Dennis Kucinich, US Congressman (D-OH)
"Owing to the gap between creation and dissemination of knowledge, agriculture output has not converted into income for farmers. The distance is worrying since this sector remains critical to the well-being of India."
- Dr Abhijit Sen, Member, Planning Commission of India
"Repression and injustice are flourishing in the global justice gap, condemning millions of people to abuse, oppression and poverty."
- Claudio Cordone, interim Secretary General of Amnesty International
"In too many places, children are seen as commodities, in too many instances they are treated as criminals instead of being protected as victims, and there are too many conflicts where children are used as soldiers, spies or human shields."
- Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General, United Nations
"I cannot be oblivious to the larger development agenda of the government. I cannot perennially be putting spokes in every wheel."
- Jairam Ramesh, Indian Minister for Environment and Forests, indicating pressure on him to put economic growth before environment protection
"Biodiversity loss is moving ecological systems ever closer to a tipping point beyond which they will no longer be able to fulfill their vital functions"
- Ban Ki-moon, United Nations' Secretary-General
"Many economies remain blind to the huge value of the diversity of animals, plants and other life forms and their role in healthy and functioning ecosystems from forests and freshwaters to soils, oceans and even the atmosphere"
- Achim Steiner, UN Environment Programme Executive Director
"Let us be very clear. Mining activity cannot come to a halt. But illegal mining must stop."
- Jairam Ramesh, Minister of Environment and Forests, Govt of India
"I had to live everyday with the consequences of the loss of capacity to produce a rice crop in Haiti to feed those people because of what I did; nobody else. … It may have been good for some of my farmers in Arkansas, but it has not worked. It was a mistake."
- Bill Clinton, former USA President, apologizing for flooding Haiti with cheap American rice in the mid 1990s which destroyed farm livelihoods in Haiti
"New Mining policy will be oriented towards development, towards common people on whose land they make their property. Mind that, it's on their land. Ultimately, they are not getting anything. No one is going to accept that."
- Bijoy Krishna Handique, Minister of mines, Govt of India
"For Bolivians and for indigenous peoples, the idea is to live well. And this term ‘living well’ is important, as opposed to ‘living better’ — living well. Capitalism, to live better, pillages resources in an unbridled manner, exploits the children of Mother Earth, which are the human beings, destroys nature, squandering. It causes so much damage to humanity. Hence the debate is on the structural causes of global warming."
- Evo Morales, Bolivia's President on climate change
"The people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki -- and especially the hibakusha -- know too well the horror of nuclear war. It must never be repeated."
- Ban Ki-Moon, UN Secretary-General on nuclear disarmament
"It is irksome that the best articles on Himalayan glaciology are from Ohio State University."
- Jairam Ramesh, India's Minister for Environment and Forests
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