Environmental Health Quotes & Sayings

The Environmental Protection Agency now warns us that indoor air pollution is the nation's number one environmental threat to health- and it's from two to ten times worse than outdoor air pollution. A child indoors is more susceptible to spore of toxic molds growing under that plush carpet; or bacteria or allergens carried by household vermin; or carbon monoxide, radon and lead dust. The allergen level of newer, sealed buildings can be as much as two hundred times greater than that of older structures. — Richard Louv

We need to stop using fossil fuels as soon as possible. Unfortunately, the two leading replacements of wind and solar have emerging health and environmental problems. — Steven Magee

While the rich reap most of the benefits of technological development, the poor bear an unequal burden of dealing with the consequences of the resulting increased pollution. The poor continue to live in greatest proximity to the sources of pollution, the infrastructure and machinery of industry. They work in the most polluted and physically dangerous workplaces. And these same individuals, living and working closest to the sources of environmental catastrophe, are also the ones most lacking decent health care. — James H. Cone

We all recognize that in recent decades, many important achievements have helped create a cleaner, healthier environment, yet our national needs in environmental health are not being fully met. — Samuel Wilson

Across the world, the lack of accountability for the harm to the environment and public health caused by conflict and military activities undermines global efforts to help fragile countries recover from armed conflicts — Widad Akreyi

We will instead have to measure our economy by the health of the ecosystems and human communities where we do our work. — Wendell Berry

Millions of people around the world suffer daily from the harmful health and environmental impacts caused by indoor cooking fires and inefficient cookstoves. Together with the Global Alliance on Clean Cookstoves, we are taking action to address this critical problem and to promote a cleaner, healthier environment. I am pleased to celebrate the launch of this Alliance and proud to say that agencies from across the U.S. Federal Government will continue to play an important role in this initiative. — Nancy Sutley

In Molecules of Emotion, Pert revealed how her study of information-processing receptors on nerve cell membranes led her to discover that the same "neural" receptors were present on most, if not all, of the body's cells. Her elegant experiments established that the "mind" was not focused in the head but was distributed via signal molecules to the whole body. As importantly, her work emphasized that emotions were not only derived through a feedback of the body's environmental information. Through self-consciousness, the mind can use the brain to generate "molecules of emotion" and override the system. While proper use of consciousness can bring health to an ailing body, inappropriate unconscious control of emotions can easily make a healthy body diseased, — Bruce H. Lipton

If radioactive waste were dissolved as water soluble compounds and then widely dispersed in the oceans, no health or other environmental risks would ever occur. — Arthur B. Robinson

When we do harm to one thing we are essentially harming ourselves. For example when we use poisonous toxins and pesticides to grow our food, we pollute the soil, kill the life of the surrounding ecosystems, decrease the quality of the food supply, which then decreases our health and the level of energy we operate on. When we do this every day on a global scale for several decades we end up with soil infertility, habitat loss, environmental pollution, low quality food, poor health, malnutrition, and a lack of productivity, which is so apparent in today's society. — Joseph P. Kauffman

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality - what a joke. In my district, we caught them lying to us about the results of air quality studies in the Barnett Shale. They are playing with the health and safety of our communities, and we are going to tell them that is not acceptable. — Wendy Davis

I realized that I needed to code this thing in a new way, so to speak. Jokingly at first, and then more seriously, I said I needed a metric for measuring what I was achieving, so that I would be able to take stock at the end of my life.
I chose one that seemed rather silly, but that I've actually taken to heart. I've developed a list of toxic chemicals that are generally agreed to be environmental health hazards of a very significant magnitude. I've decided that the world isn't big enough for them and me. So they have to go. I have dedicated myself to the removal of this series of chemicals from commerce. That way, I can mark my success not only in terms of this passion, but also in very clear behavioral terms. — Ken Geiser

You are an indispensable and irreplaceable asset to the human family. — Ilchi Lee

But reducing harmful emissions, abating our dependence on foreign oil and developing alternative renewable energy sources have benefits that go beyond environmental health, they improve personal health, enhance national security and encourage our nation's economic viability. — Jim Clyburn

The problem of environmental children's health is very urgent in Russia. Environmental situation now is the main factor, which determines young generation's health ... the volume of pollutant emissions in atmosphere and water grew and scale of ecological man-caused catastrophes increased. More than half of Russian territories, where 60-70 percent of the of population lives, have unsafe ecological situation. — Maria Cherkasova

The "environmental movement" is becoming an economic movement, is joining the social justice movement, is becoming a sustainability movement. It's leaving behind the "People's Needs versus Nature's Needs" conflict in favor of making the case for environmental health as the essential underpinning of prosperous and stable human civilization. — Edward Norton

The risks of transporting deadly nuclear waste, the environmental justice impacts and the long-term health effects of both these projects are untenable ... We cannot afford to be silent on these important issues. — James Cromwell

On issue after issue, the polls - and these are not snapshot polls; these are polls over a consistent period of time - show that most Americans share what one could call core liberal or progressive values: investment in health care and education over tax cuts; fair trade over free trade; corporate accountability over deregulation; environmental protection over laissez-faire policies; defending Social Security and Medicare over privatizing them; raising the minimum wage over eliminating it. The country prefers progressive alternatives to the failed policies of the conservative right. — Katrina Vanden Heuvel

Natural gas obviously brings with it a number of quality-of-life environmental benefits because it is a relatively clean-burning fuel. It has a CO2 footprint, but it has no particulates. It has none of the other emissions elements that are of concern to public health that other forms of power-generation fuels do have: coal, fuel oil, others. — Rex Tillerson

Humans are omnivores, which means we are adapted to eat plants, fungi, and animals. The nutrients in the plant foods we consume depend on the genetics of the individual species, the quality of the soil they are grown in, and the weather conditions during that time. For animal foods, nutrient levels are dependent on what the animals eat throughout their lives and are also affected by their stress and hormone levels. Any toxins or environmental pollutants that the animals and plants are subjected to have the power to impact human health as well. — Darya Pino Rose

A very large percentage of illnesses are the expressions of inadequate responses to the environment. — Rene Dubos

There is broad scientific consensus that genetically engineered crops currently on the market are safe to eat. After 14 years of cultivation and a cumulative total of 2 billion acres planted, no adverse health or environmental effects have resulted from commercialization of genetically engineered crops. — Pamela Ronald

Successfully reframing the climate debate in the United States from one based on environmental values to one based on health values ... holds great promise to help American society better understand and appreciate the risks of climate change ... — George Mason

The Bush Administration believes the Kyoto protocol could damage our collective prosperity, and in so doing, actually put our long-term environmental health at risk. Fundamentally, we believe that the protocol both will fail to significantly reduce the long-term risks posed by climate change and, in the short run, will seriously impede our ability to meet our energy needs and economic growth. — Lawrence B. Lindsey

Earth Citizens are people who care for the earth as they care for their own bodies. — Ilchi Lee

The world has been experiencing a whole pattern of auto-destruction, whether in environmental disasters like Chernobyl or health disasters like AIDS. — Niki De St. Phalle

Toxic remnants of war represent a profound challenge for the protection of public health and the restoration of the environment in countries affected by conflict. — Widad Akreyi

We need to accept the seemingly obvious fact that a toxic environment can make people sick and that no amount of medical intervention can protect us. The health care community must become a powerful political lobby for environmental policy and legislation. — Andrew Weil

Katha Pollitt wrote in The Nation, "Ron Paul has opposed almost every piece of progressive legislation that was passed in the last 200 years! He opposed Federal Deposit Insurance and continues to oppose Roe v. Wade. He would abolish the Environmental Protection Agency, governmental regulations on health and safety (OSHA), and the Federal Aviation Authority. — Georgia Kelly

The infrastructure for linking environmental health and public health is not working as well as it should. — Samuel Wilson

This exciting new field of epigenetics
meaning literally "around" the gene
allows us to see how environmental factors alter our gene expression in a specific place within each cell. As a result, we now know that when we take active control of these factors, we can literally help control our health and genetic destiny. — Woodson Merrell

Earth Citizens have minds and hearts that know the Earth is the foundation of everything they do. — Ilchi Lee

I believe the key to solving everything from individual problems to the global environmental crisis or political and religious conflicts is to be found in restoring this link with the great life force. By recovering our natural healing ability and the goodness of human nature, we can create a truly peaceful, sustainable world. And I don't believe that these are things that social institutions or prestigious experts can do for us: they must happen within each and every one of us. — Ilchi Lee

Our ingenuity in feeding ourselves is prodigious, but at various points our technologies come into conflict with nature's ways of doing things, as when we seek to maximize efficiency by planting crops or raising animals in vast mono-cultures. This is something nature never does, always and for good reasons practicing diversity instead. A great many of the health and environmental problems created by our food system owe to our attempts to oversimplify nature's complexities, at both the growing and the eating ends of our food chain. — Michael Pollan

Healthy ecosystems promote healthy life. — Lailah Gifty Akita

More and more, paddling the Yellowstone feels like that bedside visit, like we are attending to a friend in dire straits, a friend whom we have seen in the full bloom of health, but with whom, now, there is little to say and only our companionship to offer. — Alan S. Kesselheim

I have long understood that climate change is not only an environmental issue - it is a humanitarian, economic, health, and justice issue as well. — Frances Beinecke

We have reached a point where the value we do add to our economy is now being outweighed by the value we are removing, not only from future generations in terms of diminished resources, but from ourselves in terms of unlivable cities, deadening jobs, deteriorating health, and rising crime. In biological terms, we have become a parasite and are devouring our host. — Paul Hawken

Imposing excessive new regulations, or closing coal-fired power plants, would produce few health or environmental benefits. But it would exact huge costs on society - and bring factories, offices and economies to a screeching halt in states that are 80-98% dependent on coal: Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming. — Paul Driessen

By cutting critical domestic programs such as education, health, environmental protection, and veterans' services, this budget reveals misplaced priorities. — Dan Lipinski

I've always thought the main argument for organic was more environmental than a health argument. I just don't think spraying a lot of pesticides into the environment on a routine basis is a good thing. — John Mackey

I started out in nuclear physics. But after I became more sensitized to the environmental and health implications of the nuclear system - I was being trained to be the first women in the fast-breeder reactor in India (and was in it when it first went critical) - I didn't feel comfortable with it. So I went into theoretical physics. — Vandana Shiva

The only truly dependable production technologies are those that are sustainable over the long term. By that very definition, they must avoid erosion, pollution, environmental degradation, and resource waste. Any rational food-production system will emphasize the well-being of the soil-air-water biosphere, the creatures which inhabit it, and the human beings who depend upon it. — Eliot Coleman

Engel's biopsychosocial model proposed that psychological and social factors could either protect a person from illness or increase his or her susceptibility to it. Such factors include a person's beliefs and attitudes, how supported and loved a person feels by family and friends, the psychological and environmental stresses to which one is exposed, and personal health behaviors. — Jon Kabat-Zinn

Thankfully, there is a burgeoning demand and market for accessible, scientifically accurate information on health and environmental matters. If you uttered a sigh of relief while reading that sentence, it's you I am writing for. If you're simply 'sci-curious', delve in and see whether you like what you read. There's no dogma here, only evidence. — Zion Lights

Public discourse has been polluted now for decades by corporate-funded disinformation - not just with climate change but with a host of health, environmental and societal threats. The implications for the planet are grim. — Michael E. Mann

In recent years, academics, policy-makers, and experts have raised the question of the applicability of peacetime environmental law in times of armed conflict. — Widad Akreyi

Can we disregard the growing phenomenon of "environmental refugees", people who are forced by the degradation of their natural habitat to forsake it - and often their possessions as well - in order to face the dangers and uncertainties of forced displacement? Can we remain impassive in the face of actual and potential conflicts involving access to natural resources? All these are issues with a profound impact on the exercise of human rights, such as the right to life, food, health and development. — Pope Benedict XVI

The Truly Healthy environment is not merely safe but stimulating. — William H. Stewart

The health of our waters is the principle measure of how we live on the land. — Luna Leopold

CAFE standards have little impact on greenhouse gas emissions, and the environmental benefits of increasing CAFE standards are frequently overstated. Their impact on human health is more certain: CAFE standards have resulted in tens of thousands of deaths since their adoption. — Amy Ridenour

Nuclear weapons production and testing has involved extensive health and environmental damage ... One of the most remarkable features of this damage has been the readiness of governments to harm the very people that they claimed they were protecting by building these weapons for national security reasons. In general, this harm was inflicted on people in disregard of democratic norms. Secrecy, fabrication of data, cover-ups in the face of attempted public inquiry, and even human experiments without informed consent have all occurred in nuclear weapons production and testing programs. — Arjun Makhijani

Moreover, environmental health at the local level has become narrowly focused, very much defined around regulations and the attendant regulatory debates. — Samuel Wilson

Our body's natural detoxification system is designed to support our health by eliminating waste products from our metabolism and from environmental toxins. Like any other hardworking system, it needs periodic rest and support to continue functioning optimally. This program will teach you how to rest and restore your body's natural detoxification abilities. — Mark Hyman, M.D.

There are environmental threats to health; there are internal threats to health - genetic conditions, viral threats, diseases like cancer and Parkinson's. And then there are societal and global ones, like poverty and lack of nutrition. And unknown viral threats - everything from a new kind of influenza to hemorrhagic fever. — Bill Maris

The destruction of aquatic ecosystem health, and the increasing water scarcity, are in my opinion the most pressing environmental problems facing human kind. — Maude Barlow

We would be foolish and silly not to unite with people in the public health sector, the environmental community, [and] unions, to try to challenge corporate agriculture. — Wayne Pacelle

In my world, you don't get to call yourself "pro-life" and be against common-sense gun control - like banning public access to the kind of semiautomatic assault rifle, designed for warfare, that was used recently in a Colorado theater. You don't get to call yourself "pro-life" and want to shut down the Environmental Protection Agency, which ensures clean air and clean water, prevents childhood asthma, preserves biodiversity and combats climate change that could disrupt every life on the planet. You don't get to call yourself "pro-life" and oppose programs like Head Start that provide basic education, health and nutrition for the most disadvantaged children ... The term "pro-life" should be a shorthand for respect for the sanctity of life. But I will not let that label apply to people for whom sanctity for life begins at conception and ends at birth. What about the rest of life? Respect for the sanctity of life, if you believe that it begins at conception, cannot end at birth. — Thomas L. Friedman

In this context, fear of toxicity strikes me as an old anxiety with a new name. Where the word filth once suggested, with its moralist air, the evils of the flesh, the word toxic now condemns the chemical evils of our industrial world. This is not to say that concerns over environmental pollution are not justified - like filth theory, toxicity theory is anchored in legitimate dangers - but that the way we think about toxicity bears some resemblance to the way we once thought about filth. Both theories allow their subscribers to maintain a sense of control over their own health by pursuing personal purity. For the filth theorist, this meant a retreat into the home, where heavy curtains and shutters might seal out the smell of the poor and their problems. Our version of this shuttering is now achieved through the purchase of purified water, air purifiers, and food produced with the promise of purity. — Eula Biss

We cannot confront the massive challenges of poverty, hunger, disease and environmental destruction unless we address issues of population and reproductive health — Thoraya Obaid

Mark Ruffalo, aka the Incredible Hulk, is the natural gas industry's worst nightmare: a serious, committed activist who is determined to use his star power as a superhero in the hottest movie of the moment to draw attention the environmental and public health risks of fracking. — Jeff Goodell

Birds are extremely valued as indicators of overall environmental health. If there's a problem in a wild bird population, it's indicative that something went wrong. — Jim Elliot

No conscious person can read Peter D'Adamo's works without considering much more thoughtfully how their genetic inheritance relates to their needs for specific food, lifestyle and environmental factors to improve their health. — Jeffrey Bland

I am passionate about exploring the confluence of environmental and human health. I believe that the goals of conservation must constantly revisit a stated purpose. — Barton Seaver

environmental pollutants in your food (such as BPA) may injure the epigenome - and your health - as much as, and sometimes even more than, a poor diet. — Deborah Kesten

You cannot achieve environmental security and human development without addressing the basic issues of health and nutrition. — Gro Harlem Brundtland

It will be impossible for us to maintain the health of the organism called the earth unless we feel and care for other organisms as we do for ourselves - and unless we take action. — Ilchi Lee

Every time you see your belly button, remember that your life is connected with the life of the planet, — Ilchi Lee

Lack of accountability weakens the environmental and health rights of citizens; it damages peace- building and reconciliation initiatives; impedes the implementation of global health policies; leads to the loss of ecosystems and biodiversity; and weakens democracy, justice, human rights, and international security. — Widad Akreyi

A crowd whose discontent has risen no higher than the level of slogans is only a crowd. But a crowd that understands the reasons for its discontent and knows the remedies is a vital community, and it will have to be reckoned with. I would rather go before the government with two people who have a competent understanding of an issue, and who therefore deserve a hearing, than with two thousand who are vaguely dissatisfied.
But even the most articulate public protest is not enough. We don't live in the government or in institutions or in our public utterances and acts, and the environmental crisis has its roots in our lives. By the same token, environmental health will also be rooted in our lives. That is, I take it, simply a fact, and in the light of it we can see how superficial and foolish we would be to think that we could correct what is wrong merely by tinkering with the institutional machinery. The changes that are required are fundamental changes in the way we are living. — Wendell Berry

He [Aldo Leopold] recognized that industrial-age tools were incompatible with truly wild country - that roads eventually brought with them streams of tourists and settlers, hotels and gas stations, summer homes and cabins, and a diminishment of land health. He sort of invented the concept of wilderness as we now understand it in America: a stretch of country without roads, where all human movement must happen on foot or horseback. He understood that to keep a little remnant of our continent wild, we had no choice but to exercise restraint. I think it's one of the best ideas our culture ever had, not to mention our best hope for preserving the full diversity of nonhuman life in a few functioning ecosystems. — Philip Connors

Earth Citizens recognize themselves as members of a planetary community, instead of as members of a single nation, religion, or organization. And, most importantly, they live that awareness. — Ilchi Lee

Of all mushrooms commonly consumed, oyster mushrooms in the genus Pleurotus stand out as exceptional allies for improving human and environmental health. These mushrooms enjoy a terrific reputation as the easiest to cultivate, richly nutritious and medicinally supportive. — Paul Stamets

Promoting health without encouraging others to seek wholeness is an exercise in futility. Not until we realize that our bodies are mirrors of our interpersonal, spiritual, professional, sexual, creative, financial, environmental, mental, and emotional health will we truly heal. — Lissa Rankin

Promotion of health generally by improving the standard of living. From the health point of view we are in this connexion first and foremost interested in the three fundamental environmental factors: housing (including family life), nutrition, and working conditions (including human relations as well as material conditions). — Karl Evang

The root cause of the looming energy problem - and the key to easing environmental, economic and religious tensions while improving public health - is to address the unending, and unequal, growth of the human population. And the one proven way to reduce fertility rates is to empower young women by educating them. — Lawrence M. Krauss

The economic logic of gathering so many animals together to feed them cheap corn in CAFOs is hard to argue with; it has made meat, which used to be a special occasion in most American homes, so cheap and abundant that many of us now eat it three times a day. Not so compelling is the biological logic behind this cheap meat. Already in their short history CAFOs have produced more than their share of environmental and health problems: polluted water and air, toxic wastes, novel and deadly pathogens. — Michael Pollan

Saving our planet, lifting people out of poverty, advancing economic growth ... these are one and the same fight. We must connect the dots between climate change, water scarcity, energy shortages, global health, food security and women's empowerment. Solutions to one problem must be solutions for all. — Ban Ki-moon

If we begin to diligently care for the environment, it will greatly improve human health. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Through our belly buttons, not only can we connect with ourselves, but we also gain the wisdom to see the earth as an extension of ourselves. — Ilchi Lee

I believe in a sound, strong environmental policy that protects the health of our people and a wise stewardship of our nation's natural resources. — Ronald Reagan

Make no mistake. The greatest destroyer of ecology. The greatest source of waste, depletion and pollution. The greatest purveyor of violence, war, crime, poverty, animal abuse and inhumanity. The greatest generator of personal and social neurosis, mental disorders, depression, anxiety. Not to mention the greatest source of social paralysis, stopping us from moving into new methodologies for personal health, global sustainability and progress on this planet, is not some corrupt government or legislation.
Not some rogue corporation or banking cartel.
Not some flaw of human nature and not some secret cabal that controls the world.
It is the socioeconomic system itself at its very foundation. — Peter Joseph

There is a new wave of environmental consumers I like to call Pocketbook Environmentalists. They're going green primarily because it makes good financial sense, but the fact that it benefits their families' health and the environment also makes them feel good. — Lynn Jurich

In this country, the health concerns and the environmental concerns are as deep as in Europe. All the surveys show that. But here, we didn't have the cultural dimension. This is a fast-food culture. — Jeremy Rifkin

In some parts of the world, what you are doing is already apparent. According to the World Health Organization, the warming of the planet caused an additional 140,000 deaths in 2004, as compared with the number of deaths there would have been had average global temperatures remained as they were during the period 1961 to 1990. This means that climate change is already causing, every week, as many deaths as occurred in the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. — Peter Singer

The communications revolution has given millions of people both a wider and more detailed understanding of the world. Because of technology, ordinary citizens enjoy access to information that formerly was available only to elites and nation-states. One consequence of this change is that citizens have become acutely conscious of environmental destruction, entrenched poverty, health catastrophes, human rights abuses, failing education systems, and escalating violence. Another consequence is that people possess powerful communication tools to coordinate efforts to attack those problems. — David Bornstein

Despite Arizona's remarkable growth in recent years, we have met the current federal health standards for ozone pollution and the Environmental Protection Agency recently approved our dust control plan. — Jane D. Hull

A sustainable economy represents nothing less than a higher social order one as concerned with future generations as with our own, and more focused on the health of the planet and the poor than on material acquisitions and military might. While it is a fundamentally new endeavor, with many uncertainties, it is far less risky than continuing with business as usual. — Lester R. Brown

Militarism is in direct competition with people's needs for food, health care, and environmental protection. — Petra Kelly

Here's what an e-reader is. A battery operated slab, about a pound, one half-inch thick, perhaps an aluminum border, rubberized back, plastic, metal, silicon, a bit of gold, plus rare metals such as columbite-tantalite (Google it) ripped from the earth, often in war-torn Africa. To make one e-reader requires 33 pounds of minerals, plus 79 gallons of water to produce the battery and printed writing and refine the minerals. The production of other e-reading devices such as cell phones, iPads and whatever new gizmo will pop up (and down) in the years ahead is similar. "The adverse health impacts from making one e-reader are estimated to be 70 times greater than those for making a single book," says the Times. Then you figure that the one hundred million e-readers will be outmoded in short order--to be replaced by one hundred million new and improved devices in the years ahead that will likewise be replace by new models ad infinitum, and you realize an environmental disaster is at hand. — Bill Henderson

Knowledge is power and at the end of the day, our health, the health of our children, the health of our community, and the health of Mother Earth is our responsibility. Therefore, it is imperative that we understand the human and environmental affects of the products that we buy. — Obiora Embry