“Three and a half million years separate the individual who left these footprints in the sands of Africa from the one who left them on the moon. A mere blink in the eye of evolution. Using his burgeoning intelligence, this most successful of all mammals has exploited the environment to produce food for an ever-increasing population. In spite of disasters when civilisations have over-reached themselves, that process has continued, indeed accelerated, even today. Now mankind is looking for food, not just on this planet but on others. Perhaps the time has now come to put that process into reverse. Instead of controlling the environment for the benefit of the population, perhaps it's time we control the population to allow the survival of the environment.”

— David Attenborough

Closing lines
The Life of Mammals (2002)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Three and a half million years separate the individual who left these footprints in the sands of Africa from the one wh…" by David Attenborough?

David Attenborough 70

British broadcaster and naturalist 1926

Philip Lymbery book Farmageddon

Farmageddon (2014)

“Nature balances populations and any artificial increase in food, technology or medicine for those who do not or cannot produce it themselves leads to misery.”

David Lane (white nationalist) (1938–2007) American white supremacist, convicted felon

Misplaced compassion
Focus Fourteen

“Separately, in exchange for the three Cuban agents, Cuba today released one of the most important intelligence agents that the United States has ever had in Cuba, and who has been imprisoned for nearly two decades.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2014, Statement on Cuban policy (December 2014)
Context: While I have been prepared to take additional steps for some time, a major obstacle stood in our way –- the wrongful imprisonment, in Cuba, of a U. S. citizen and USAID sub-contractor Alan Gross for five years. Over many months, my administration has held discussions with the Cuban government about Alan’s case, and other aspects of our relationship. His Holiness Pope Francis issued a personal appeal to me, and to Cuba’s President Raul Castro, urging us to resolve Alan’s case, and to address Cuba’s interest in the release of three Cuban agents who have been jailed in the United States for over 15 years.
Today, Alan returned home –- reunited with his family at long last. Alan was released by the Cuban government on humanitarian grounds. Separately, in exchange for the three Cuban agents, Cuba today released one of the most important intelligence agents that the United States has ever had in Cuba, and who has been imprisoned for nearly two decades. This man, whose sacrifice has been known to only a few, provided America with the information that allowed us to arrest the network of Cuban agents that included the men transferred to Cuba today, as well as other spies in the United States. This man is now safely on our shores.
Having recovered these two men who sacrificed for our country, I’m now taking steps to place the interests of the people of both countries at the heart of our policy.

“You want me to defend the riches reaped from the super-exploitation of the darker races of mankind by a few white, rich, super-monopolists who control the most vast empire that has ever existed in man's one million years of History--all in the name of "Freedom!"”

General Baker (1941–2014)

General G. Baker, Jr., "Letter to Draft Board 100, Wayne County, Detroit, Michigan," SOULBOOK, II, (Spring 1965), 133-134, in Black nationalism in America, John H. Bracey (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1970), 506-8. ( page scan from another source http://speakersforanewamerica.com/gendraft.html)

“Food justice is incredibly important, because food touches all of our lives daily. We have to look at how [food] impacts everyone, from the waiters and waitresses and cooks at restaurants, to the produce workers who pick our food, to the animals who are suffering and dying so we can eat them. We have the responsibility to speak out against these injustices and make sure we hold those who are doing the exploiting accountable.”

Lauren Ornelas American activist

Interview in the book The Sustainability Secret https://books.google.it/books?id=z7KnDAAAQBAJ&pg=PT0 by Kip Anderson and Keegan Kuhn (2016).

“So my campaign is about the 100% in America, and I'm concerned about them. I'm concerned about the fact that over the past four years life has become harder for Americans. More people have fallen into poverty, more people we just learned have had to go onto food stamps. When the President took office 32 million were on food stamps, today 47 million people are on food stamps.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

Univision interview, , quoted in * 2012-09-19
Will Romney's claim he's for '100 percent' help him bounce back? (+video)
Steve
Holland
Christian Science Monitor / Reuters
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2012/0919/Will-Romney-s-claim-he-s-for-100-percent-help-him-bounce-back-video, also in [2012-09-19, RomneyComms, Romney: My Campaign Is About The 100 Percent, YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLwU2wjYyiM]
2012

“Despite his caricature as being indecisive, he was one of the most decisive leaders this nation has seen. On all crucial issues, he took decisions that have continued to shape India’s rise over the last two decades. Manmohan Singh may be touted as the father of Indian economic reforms; but as Singh has himself acknowledged, it was Rao who fathered the process. Singh was an economic technocrat with little understanding of political constraints. It was Rao who shielded Singh from the left wing of his own party, a flank that had left no stone unturned in opposing the economic liberalization programme. Rao made economic reforms politically tenable at a time when his own party was out to scuttle his most ambitious undertaking. How ironical, then, that today the same Congress-wallahs try to take credit for India’s economic success without acknowledging Rao’s role.”

P. V. Narasimha Rao (1921–2004) Indian politician

Harsh V. Pant in: "Give Narasimha Rao his due".

“Fifty years ago, when the WWF was founded there were about three billion people on earth. Now there are almost seven billion. Over twice as many - and every one of them needing space. Space for their homes, space to grow their food (or to get others to grow it for them), space to build schools and roads and airfields. A little of that space might be taken from land occupied by other people but most of it could only come from the land which, for millions of years, animals and plants have to themselves.”

David Attenborough (1926) British broadcaster and naturalist

How Many People Can Live on Planet Earth? (BBC Horizon, 2009)

“When men have been deprived of faith and have been taught to hate work, so that they see it as an unbearable burden which provides illicit gain for crooked exploiters, then nothing is left but to go into the squares and shout the inner void which devours them, until they look like lost souls. Man reduced to a mere passage for food faces despair as soon as food becomes scarce or tasteless.”

Aldo Palazzeschi book Roma

Page 53, "Checco".
Roma (1953)

“I think the top leadership challenge issue in our world today is how to deal with the continuing, growing population in the world and all the resource demands it places on the world and burgeoning populations in Africa and Asia that lack the resources to have a healthy, happy life.”

Ron Klain (1961) American lawyer

Interviewed, together with his wife, at Georgetown University gotnews http://gotnews.com/ebola-czar-called-overpopulation-top-leadership-issue/ (2008)

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

David Attenborough 70

Related quotes

Related topics