Maurice Strong Quotes
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My belief is that the purpose of economic life is to meet the social needs of people.
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I learn something from criticism because when it comes from sources you respect you always examine it and learn.
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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.
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We must, from here on in, all go down the same path... There may not be another chance.
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One of the things that Ive 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.
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The combination of population growth and the growth in consumption is a danger that we are not prepared for and something we will need global co-operation on.
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I am convinced the prophets of doom have to be taken seriously.
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Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class…involving high meat intake, consumption of large amounts of frozen and convenience foods, ownership of motor vehicles, golf courses, small electric appliances, home and work place air-conditioning, and suburban housing are not sustainable...
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Nothing less than the fate of the planet is at stake... No place on the planet can remain an island of affluence in a sea of misery.
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Rumors of my wealth are greatly exaggerated. I have never been interested in money.
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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.
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Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn't it our responsibility to bring this about?
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What pleases me most is that sustainable development is on almost everybody's agenda now.
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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.
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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.
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Inertia is a powerful force in human and political affairs.
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I am a socialist in ideology, a capitalist in methodology.
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A shift is necessary toward lifestyles less geared to environmental damaging consumption patterns.
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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.
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We're either going to save the world or no one will be saved.
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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.
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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.
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I am retired from all my official roles, but I am still very active. I have close relationships at the U.N. I don't have any role at the U.N, but I'm still quite cooperative with a number of U.N. activities, in particular to China and that region.
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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.
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Anyone who is seriously interested in me would usually do a little more homework and realise that the extreme criticisms are almost exclusively ideologically based.
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I've got used to criticisms and, naturally, I try to make sure I don't listen to the more extreme ones because most of the people who have taken their rightwing extremist view of my life are people that I've never met.
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A citizen of an advanced industrialized nation consumes in six months the energy and raw materials that have to last the citizen of a developing country his entire lifetime.
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Strengthening the role the United Nations can play...will require serious examination of the need to extend into the international arena the rule of law and the principle of taxation to finance agreed actions which provide the basis for governance at the national level. But this will not come about easily. Resistance to such changes is deeply entrenched. They will come about not through the embrace of full blown world government, but as a careful and pragmatic response to compelling imperatives and the inadequacies of alternatives.
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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.
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It is the responsibility of each human being today to choose between the force of darkness and the force of light. We must therefore transform our attitudes, and adopt a renewed respect for the superior laws of Divine Nature.
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