1
" We line up and make a lot of noise about big environmental problems like incinerators, waste dumps, acid rain, global warming and pollution. But we don't understand that when we add up all the tiny environmental problems each of us creates, we end up with those big environmental dilemmas. Humans are content to blame someone else, like government or corporations, for the messes we create, and yet we each continue doing the same things, day in and day out, that have created the problems. Sure, corporations create pollution. If they do, don't buy their products. If you have to buy their products (gasoline for example), keep it to a minimum. Sure, municipal waste incinerators pollute the air. Stop throwing trash away. Minimize your production of waste. Recycle. Buy food in bulk and avoid packaging waste. Simplify. Turn off your TV. Grow your own food. Make compost. Plant a garden. Be part of the solution, not part of the problem. If you don't, who will? "
― , The Humanure Handbook: A Guide to Composting Human Manure
7
" Suppose we humans are, as a species, exhibiting disease
behavior: we’re multiplying with no regard for limits, consuming natural
resources as if there will be no future generations, and producing
waste products that are distressing the planet upon which our
very survival depends. There are two factors which we, as a species,
are not taking into consideration. First is the survival tactic of
pathogens, which requires additional hosts to infect. We do not have
the luxury of that option, at least not yet. If we are successful at continuing
our dangerous behavior, then we will also succeed in marching
straight toward our own demise. In the process, we can also drag
many other species down with us, a dreadful syndrome that is already
underway. This is evident by the threat of extinction that hangs, like
the sword of Damocles, over an alarming number of the Earth’s
species.
There is a second consideration: infected host organisms fight
back. As humans become an increasing menace, can the Earth try to
defend itself? When a disease organism infects a human, the human
body elevates its own temperature in order to defend itself. This rise
in temperature not only inhibits the growth of the infecting pathogen,
but also greatly enhances the disease fighting capability within the
body. Global warming may be the Earth’s way of inducing a global
“fever” as a reaction to human pollution of the atmosphere and
human over-consumption of fossil fuels. "
― , The Humanure Handbook: A Guide to Composting Human Manure
9
" What did happen to Mars, anyway? Our next door neighbor,
the Red Planet, apparently was once covered with flowing rivers.
What happened to them? Rivers suggest an atmosphere. Where is it?
Was Mars once a vital, thriving planet? If so, why does it now appear
dead? Could a lifeform on its surface have proliferated so abundantly
and so recklessly that it altered the planet’s atmosphere, thereby
knocking it off-kilter and destroying it? Is that what’s happening to
our own planet? Will it be our legacy in this solar system to leave
behind another lonely, dead rock to revolve around the sun? Or will
we simply destroy ourselves while the Earth, stronger than her
Martian brother, overcomes our influence and survives to flourish
another billion years — without us? "
― , The Humanure Handbook: A Guide to Composting Human Manure