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21 " It is not the amount of oxygen that determines flammability, but its proportion in the mixture with nitrogen. "
― James E. Lovelock , The Revenge of Gaia
22 " but such is the inertia of industrial civilization that we are likely to go on using fossil fuel for a decade at least. "
23 " For the same energy output as from coal or oil, methane combustion releases only half as much carbon dioxide. This implies that powering a nation entirely by gas reduces emissions of carbon dioxide by half. "
24 " 41°C "
25 " The warm surface layer is stable, and except in fierce storms, like hurricanes, it stays intact and the cooler waters below do not mix with it. "
26 " sixbillion people. "
27 " I call Gaia a physiological system because it appears to have the unconscious goal of regulating the climate and the chemistry at a comfortable state for life. "
28 " To expect sustainable development or a trust in business as usual to be viable policies is like expecting a lung cancer victim to be cured by stopping smoking; both measures deny the existence of the Earth’s disease, the fever brought on by a plague of people. "
29 " inheritance to see other living things as mainly something to eat, and we care more about our national tribe than anything else. We will even give our lives for it and are quite ready to kill other humans in the cruellest of ways for the good of our tribe. "
30 " The irony of it all is that we in the developed world are the prime polluters, the most destructive of people on the planet, yet although we have the money and the means to prevent the Earth crossing the deadly threshold that will make global change irreversible, we are hampered by fear. "
31 " We know now that the Earth really does regulate itself, but because of the time it took to gather the evidence we discovered too late that the regulation was failing and the Earth system was fast approaching the critical state that puts all life on it in danger. "
32 " it would take the Earth more than a thousand years to recover from the damage we have already done, "
33 " The totalitarian greens, sometimes called ecofascists, would like to see most other humans eliminated in genocide and so leave a perfect Earth for them alone. At the other end of the spectrum are those who would like to see universal human welfare and rights, and somehow hope that luck, Gaia or sustainable development will allow this dream to come true. Greens could be defined as those who have sensed the deterioration of the natural world and would like to do something about it. They share a common environmentalism but differ greatly in the means for its achievement. "
34 " We as a civilization are all too much like someone addicted to a drug that will kill if continued and kill if suddenly withdrawn. "
35 " We know that in the depth of the last glaciation carbon dioxide fell to 180 ppm, rose to 280 ppm after the ice age ended, and has risen now to 380 ppm as a result of our pollution. "
36 " the health of the Earth, not the health of people, in mind. This is why it is much too late for sustainable development; what we need is a sustainable retreat. "
37 " six billion hungry and greedy individuals, "
38 " Abundant life occurs where it is warm and wet on land and where it is quite cool, less then 12°C, in the ocean. "
39 " We are like passengers on a large aircraft crossing the Atlantic Ocean who suddenly realize just how much carbon dioxide their plane is adding to the already overburdened air. It would hardly help if they asked the captain to turn off the engines and let the plane travel like a glider by wind power alone. We cannot turn off our energy-intensive, fossil-fuel-powered civilization without crashing; we need the soft landing of a powered descent. "
40 " 6 per cent "