America Quote by Vaclav Smil

“America tends to assume Silicon Valley-style innovators can drive quick and transformative changes, but even Silicon Valley's would-be masters of the universe have discovered that energy transitions are subject to time spans and technical constraints that defy their reach.” quote by Vaclav Smil — Download Open image

“America tends to assume Silicon Valley-style innovators can drive quick and transformative changes, but even Silicon Valley's would-be masters of the universe have discovered that energy transitions are subject to time spans and technical constraints that defy their reach.”

Vaclav Smil

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More by Vaclav Smil

Meat eaters don't like me because I call for moderation, and vegetarians don't like me because I say there's nothing wrong with eating meat.…

Vaclav Smil

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When you talk in terms of electricity, renewable is very important. Hydro in Manitoba. Hydro in Sweden. Wind in Denmark. Of course, those are…

Vaclav Smil

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...no matter how complex or affluent, human societies are nothing but subsystems of the biosphere, the Earth's thin veneer of life, which is ultimately…

Vaclav Smil

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Energy use is merely a means to many rewarding ends: economic security, education, health.

Vaclav Smil

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In every society, manufacturing builds the lower middle class. If you give up manufacturing, you end up with haves and have-nots, and you get…

Vaclav Smil

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Everyone [in higher education] was what I call drillers of deeper wells. These academics sit at the bottom of a deep well and they…

Vaclav Smil

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Meat is undoubtedly an environmentally expensive food.

Vaclav Smil

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There is no reason we can't design a car to last for 35 years instead of six or seven.

Vaclav Smil

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I've read about 80 books a year for the past 50 years. I come from cultural breeding. I don't have a cellphone. When you…

Vaclav Smil

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“I wrote this book because I wanted to narrate the great, and a truly nation-building, story of US manufacturing—and because I believe that without the preservation and reinvigoration of manufacturing, the United States has little chance to extricate itself from its current economic problems, meet the challenges posed by other large and globally more competitive nations, and remain a dynamic…

Vaclav Smil

Apple! Boy, what a story. No taxes paid, everything made abroad—yet everyone worships them. This new iPhone, there’s nothing new in it. Just a…

Vaclav Smil

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A useful analogy is to see traditional societies as relying on instantaneous (or minimally delayed) and constantly replenished solar income, while modern civilization is…

Vaclav Smil

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Explore all 59 Vaclav Smil quotes

More America quotes

The costs of the Bush-Obama wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are now estimated to run as high as $4.4 trillion - a major victory for Osama bin Laden, whose announced goal was to bankrupt America by drawing it into a trap. The 2011 military budget - almost matching that of the rest of the world combined - is higher in…

Noam Chomsky

Young men, especially in America, write to me and ask me to recommend “a course of reading.” Distrust a course of reading! People who…

Andrew Lang

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Well, The Day the Earth Caught Fire was a story... I don't if anybody knows what it is but it was about... in the…

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So here's what I want you to know, and here's what I want all our men and women in uniform to know: Because of…

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Today, the world looks to America for leadership. And America looks to its Corps of Marines.

Ronald Reagan

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The image of blacks usually is one of people who are suffering from hunger, unemployment, and poverty. The idea of them as agents and activists - as starting revolutions - does not exist in most people's minds. And I think it's very, very important that folks understand how much this country was founded on the enslavement of blacks, and how…

Grace Lee Boggs

I'll smoke, I'll cough, I'll get the tumors, I'll die, deal? Thank you America. [salutes]

Bill Hicks

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America is a democracy and has no Hitler, but I am afraid for her future; there are hard times ahead for the American people,…

Albert Einstein

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I'm gonna bring America together.

Donald Trump

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In the nineteenth century some parts of the world were unexplored, but there was almost no restriction on travel.:; Up to 1914 you did not need a passport for any country except Russia.:; The European emigrant, if he could scrape together a few pounds for the passage, simply set sail for America or Australia, and when he got there no…

George Orwell