Civilization Quote by William H. Calvin

““Our civilization will, of course, be "playing God" in an ultimate sense of the phrase: evolving a greater intelligence than currently exists on earth. It behooves us to be a considerate creator, wise to the world and its fragile nature, sensitive to the needs for stable footings that will prevent backsliding -- and keep that house of cards we call civilization from collapsing.””

William H. Calvin

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Perhaps we should put up posters in such places reminding people that where they stand was underwater the last time that the Earth ran…

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Stopping emissions growth represents the most minimal of do-something responses.

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Since Serengeti-scale savanna scenes are only one or two million years old, our earliest after-the-apes ancestors didn't move into this scene so much as…

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Climate change has a very high procrastination penalty that just grows with each passing year of inaction - rather like what happens if you…

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Countries that innovate first get the new jobs, developing an economic edge over the C-free laggards that end up having to later import the…

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The real focus needs to be on political action to stop this runaway train, real soon.

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Anyone who would tackle our current addiction to fossil fuels is going to have to maneuver around denial.

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Carrying on as usual carries enormous risks, condemning today's students to a world of constant insecurity and frequent catastrophes.

William H. Calvin

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Even if we stop the growth, we'd still be adding a constant amount of fossil carbon to the atmosphere each year.

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Trusting your energy policy to the fossil fuel lobby is like trusting your health care system to the tobacco lobby.

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“It takes a heavy commitment to quality education for all to avoid that stratification of society, those needless degrees of separation. But even the…

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Carbon-free energy is simply something we have to do. The time for talk is past. If we turn around net carbon emissions by 2020…

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Explore all 18 William H. Calvin quotes

More Civilization quotes

What sets worlds in motion is the interplay of differences, their attractions and repulsions. Life is plurality, death is uniformity. By suppressing differences and…

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Sentiment is the mightiest force in civilization; not sentimentality, but sentiment. Women will bring this into politics. Home, sweet home, is as powerful on…

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Violence is not necessary to destroy a civilization. Each civilization dies from indifference toward the unique values which created it.

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We released 400,000 classified documents, the most extraordinary history of a war to ever have been released in our civilization. Those documents cover 109,000…

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Wine is one of the most civilized things in the world and one of the most natural things of the world that has been…

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Whenever we touch nature we get clean. People who have got dirty through too much civilization take a walk in the woods, or a…

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The invention of gunpowder and the constant improvement of firearms are enough in themselves to show that the advance of civilization has done nothing…

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Another success is the post-office, with its educating energy augmented by cheapness and guarded by a certain religious sentimentin mankind; so that the power…

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