If Grace is there with you — look in her memories, she can show you the world we come from. There's no green there. They killed their Mother, and they're gonna do the same thing here.
—Jake Sully, Avatar
Thorn: I know, I know. When you were young, people were better.
Sol: Aw, nuts. People were always rotten. But the world was beautiful.
Sol: Aw, nuts. People were always rotten. But the world was beautiful.
Earth, man. What a shithole.
—Johner, Alien: Resurrection
"It's really beautiful right around sunset. The methane emissions really pick up the colors."
—Stanley Ipkiss, The Mask
"Many of those trees were my friends, creatures I had known from nut and acorn; many had voices of their own that are lost for ever now. And there are wastes of stump and bramble where once there were singing groves. I have been idle. I have let things slip. It must stop!"
—Treebeard, The Two Towers
"The Rio Tinto (Red River) in Spain has had a shitty time ever since humanity turned up. We're not indulging in hyperbole, here; Homo sapiens have been dumping pollutants in the river for over 5,000 years, a number you may recognize as five times the combined duration of the Roman Empire and the Egyptian Empire. To be fair, we've not been doing it because some aged king did the old "Fuck this river in particular" routine several millennia ago and no one ever got around to stopping. Rio Tinto just happens to run through an area with some of the richest deposits of copper, gold, and silver in the world, and as such the area has been screwed by the world's foremost mining boners since time immemorial... over time, it acquired its characteristic red color from heavy metals that crept in as a side effect of mining. The color's not all that trickled in, either. The river is actually even more lethal than its uninviting appearance suggests. The pH of the water hovers around 2, placing it on par with stomach acid. Yes, Rio Tinto could literally digest you."
I wonder what life was like on Earth when the whole atmosphere was breathable?
—— Unattributed personal log fragment, "Seeding Departure", Civilization: Beyond Earth Harmony level 1 quote
Centuries of industrial pollution were inevitably changing the biosphere of our world and the Directorate knew it better than anyone, yet they did nothing to stop it, profit had to be maximized, production had to be increased, customers had to be satisfied. Holes in the ozone layer, irreversible changes in the atmosphere, radioactive fallout, wild-life mutations, the days growing darker and the sky turning black - none of this mattered to them. These changes must have been so gradual that no single generation was able to protest it. Everyone was happily, playfully, and joyfully ignoring the world outside of the protectorate city Domes and Directorate Cubes. Why bother with the environmental damage reports when the latest celebrity trends are so exciting? Mercury in the atmosphere? Pff, Fred Mercuro X just released his latest album available for download straight into your brain! Satisfied and spoon-fed by ANNET 24-7 people begun to forget what the outside looked like.
—Charles Snippy, Romantically Apocalyptic
We had a garden, and we paved it.
—Franklin DeGraaf, The Expanse
This used to make sense to me. I thought life was generated in a Kindergarten. Formless, aimless energy channeled into new, useful gems. But life doesn't start in a Kindergarten. It ends here. I've gotten used to plants everywhere. Bugs and breeze, and sunshine... all of that has been sucked out of this place. It's with the Amethysts that were produced here, and now this place is nothing but a miserable husk.
— Peridot, Steven Universe, “Back to the Kindergarten”
Two dozen centuries of dirty industry had poisoned the atmosphere of Eustis Majoris. Ninety percent of the time, the immense city-state of Petropolis stewed under a roof of toxic stain cloud, its streets choked with hydrocarbon smog. Every now and then, the clouds burst and drenched the surface quarters with acid rain. The rain ate into everything: stone, tiles, brick, steel, skin. Epidermal cancer, a by-product of exposure to the rain, was the planet’s second-biggest killer behind pollutant-related emphysemas.
O green world
Don't desert me now
Made of you and you of me
But where are we?
—Gorillaz, O Green World
Urza: Harbin, what was it like flying back to Penregon?
Harbin: It was unremarkable, sir.
Urza: What did you see of the land while you were aloft?
Harbin: (shrugs) Mines, factories, farms, towers, outposts. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Urza: Hmmm. Nothing out of the ordinary. Argive was once a land of rolling hills and manor-house estates. Did you know that?
Harbin: I know the histories, sir.
Urza: Histories that I was alive for. Korlis was covered with forests, though now not a tree stands between its capital and the coast. Yotia was an open territory of fertile fields. Now its fields are barren, and the Sword Marches is a plain of blackened glass.
Harbin: That is because of Mishra's inventions. His ground-breakers and Armageddon clocks. He would rather destroy the land than give it up to you.
Urza: Yes, those are the qadir’s inventions. But have I been better with my creations? The land has been ripped asunder in our pursuit of resources to fight this war. There are reports from among the surviving Sardian dwarves that burning rain falls from the sky into their land, searing the flesh and corroding any exposed mechanism. The qadir has plundered nation after nation. Have I been any less effective in my own work?
Harbin: It was unremarkable, sir.
Urza: What did you see of the land while you were aloft?
Harbin: (shrugs) Mines, factories, farms, towers, outposts. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Urza: Hmmm. Nothing out of the ordinary. Argive was once a land of rolling hills and manor-house estates. Did you know that?
Harbin: I know the histories, sir.
Urza: Histories that I was alive for. Korlis was covered with forests, though now not a tree stands between its capital and the coast. Yotia was an open territory of fertile fields. Now its fields are barren, and the Sword Marches is a plain of blackened glass.
Harbin: That is because of Mishra's inventions. His ground-breakers and Armageddon clocks. He would rather destroy the land than give it up to you.
Urza: Yes, those are the qadir’s inventions. But have I been better with my creations? The land has been ripped asunder in our pursuit of resources to fight this war. There are reports from among the surviving Sardian dwarves that burning rain falls from the sky into their land, searing the flesh and corroding any exposed mechanism. The qadir has plundered nation after nation. Have I been any less effective in my own work?
Growth has been our close companion for centuries, and we love it to pieces. It makes politicians swoon, economists dance, investors giggle, and community planners smile.
The only problem is that this friend is about to turn into our greatest enemy. Pursuit of growth—in money and resource exploitation—has a flip side on Earth’s ecosystems. Up until now, we mostly saw the good side of growth: conveniences, technology, health care, security. Becoming apparent is the toll this misguided focus is taking on our irreplaceable home. No amount of money (all the king’s horses and all the king’s men) can restore lost species and destroyed ecosystems. So maybe money is a bad metric for what really matters, yeah?
The only problem is that this friend is about to turn into our greatest enemy. Pursuit of growth—in money and resource exploitation—has a flip side on Earth’s ecosystems. Up until now, we mostly saw the good side of growth: conveniences, technology, health care, security. Becoming apparent is the toll this misguided focus is taking on our irreplaceable home. No amount of money (all the king’s horses and all the king’s men) can restore lost species and destroyed ecosystems. So maybe money is a bad metric for what really matters, yeah?
—Thomas W. Murphy, "Growth Is Our Old Yeller
." Do the Math (June 1, 2021).
." Do the Math (June 1, 2021).My message is that we'll be watching you.
This is all wrong. I shouldn't be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you!
You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I'm one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!
For more than 30 years, the science has been crystal clear. How dare you continue to look away and come here saying that you're doing enough, when the politics and solutions needed are still nowhere in sight.
You say you hear us and that you understand the urgency. But no matter how sad and angry I am, I do not want to believe that. Because if you really understood the situation and still kept on failing to act, then you would be evil. And that I refuse to believe.
This is all wrong. I shouldn't be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you!
You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I'm one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!
For more than 30 years, the science has been crystal clear. How dare you continue to look away and come here saying that you're doing enough, when the politics and solutions needed are still nowhere in sight.
You say you hear us and that you understand the urgency. But no matter how sad and angry I am, I do not want to believe that. Because if you really understood the situation and still kept on failing to act, then you would be evil. And that I refuse to believe.
—Greta Thunberg, speaking at the United Nations Climate Action Summit on September 23, 2019.
So call the mainland from the beach
All parties now washed up in bleach
The waves are rising far this time of year
And nobody knows what to do with the heat
Under sunshine pylons we'll meet
While rain is falling like rhinestones from the sky
All parties now washed up in bleach
The waves are rising far this time of year
And nobody knows what to do with the heat
Under sunshine pylons we'll meet
While rain is falling like rhinestones from the sky
— Gorillaz, "Rhinestone Eyes"
