Quotes By David R. Brower
We've pumped waste into cavities in solid rock and found that it spread through the rock.
David R. Brower
I was actually telling people that - by harnessing the atom - we could enter a new era of unlimited power that would do away with the need to dam our beautiful streams.
David R. Brower
Apollo 13, as you may remember, gave us a reactor that is bubbling away right now somewhere in the Pacific. It's supposed to be bubbling away on the moon, but it's in the Pacific Ocean instead.
David R. Brower
It is absolutely imperative that we protect, preserve and pass on this genetic heritage for man and every other living thing in as good a condition as we received it.
David R. Brower
Is the minor convenience of allowing the present generation the luxury of doubling its energy consumption every 10 years worth the major hazard of exposing the next 20,000 generations to this lethal waste?
David R. Brower
What's even more unsettling is the way these people hide what they're doing from the public. They strip the labels off miracle wheat when they ship it, for instance, and say, 'Watch out. Don't plant too much and don't depend on it too much.'
David R. Brower
Perhaps we'll realize that each of us has not one vote but ten thousand or a million.
David R. Brower
When people say, 'You're not being realistic,' they're just trying to tag some thoughts that they can't otherwise handle.
David R. Brower
The more we pour the big machines, the fuel, the pesticides, the herbicides, the fertilizer and chemicals into farming, the more we knock out the mechanism that made it all work in the first place.
David R. Brower
For how many people do you think might yet stand on this planet before the sun grows cold? That's the responsibility we hold in our hands.
David R. Brower
I began working with the John Muir Institute and then started helping found Friends of the Earth organizations here and there in other countries. That pretty well brings us up to the present.
David R. Brower
We tried burying the waste at sea and the concrete cannisters that held it cracked open.
David R. Brower
Once we open the door to the plutonium economy, we expose ourselves to absolutely terrible, horrifying risks from these people.
David R. Brower
It seems that every time mankind is given a lot of energy, we go out and wreck something with it.
David R. Brower
I sort of kept my hand in writing and went to work for the Sierra Club in '52, walked the plank there in '69, founded Friends of the Earth and the League of Conservation Voters after that.
David R. Brower
I believe that the average guy in the street will give up a great deal, if he really understands the cost of not giving it up. In fact, we may find that, while we're drastically cutting our energy consumption, we're actually raising our standard of living.
David R. Brower
Some otherwise sane scientists have seriously proposed that we tuck this deadly garbage under the edges of drifting continents but how can they be sure the moving land masses will climb over the waste and not just push it forward?
David R. Brower
A great deal of pressure was then built up to remove me from the club and my resignation was, finally, a forced one.
David R. Brower
It's very hard for me to know what to say about fusion right now, inasmuch as it is not yet scientifically feasible. I just can't understand how so many people are able to predict so much about something that still isn't scientifically possible.
David R. Brower
I will say this, - though: If it is true that fusion will put unlimited amounts of energy into our hands, then I'm worried. Our record on this score is extremely poor.
David R. Brower
At that time a senator who was on the Joint Committee of Atomic Energy said rather quietly, 'You know, we're having a little problem with waste these days.' I didn't know what he meant then, but I know now.
David R. Brower
Perhaps most ridiculous of all is the suggestion that we 'keep' our radioactive garbage for the use of our descendants. This 'solution', I think, requires an immediate poll of the next 20,000 generations.
David R. Brower
They simply don't know that much about what they're doing. There isn't enough control. There isn't enough capability in ordinary people to tinker with such a complicated piece of machinery.
David R. Brower
There is no place where we can safely store worn-out reactors or their garbage. No place!
David R. Brower
What happens when the guy who runs the reactor gets out of bed wrong or decides, for some reason, that he wants to override his instruction sheet some afternoon?
David R. Brower