Any regeneration project that fails to put environmental and social benefits at its very heart is unlikely to achieve anything more than a very short–lived spasm of spurious prosperity - Jonathon Porritt (2007)

Reliable and affordable energy is essential for meeting basic human needs and fueling economic growth, but many of the most difficult and dangerous environmental problems at every level of economic development arise from the harvesting, transport, processing, and conversion of energy - John Holdren, President, American Association for the Advancement of Science (February 2007)

Delaying action to address climate change will increase the environmental and societal consequences as well as the costs. The longer we wait to tackle climate change, the harder and more expensive the task will be - American Association for the Advancement of Science public statement 18 February 2007

In addition to rapidly reducing greenhouse gas emissions, it is essential that we develop strategies to adapt to ongoing changes and make communities more resilient to future changes - American Association for the Advancement of Science public statement 18 February 2007

The growing torrent of information presents a clear message: we are already experiencing global climate change. It is time to muster the political will for concerted action. Stronger leadership at all levels is needed. The time is now. We must rise to the challenge. We owe this to future generations - American Association for the Advancement of Science public statement 18 February 2007

Without environmental sustainability, economic stability and social cohesion cannot be achieved - unattributable (2007)

...we owe it to the rest of the planet to stabilise our own population. Producing lots of extra Brits, whether through higher birth rates or immigration, is a selfish strategy both economically and environmentally. Not only will it increase overcrowding and congestion and put huge extra strain on resources and habitats in the UK; because British consumers have such a heavy global footprint, it will intensify our impact on the Earth’s ecosystems - David Nicholson-Lord, research associate, Optimum Population Trust (2006)

Each and every one of us can make changes in the way we live our lives and become part of the solution [to climate change] - Al Gore, 45th Vice President of the United States, 'An Inconvenient Truth' (2006)

Our new technologies, combined with our numbers, have made us, collectively, a force of nature - Al Gore, 45th Vice President of the United States, 'An Inconvenient Truth' (2006)

...the science is getting worse faster than the politics is getting better - David Miliband, Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in interview with the Guardian newspaper concerning climate change (December 2006)

Essentially, by 2050 we need all activities outside agriculture to be near zero carbon emitting if we are to stop carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere growing - David Miliband, Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (personal blog, 1 November 2006)

First, climate change is the greatest long-term threat faced by humanity. It could cause more human and financial suffering than the two world wars and the great depression put together. All countries will be affected, but the poorest countries will be hit hardest. Secondly, the costs of inaction far outweigh the costs of action - David Miliband, Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, statement to House of Commons in response to 'The Stern Review' into economics of climate change, 30 October 2006

The scientific evidence is now overwhelming: climate change presents very serious global risks, and it demands an urgent global response - Sir Nicholas Stern, 'The Stern Review' on economics of climate change, October 2006

Adaptation is the only means to reduce the now-unavoidable costs of climate change over the next few decades - Sir Nicholas Stern, 'The Stern Review' on economics of climate change, October 2006

Adaptation is a vital part of a response to the challenge of climate change - Sir Nicholas Stern, 'The Stern Review' on economics of climate change, October 2006

Adaptation can efficiently reduce the costs of climate change while atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases are being stabilised - Sir Nicholas Stern, 'The Stern Review' on economics of climate change, October 2006

Climate change will affect the basic elements of life for people around the world – access to water, food production, health, and the environment. Hundreds of millions of people could suffer hunger, water shortages and coastal flooding as the world warms - Sir Nicholas Stern, 'The Stern Review' on economics of climate change, October 2006

Greenhouse gas emissions: Ultimately, stabilisation – at whatever level – requires that annual emissions be brought down to more than 80% below current levels - Sir Nicholas Stern, 'The Stern Review' on economics of climate change, October 2006

Climate change represents the greatest and widest-ranging market failure ever seen - Sir Nicholas Stern, 'The Stern Review' into economics of climate change, October 2006

...the era of cheap oil and natural gas is coming to a crashing end, with global oil production projected to peak in 2010 and North American natural gas extraction rates already in decline. These events will have enormous implications for America’s petroleum-dependent food system - Richard Heinberg, lecture to the E. F. Schumacher Society, Massachusetts, 28 October 2006

Britain has squandered its windfall of natural resources from North Sea oil and gas. Instead of prudently investing the ‘unearned income’ from nature, to build a safe, clean and green energy supply for the nation, we face unnecessary shortages. But there is still a chance to put the proceeds from liquidating our fossil fuel assets to better and more appropriate use. Instead of oil companies profiteering from climate change and oil depletion, a windfall tax could establish an Oil Legacy Fund to pay for Britain’s urgent transition to a sustainable, decentralised energy system - Andrew Simms, policy director, New Economics Foundation (October 2006)

The UK needs to admit its addiction to oil, and make a tough decision to get clean. This is the true economics of climate change - James Leaton, oil policy officer, WWF (October 2006)

Peak Oil: In the face of looming oil production shortfalls, all individuals as well as nations as a whole will have to use less oil. And now is the time to begin developing programs accommodating the need for less oil. The coming shortage could provide excellent opportunities for those able to identify them and act strategically – Kjell Aleklett, Professor of Physics, Uppsala University, Sweden (2006)

Peak Oil: There is a rude awakening in store for nations and for corporations that haven't made preparations for dealing with the situation. What we are witnessing now is that virtually three-quarters of the important oil producing countries of the world are now past their peak. There is no argument about it whatsoever - Edward Schreyer (2005), economist and former governor-general of Canada

Peak Oil: There are many, many geologists, lifelong petroleum engineers, who are saying that we can stand on our heads if we want, and the world simply cannot produce more than 80-something million barrels a day - Edward Schreyer (2005), economist and former governor-general of Canada

...we have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil...The best way to break this addiction is through technology - US President George W Bush, State of the Union Address, January 2006

Economic theory was built on the experience of the Industrial Revolution, which in turn relied on a cheap and abundant flow of energy, first from coal and later from oil and gas. Man was perceived to be master of his environment. But now rising population and dwindling resources have reversed the relationship. The imminent decline in the world’s supply of oil, which currently provides 40% of traded energy, calls for a radical change the economic principles on which the World is run, with far-reaching political consequences - Colin Campbell, Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas (2002)

Humanity is living off its ecological credit card and can only do this by liquidating the planet's natural resources - Mathis Wackernagel, Global Footprint Network (2006)

Dangerous climate change... It's important not to be alarmist but it is very important to be alarmed - David Miliband, Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, during Radio 4 "Today Programme" interview 27 September 2006

The moral imperative to make big changes is inescapable...that what we take for granted may not be here for our children - Al Gore, 45th Vice President of the United States, from his climate change film 'An Inconvenient Truth' (2006)

The era of procrastination...is coming to a close...we are entering a period of consequences - Winston Churchill (warning about the danger of appeasement - and highlighted by Al Gore, 45th Vice President of the United States in 2006, in the context of climate change)

We must rapidly wean ourselves off our dependence on coal and fossil fuels - Richard Branson, announcing investment of all profits from Virgin transport business, estimated at $3 billion over 10 years, to be invested in fighting global warming (21 September 2006)

The first law of sustainability: population growth and/or growth in the rate of consumption of resources cannot be sustained - Dr Albert Bartlett, former Professor of Physics, University of Colorado (2006)

The greatest contraceptive one can have in the developing world is the knowledge that your children will live - Julius K Nyere, President of Tanzania 1964-1985

Can you think of anything that can get better if we crowd more people into our cities, our towns, into our state our nation or on this earth? - Dr Albert Bartlett, former Professor of Physics, University of Colorado (2006)

Reining in energy-intensive activity is the only way to avert ecological catastrophe. Businesses must accept that the future will be one of energy rationing... Think about war-time rationing in Britain... No one said that price and market forces should determine who should eat and who should not. It was recognised that the challenge had to be dealt with equitably, by sharing out a finite, basic commodity. The ration book was introduced and there were no demonstrations in Trafalgar Square. The same logic must apply today, for sharing out Earth's limited capacity to absorb greenhouse gases - Dr Mayer Hillman, senior fellow emeritus, Policy Studies Institute (2006)

The 'Big Green Debate' has entered a very interesting stage. Once there was endless controversy; now there is near unanimity. Once there was universal political indifference; now the bandwagon is abrim with politicians in catch-up mode. Once the media were semi-detached: now they're really getting stuck in. And they need to be! Many people are confused and disempowered, and the role of the media in getting then informed and engaged is critical - Jonathon Porritt (2006)

The clearest evidence that we are living beyond environmental means is the threat of dangerous climate change. The scale of this threat, to human life and to the natural resources and assets on which it depends, for everything from oxygen and clean water to healthy soils and flood defence, means that this simply must be our top priority - David Miliband, Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in letter to Prime Minister Tony Blair (July 2006)

City organisation will have to drive our ecological efficiency as a species. Put simply, cities offer the best chance we have of minimising our ecological impact. But this means that the overriding ecological purpose must quickly become an explicit objective of urban government - Sir John Harman, Chairman, Environment Agency, supportive statement for 6th Annual Climate Change Conference: Cities Action Summit, London (July 2006)

Consuming three planets’ worth of resources when in fact we have one is the environmental equivalent of childhood obesity – eating until you make yourself sick - David Miliband, Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs addressing the TUC conference, Brighton (12 September 2006)

We are living as if we had three planets’ worth of resources to live with rather than just one. We need to cut by about two-thirds our ecological footprint. For that we need one planet farming as well as one planet living – one planet farming which minimises the impact on the environment of food production and consumption, and which maximises its contribution to renewal of the natural environment - David Miliband, Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs addressing the Royal Agricultural Show, Stoneleigh, Warwickshire (July 2006)

Thirty years ago, if you said the country was living beyond its means, people would have thought about economics. Now, if you talk about the country, or the planet living beyond its means, you think about the environment. We are taking out more than we are giving back. We are consuming energy, water, and other natural resources in a way that is leading to huge and often irreversible damage to the planet. So too are most other developed nations. And so too will China and India if they follow the same path of economic development as us - David Miliband, Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs addressing the Royal Agricultural Show, Stoneleigh, Warwickshire (July 2006)

People (in Britain) want simpler lives, they want to downsize. People are becoming very bewildered by too many choices - Marian Salzman, 'trend spotter', USA (2006)

It’s time we admitted that there's more to life than money, and it's time we focused not just on GDP, but on GWB - general well-being – David Cameron, Conservative Party Leader, 2006

I ask citizens and governments everywhere to do their part by conserving energy and reducing the use of fossil fuels for the good of the world community. This is our duty to those who share this world with us and to those who follow us: Wherever we see a threat to our environment we must take action - Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor of California, addressing World Environment Day conference, 1 June 2006

Gross national product measures neither the health of our children, the quality of their education, nor the joy of their play. It measures neither the beauty of our poetry, nor the strength of our marriages. It is indifferent to the decency of our factories and the safety of streets alike. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. GNP measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country. It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile - Senator Robert Kennedy (1968)

There are jobs, money and survival in renewable energy. Our only safe future is sun power - Dave Hampton (letter to The Sun newspaper, May 2006)

Our use of water in all aspects of our lives has a direct impact on the rivers and wetlands...We cannot expect our environment to provide a constantly increasing supply of water - Dr David King, Director of Water Management, Environment Agency (2006)

...a population larger than that of the UK is being added to the planet each year, with the equivalent of one new city added every single day. The consequences are already clear - Earth is under mounting stress from human activities, with its climate changing and its ecosystems failing. But recognition that we must act urgently to preserve our natural habitat has been undermined by persistent failure to admit the multiplier effect of human numbers - www.optimumpopulation.org (2006)

By the end of this century we will be living in a low carbon economy. We have no choice. Our current reliance on fossil fuels is unsustainable; our carbon emissions are throwing the climate out of balance - UK Energy Minister, Malcolm Wicks (2006)

Fifteen per cent of the population believe the moon landing was actually staged in a movie lot in Arizona and somewhat fewer still believe the Earth is flat. I think they all get together with the global warming deniers on a Saturday night and party - Al Gore, 45th Vice President of the United States (September 2006)

We're putting 70 million tonnes of pollution into the atmosphere every day, trapping an enormous amount of extra heat from the sun inside the earth's atmosphere. It's threatening to push the planet past a tipping point beyond which climate change would be difficult to stop - Al Gore, 45th Vice President of the United States (September 2006)

Although reducing human emissions to the atmosphere is undoubtedly of critical importance, as are any and all measures to reduce the human environmental "footprint", the truth is that the contribution of each individual cannot be reduced to zero ...if we believe that the size of the human "footprint" is a serious problem (and there is much evidence for this) then a rational view would be that along with a raft of measures to reduce the footprint per person, the issue of population management must be addressed - Professor Chris Rapley, Director, British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge (BBC Green Room, 6 January 2006)

This has got to be bigger than any party, any business, or anyone of us. We will create the environment of the future, either through action or inaction. We have a choice - John Duggan, CEO, Gazeley (2006)

Food security: I think we’d be very foolish to expect that we can just import everything from somewhere else and imagine that that’s going to last for ever and ever and ever - HRH The Prince of Wales, BBC interview, October 2005

If our economies are to flourish, if global poverty is to be banished, and if the well-being of the world's people enhanced - not just in this generation but in succeeding generations - we must make sure we take care of the natural environment and resources on which our economic activity depends - Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown addressing the Energy and Environment Ministers from 20 countries (March 2005)

Ever more people are alert to the challenge of global poverty and global warming. We know that solutions are at hand. We will not sleepwalk into catastrophe. We have the capacity to forsee and forestall, and I believe we will find the will to act - Jonathan Dimbleby, broadcaster (2005)

The western model of growth that India and China wish to emulate is intrinsically toxic. It uses huge resources - energy and materials - and generates enormous waste... it remains many steps behind the problems it creates. India and China have no choice but to reinvent the development trajectory - Sunita Narain, Director, Centre for Science and Environment, New Delhi (2006)

The choices China and India make in the next few years will lead the world either towards a future beset by growing ecological and political instability - or down a development path based on efficient technologies and better stewardship of resources - Worldwatch Institute 'State of the World 2006' report

...living more sustainably means living happier, more balanced and potentially more fulfilled lives than most of us 'choose' to live today, whatever Jeremy Clarkson may have to say about that! - Jonathon Porritt (2005)

...the core values that underpin sustainable development - interdependence, empathy, equity, personal responsibility and intergenerational justice - are the only foundation upon which any viable vision of a better world can possibly be constructed - "Capitalism - as if the world matters" by Jonathon Porritt (2005)

...as more and more people wake up to the fact that further growth does not necessarily bring improvements in quality of life (and often exactly the opposite), sustainability is going to become one of the key characteristics with which places want to be associated - Jonathon Porritt (November 2005)

It is a stark and arresting fact that, since the middle of the 20th century, humankind has consumed more natural resources than in all previous human history - Margaret Beckett, launching the UK Sustainable Development Strategy (March 2005)

We know for sure that human activity is influencing the global environment, even if we don't know by how much. We might still get away with it: the sceptics could be right, and the majority of the world's scientists wrong. It would be a lucky break. But how lucky do you feel? - New Scientist 'Climate Change: Menace or myth?' (vol 185 2486, 12 February 2005)

I am I plus my surroundings and if I do not preserve the latter I do not preserve myself - Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset (1883 - 1955)

Humans merely share the Earth. We can only protect the land, not own it - Chief Seattle

The difference between animals and humans is that animals change themselves for the environment, but humans change the environment for themselves - Ayn Rand

Our house is burning and we look elsewhere. Nature, mutilated and over-exploited, can no longer reconstitute itself and we refuse to admit it. Humanity is suffering. It is suffering from poor development, in the North as in the South, and we are indifferent. The Earth and humanity are in peril and we are all responsible. It is time now to open our eyes - Jacques Chirac, French President, addressing World Summit on Sustainable Development, Johannesburg, August 2002

All of life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied to a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly - Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1969)

The scarcest resource is not oil, metals, clean air, capital, labour, or technology. It is our willingness to listen to each other and learn from each other and to seek the truth rather than seek to be right - Donella Meadows, environmental scientist, teacher and writer (1941-2001)

Sustainability is here to stay or we may not be - Niall Fitzgerald, UK CEO, Unilever

How are we going to stop defining ourselves by how much stuff we consume? - Ben Tuxworth, Forum for the Future (2004)

Climate change: the greatest challenge to face man - HRH The Prince of Wales, BBC interview, October 2005

Climate change: It's here. If we don't react, war, pestilence and famine will follow close behind - R K Pachauri, Chairman, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2005)

Climate change: We have never faced a more critical time on our planet - Dr Richard Leakey, Paleoanthropologist and wildlife conservationist, addressing the annual "at Bristol" patrons' dinner, 8 February 2005

We need to develop the new green industrial revolution that develops the new technologies that can confront and overcome the challenge of climate change; and that above all can show us not that we can avoid changing our behaviour but we can change it in a way that is environmentally sustainable - Tony Blair, addressing event marking the 10th anniversary of His Royal Highness' Business and the Environment Programme, London, 14 September 2004

What is now plain is that the emission of greenhouse gases, associated with industrialisation and strong economic growth from a world population that has increased sixfold in 200 years, is causing global warming at a rate that began as significant, has become alarming and is simply unsustainable in the long-term. And by long-term I do not mean centuries ahead. I mean within the lifetime of my children certainly; and possibly within my own. And by unsustainable, I do not mean a phenomenon causing problems of adjustment. I mean a challenge so far-reaching in its impact and irreversible in its destructive power, that it alters radically human existence - Tony Blair, addressing event marking the 10th anniversary of His Royal Highness' Business and the Environment Programme, London, 14 September 2004

If what the science tells us about climate change is correct, then unabated it will result in catastrophic consequences for our world - Tony Blair, addressing event marking the 10th anniversary of His Royal Highness' Business and the Environment Programme, London, 14 September 2004

Climate change is probably the greatest long-term challenge facing the human race - Tony Blair, Prime Minister’s Foreword to the 2006 UK Climate Change Programme

I also, as I think most people do, have a healthy instinct that if we upset the balance of nature, we are in all probability going to suffer a reaction. With world growth, and population as it is, this reaction must increase - Tony Blair, addressing event marking the 10th anniversary of His Royal Highness' Business and the Environment Programme, London, 14 September 2004

In 1966 Rolf Edberg wrote "This is mankind's home", "in the narrow borderland between the deathly heat beneath our feet and the coldness of space above us". He describes the fragility of our existence in poetic terms: "the atmospheric layer is so thin that it cannot be represented on any globe with even the finest brushstroke. At its thickest, it is only a few fractions of a millionth of the Earth's radius. This thin layer is what makes the difference between our planet and the sterile landscape of the moon." After reading that, one does feel the need to take better care of this fragile layer. - opening remark in speech "Towards a Low Carbon Economy" by Margot Wallstrom, European Commissioner responsible for the Environment, at European Business Summit, March 2004

The three pillars of development (economic, social and environmental) must be strengthened together. But it is evident that two of the pillars - economic and social - are subsidiary to, and underpinned by, the third: a vibrant global ecology. Neither dollars nor our species will out-survive our planet. The earth can survive happily without people or profit - Dave Hampton (letter to the Financial Times, November 2004)

There can be no sustainable development without sustainable energy development - Margot Wallstrom, European Union Environmental Commissioner (2004)

Climate change is not an environmental problem. It is a civilizational problem. Climate change is not just another issue. If it is not addressed in very short order, it will swamp every other issue facing us today - Ross Gelbspan, author 'The Heat is on - The Climate Crisis'

Climate change will not be effectively managed until individuals and communities recognise that their behaviour can make a difference - The Royal Society, Climate Change: what we know and what we need to know (2002)

Climate change is the biggest issue for us to face this century. It's manmade. The science is done. It's complete. It's a matter of political understanding - Sir David King, UK Government's Chief Scientist, giving evidence to House of Lords select committee (March 2004)

Climate change: I say the debate is over. We know the science, we see the threat and we know that the time for action is now - Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor of California, speaking on World Environment Day in San Francisco, 5 June 2005

The problem of climate change means we must look to carbon-free technologies to meet our energy needs - Sir David King, UK Government's Chief Scientist, writing in the New Scientist (April 2004)

We live not, in reality, on the summit of a solid earth but at the bottom of an ocean of air - Thales of Miletus (c.625 - 545 BC)

Sustainable development: Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs - "Our Common Future" World Commission on Environment and Development report, 1987, chaired by Mrs Gro Harlem Brundtland

Sustainable development is the peace policy of the future - Professor Dr Klaus Topfer, UNEP Executive Director (2004)

I have no doubt that the fundamental problem the planet faces is the enormous increase in the human population - Sir David Attenborough

We cannot confront the massive challenges of poverty, hunger, disease and environmental destruction unless we address issues of population and reproductive health - Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, Executive Director, UN Population Fund (2004)

The future of life on earth depends on our ability to take action. Many individuals are doing what they can, but real success can only come if there's a change in our societies and our economics and in our politics. I've been lucky in my lifetime to see some of the greatest spectacles that the natural world has to offer. Surely we have a responsibility to leave for future generations a planet that is healthy, inhabitable by all species - Sir David Attenborough

The human population can no longer be allowed to grow in the same old uncontrollable way. If we do not take charge of our population size, then nature will do it for us and it is the poor people of the world who will suffer most - Sir David Attenborough (2003)

Imagine...The UK's population on its way to a target of 30 million by 2130. Wide open landscapes - think of France...Housing freed up at affordable prices. Britain's lost countryside gradually being restored. Restored wildlife and relieved pressure on fish stocks. Widespread organic farming and local food sourcing. An end to age discrimination in employment. Uncongested roads and more space for public transport projects. Nuclear and fossil fuel-driven power stations cut by more than half. Half the UK's energy needs met from renewable sources. Greenhouse gas emissions reduced to sustainable levels. Less stress, perhaps. More space, silence and starlit skies - www.optimumpopulation.org (2003)

Sustainable development: Improving the quality of life within the carrying capacity of supporting ecosystems - UN Environment Programme/WWF/World Conservation Union Report "Caring for the Earth", 1991

Sustainable development is a process which enables all people to realise their potential and to improve their quality of life in ways which protect and enhance the Earth's life support systems - Sarah Parkin, Forum for the Future

We do not accept that human society should be constructed on the basis of a savage principle of the survival of the fittest - Thabo Mbeki, President, S.Africa opening World Summit on Sustainable Development, Johannesburg, August 2002

Environmental awareness is something total. One cannot live for half the day concerned with the environment and the other half ignoring or destroying it - Suryo Prawiroatmodja, Indonesian environmental educator

The machine world functions without soul or conscience, blindly willing to destroy the planetary ecosystem on which it depends. Every Monday morning nearly every person in the Western world wakes up and sets about living in ways that contribute to this destruction. Our livelihoods often depend on it. And even though we know what we are doing we are stymied about what to do instead - Margot Caines

We live on this very small and fragile planet: a world in which there is poverty and injustice is never going to be a safe and secure world - Hilary Benn, UK International Development Secretary, 2004

A global human society, characterised by islands of wealth, surrounded by a sea of poverty, is unsustainable - Thabo Mbeki, President, S.Africa opening World Summit on Sustainable Development, Johannesburg, August 2002

It's extremely difficult to get people to live sustainably. Often they are just concerned with trying to live - Callum Rankine, WWF, quoted in the 'New Scientist' concerning relationship between fast-growing populations with local resources (November 2004)

For the first time in human history, society has the capacity, the knowledge and the resources to eradicate poverty - Thabo Mbeki, President, S.Africa opening World Summit on Sustainable Development, Johannesburg, August 2002

The challenge now is to mobilise governments, businesses and citizens to shift their focus away from the unrestrained accumulation of goods, and toward finding ways to ensure a better life for all - Worldwatch Institute "State of the World 2004" report

We all have an interest, and a duty to future generations, to ensure that the benefits of mobility that we now take for granted, do not place an intolerable burden on our environment - Elliot Morley, Minister of State for Environment and Climate Change, addressing International Environmentally Friendly Vehicles Conference, Birmingham, 10 November 2005

From factory-farmed chicken to old-growth lumber to gas-guzzling cars, many of the things we buy support destructive industries. But businesses, governments, and concerned citizens can harness this same purchasing power to build markets for less-hazardous products, including fair-traded foods, green power, and fuel-cell vehicles - Worldwatch Institute "State of the World 2004" report

Agriculture is perhaps the most inherently sustainable of all human activities, using natural fertility of the land, sunlight, water and human labour to produce the basic necessities for survival - Mark Overton (1999)

Poverty eradication, changing consumption and production patterns, and protecting and managing the natural resource base for economic and social development are overarching objectives of, and essential requirements for sustainable development - from "The Johannesburg Declaration on Sustainable Development" (World Summit on Sustainable Development), September 2002

Current trends in consumption will swamp any gains technology does provide unless there are radical changes in the way we consume resources - Barbara Young, Environment Agency Chief Executive (2003)

Connecting issues to the everyday lives of ordinary people is the only sustainable strategy - source not known

We do not have a freehold on the earth, only a full repairing lease - Margaret Thatcher, 1988

Do we have to wait until a disaster overwhelms us before we make the radical changes necessary to protect our world for future generations? That is the vital challenge of sustainable development. If we act now there is much that can be saved which will otherwise disappear forever - John Gummer

Our life as consumers seems light years away from that of our grandparents. But you don't change human nature. Optimism, for me, is the belief that we can spread the opportunity for everyone to be fully human. Sustainability, like music, is an impulse to make sense of the world around us. It is core to our humanity. If you only like one composer, or think all the best music has already been written, you have reason for pessimism. If not, it is within us to have good reason for hope - Ed Mayo, Chief Executive, National Consumer Council (2005)

Sustainable development: Holding our world in trust for our children - Michael Meacher, 1998

Sustainable development: You have to put back. It's like anything in life - if you just keep taking then eventually there will be nothing left - Garry Greenland (organic supplier)

Sustainable development: Meeting present needs without compromising the stock of natural resources remaining for future generations. In terms of buildings, it implies resource efficiency, minimum energy use, flexibility and long life - Richard Rogers, Architect

Sustainable development: Development that our grandchildren would thank us for - source not known

Sustainable development: Growth without cheating our children - source not known

Sustainable development: Enjoying the Earth’s resources without jeopardising the welfare of future generations - James Jones, Bishop of Liverpool (2003)

If something is sustainable, it means we can go on doing it indefinitely. If it isn't, we can't - Jonathon Porritt

Sustainability is a set of conditions and trends in a given system that can continue indefinitely - Alan AtKisson, President, AtKisson Inc. (2004)

We must not allow our pursuit of wealth-generation in the short term to mutilate or destroy our natural environment, for not only can this undermine the important cultural and aesthetic contribution that the environment makes to our lives, but it can imperil the very survival of countless people - Neil Chalmers, The Natural History Museum (foreword to "Key Issues in Sustainable Development and Learning - A Critical Review", 2004)

To free us to live within our planet's budget, we all need "one-planet" buildings. Let's live on this planet as if we intend to stay here - various (letter to 'The Independent' newspaper, August 2003)

They say we have to consider our legacy for the next generation, but surely we want them to have all our advantages too? I believe there has to be a happy lifestyle medium somewhere between hair shirt hippy and toxic Texan - Tamasin Cave, Editor, Ergo

We need a new environmental consciousness on a global basis. To do this, we need to educate people - Mikhail Gorbachev

When future generations judge those who came before them on environmental issues, they may conclude “they didn’t know”: let us not go down in history as the generations who knew, but didn’t care - Mikhail Gorbachev (2002)

History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives - Abba Eban

The nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased, and not impaired in value - Theodore Roosevelt

If we are so selfish that we live unsustainable lifestyles, when will we learn that a sustainable lifestyle also serves self interest - anonymous

Living in the UK as if we had three planet Earths to support us is not just unsustainable, it is also shortsighted - anonymous (2003)

Plans to protect air and water, wilderness and wildlife are in fact plans to protect man - Stuart Udall

The whole world is our dining room, but be careful: it is also our garbage can - Ashleigh Brilliant

When my parents were growing up the world's population was under three billion. During my children's lifetime, it is likely to exceed nine billion. You don't need to be an expert to realise that sustainable development is going to become the greatest challenge we face this century - Tony Blair, March 2001

Make the wrong choices now and future generations will live with a changed climate, depleted resources and without the green space and biodiversity that contribute both to our standard of living and our quality of life - Tony Blair, March 2005

Surely we have the wit and will to develop economically without despoiling the very environment we depend upon - Tony Blair, 2 October 2001

Real progress cannot be measured by money alone. We must ensure that economic growth contributes to our quality of life, rather than degrading it - Tony Blair, Foreword to 'A Better Quality of Life' (1999)

Whatever the short term clashes between protecting the environment and eradicating poverty, medium term and long term it is clear. Unless we grow sustainably, at some point we face catastrophe - Tony Blair, speech in Maputo, Mozambique, September 2002

We have a situation where we are rich really as a world overall, and yet we have the capacity to destroy ourselves, either through nuclear weapons or through environmental degradation, and we allow the life chances of hundreds of millions of people to be destroyed because we haven't found the will to tackle it - Tony Blair, speech in Maputo, Mozambique, September 2002

We know the problems.... and we know the solution; sustainable development. The issue is the political will - Tony Blair, speech in Maputo, Mozambique, September 2002

Humankind has the science and technology to destroy itself or to provide prosperity for all. But while science offers us these opportunities, science will not make that choice for us. Only the moral power of a world acting as a community can - Margaret Beckett, speech 'Global problems: global solutions', Washington, December 2001

Many unsustainable behaviours are locked-in and made 'normal', not just by the way that we produce and consume, but by the absence of easy alternatives - Margaret Beckett, speech "Doing things differently" to Environment Agency Annual Conference, October 2004

If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can't be done - Peter Ustinov, actor, writer and raconteur (1921-2004)

Government must realise economic growth does not guarantee quality of life - UK Sustainable Development Commission (2003)

Failure to reverse trends that threaten future quality of life will steeply increase the costs to society or make those trends irreversible - European Heads of State and Government, Gothenburg, 2001

As the economy gets better, everything else gets worse - Buchwald's Law

Sustainability is a political choice, not a technical one. It's not a question of whether we can be sustainable, but whether we choose to be - Gary Lawrence, Director of Seattle Planning Department, USA

Sustainable development is like teenage sex - everybody claims they are doing it but most people aren't, and those that are, are doing it very badly - source not known

Sustainability is about simultaneously looking after the three Es: the Environment, the Economy and Everyone - Sustainable Business Team, Government Office for the South West, UK, 2000

Sustainable development - living off the income without spending the capital - the city

Sustainable development is the thinking man's user-friendly capitalism - anonymous

There are no environmental solutions to environmental problems, only social, economic and political ones - Charles Secrett, Friends of the Earth

Sustainable development is simply too powerful as a set of ideas to fail. It makes core sense - Charles Secrett, Friends of the Earth

In the natural order of things, the fittest are not those that fight well, but those that avoid fighting altogether, and thereby learn to use resources efficiently - Tony Stebbing and Gordon Heath (Green Futures, September/October 2002)

From my travels around the world I have seen how much damage and pollution is done by the careless disposal of waste. It is also evident that we in the West produce far more and throw away far more than the developing world, almost without thinking - Michael Palin, writer, actor and traveller

The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment - source not known

In the long term, the economy and the environment are the same thing. If it's unenvironmental it is uneconomical. That is the rule of nature - Mollie Beatty

If an economy is to sustain progress, it must satisfy the basic principles of ecology. If it does not, it will decline and eventually collapse. There is no middle ground – Lester Brown

The remedy to global environment and development problems lies not in reducing growth, but in breaking the connection between expanded prosperity and depleted resources - World Resources Institute, Washington

If we are concerned about our great appetite for materials, it is plausible to decrease waste, to make better use of stocks available, and to develop substitutes. But what about the appetite itself? The major cause of the continued deterioration of the global environment is the unsustainable pattern of consumption and production, particularly in industrialised countries - John Kenneth Galbraith, Economist, 1958 (1908 - 2006)

Economics and a reliance on science and technology to solve our problems has led to an unsustainable situation where continued growth in consumption is required for governments and business to be considered successful. This is a form of insanity. Economics is at the heart of our destructive ways and our faith in it has blinded us - Dr David Suzuki, Canadian scientist, environmentalist and broadcaster (2002)

Economists are behavioural psychologists, but they think more is better; they want to make everyone richer. They should pause. More's not necessarily better - David Hemenway

What good is a house, if you haven't got a decent planet to put it on? - Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)