Steve Hallett Quotes

Decentralization will prevent shocks from spreading throughout the system, like firebreaks in the forest.

To combat the problems we face, we need to swim against the tide, and not only the main tide of environmentally blind industrialists, but also the secondary current of efficiency-blind environmentalists.

Millions are going to die of starvation and malnutrition... Food production will decline and food prices will rise when diesel (oil) and fertilizer (natural gas) become prohibitively expensive. The disastrous depletion of soil and water resources will become abundantly clear when we cannot afford to prop up production artificially.

...the environment is master. Societies and economies are utterly dependent upon it.

We seem to have quite a few problems: global climate change, peak oil, overpopulation, collapsing fisheries, desertification, wealth inequality, species extinctions, freshwater shortages, hapless governments, deforestation, disease epidemics, and agricultural failures top the list. ...our civilizations have been in similar situations before ...a long list of civilizations from the Maya to the Romans all collapsed. The precedent is set...

A society that supports a wealthy few at the expense of the larger population is unlikely to persist.

I find it hard to listen to fervent Republicans. Put the combined wisdom and honesty of Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, and a dozen others on the back of a postcard with a thick marker pen and you'll still have plenty of room for the address and stamp.

Coral bleaching, the collapse of pine forests from bark beetle infestations, the destruction of Arctic habitat for animals... and the thawing of the Arctic permafrost are not future, theoretical impacts; they are disasters that we are watching unfold.

Nothing can sustain a system that is in overshoot... Resiliance... is not the strength to hold back the tide, but the strength to bend without breading as the tide inevitably rushes in.