Environment

"More than a billion women around the world want to emulate western women’s lifestyles and are rapidly acquiring the material ability to do so. It is therefore vital that in our leadership we display some reserve and responsibility in our spending so that the world’s finite resources will be available for our children, their children and their children’s children."

"I take courage, however, in the fact that the conservation effort has a broader base than ever before. There is more organized effort; there are many more individuals who are conscious of conservation problems and who are striving, in their own communities or on the national scene, to solve these problems."

"Possibly the most well-known of all our critically , the was the first Australian bird to have a recovery plan developed for it, back in 1984. Showing how conservation of extremely threatened species is a long game, by 2018 it was still considered the second most likely Australian bird to go extinct, after only two wild females successfully raised chicks in 2016 at their one remaining Tasmanian nesting site. However, things seemed to have finally turned the corner. After a couple of successful seasons, boosted by the release of dozens of birds, 62 wild orange-bellied parrots have returned to the breeding grounds."

"The most unhappy thing about conservation is that it is never permanent. If we save a priceless woodland today, it is threatened from another quarter tomorrow."

"Agriculture represents the single most profound ecological change in the entire 3.5 billion-year history of life."

"Indeed, to develop agriculture is essentially to declare war on ecosystems — converting land to produce one or two food crops, with all other native plant species all now classified as unwanted 'weeds' — and all but a few domesticated species of animals now considered as pests."

"There is little doubt left in the minds of professional biologists that Earth is currently faced with a mounting loss of species that threatens to rival the five great mass extinctions of the geological past."

"This explosion of human population, especially in the post-Industrial Revolution years of the past two centuries, coupled with the unequal distribution and consumption of wealth on the planet, is the underlying cause of the Sixth Extinction."

"All life is impermanent. We are all children of the Earth, and, at some time, she will take us back to herself again. We are continually arising from Mother Earth, being nurtured by her, and then returning to her. Like us, plants are born, live for a period of time, and then return to the Earth. When they decompose, they fertilize our gardens. Living vegetables and decomposing vegetables are part of the same reality. Without one, the other cannot be. After six months, compost becomes fresh vegetables again. Plants and the Earth rely on each other. Whether the Earth is fresh, beautiful, and green, or arid and parched depends on the plants. It also depends on us."

"Our way of walking on the Earth has a great influence on animals and plants. We have killed so many animals and plants and destroyed their environments. Many are now extinct. In turn, our environment is now harming us. We are like sleepwalkers, not knowing what we are doing or where we are heading. Whether we can wake up or not depends on whether we can walk mindfully on our Mother Earth. The future of all life, including our own, depends on our mindful steps."

"We may not appreciate the fact; but a fact nevertheless it remains: we are living in a Golden Age, the most gilded Golden Age of human history—not only of past history, but of future history. For, as Sir Charles Darwin and many others before him have pointed out, we are living like drunken sailors, like the irresponsible heirs of a millionaire uncle. At an ever accelerating rate we are now squandering the capital of metallic ores and fossil fuels accumulated in the earth’s crust during hundreds of millions of years. How long can this spending spree go on? Estimates vary. But all are agreed that within a few centuries or at most a few millennia, Man will have run through his capital and will be compelled to live, for the remaining nine thousand nine hundred and seventy or eighty centuries of his career as Homo sapiens, strictly on income. Sir Charles is of the opinion that Man will successfully make the transition from rich ores to poor ores and even sea water, from coal, oil, uranium and thorium to solar energy and alcohol derived from plants. About as much energy as is now available can be derived from the new sources—but with a far greater expense in man hours, a much larger capital investment in machinery. And the same holds true of the raw materials on which industrial civilization depends. By doing a great deal more work than they are doing now, men will contrive to extract the diluted dregs of the planet’s metallic wealth or will fabricate non-metallic substitutes for the elements they have completely used up. In such an event, some human beings will still live fairly well, but not in the style to which we, the squanderers of planetary capital, are accustomed."

"Even if the Democratic administration were resoundingly successful on all fronts, its initiatives would still be utterly insufficient to resolve the existential threat of climate breakdown and the devastation of our planet’s life-support systems. That’s because the multiple problems confronting us right now are symptoms of an even more profound problem: The underlying structure of a global economic and political system that is driving civilization toward a precipice... As long as government policies emphasize growth in gross domestic product and transnational corporations relentlessly pursue shareholder returns, we will continue accelerating toward global catastrophe... We need to forge a new era for humanity — one that is defined, at its deepest level, by a transformation in the way we make sense of the world, and a concomitant revolution in our values, goals, and collective behavior. In short, we need to change the basis of our global civilization. We must move from a civilization based on wealth accumulation to one that is life-affirming: an ecological civilization..."

"An ecological civilization is both a new and ancient idea. While the notion of structuring human society on an ecological basis might seem radical, Indigenous peoples around the world have organized themselves from time immemorial on life-affirming principles....Every year that we head closer to catastrophe—as greater climate-related disasters rear up, as the outrages of racial and economic injustice become even more egregious, and as life for most people becomes increasingly intolerable—the old narrative loses its hold on the collective consciousness. Waves of young people are looking for a new worldview—one that makes sense of the current unraveling, one that offers them a future they can believe in. It’s a bold idea to transform the very basis of our civilization to one that’s life-affirming. But when the alternative is unthinkable, a vision of a flourishing future shines a light of hope that can become a self-fulfilling reality. Dare to imagine it. Dare to make it possible by the actions you take, both individually and collectively—and it might just happen sooner than you expect."

"Conservation is not merely a thing to be enshrined in outdoor museums, but a way of living on land."

"Civilization began around wetlands; today's civilization has every reason to leave them wet and wild."

"Earth has undergone radical changes throughout its [4.5] billion year history, and as such, it would be curious if it had just now reached the state that is intrinsically valuable and ought to be preserved in perpetuity."

"Conservation biology is an ideology masquerading as a science."

"By 2050, at bio-extinction's current rate, between 25 per cent and 50 per cent of all species will have disappeared or be too few in numbers to survive. There'll be a few over-visited parks, the coral reefs will be beaten up, grasslands overgrazed. Vast areas of the tropics that have lost their forests will have the same damn weeds, bushes and scrawny eucalyptus trees so that you don't know if you're in Africa or the Americas."

"Conservation and rural-life policies are really two sides of the same policy; and down at bottom this policy rests upon the fundamental law that neither man nor nation can prosper unless, in dealing with the present, thought is steadily taken for the future."

"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."

"Here in the United States we turn our rivers and streams into sewers and dumping-grounds, we pollute the air, we destroy forests, and exterminate fishes, birds, and mammals—not to speak of vulgarizing charming landscapes with hideous advertisements. But at last it looks as if our people were awakening. Many leading men, Americans and Canadians, are doing all they can for the Conservation movement."

"The idea that our natural resources were inexhaustible still obtained, and there was as yet no real knowledge of their extent and condition. The relation of the conservation of natural resources to the problems of National welfare and National efficiency had not yet dawned on the public mind. The reclamation of arid public lands in the West was still a matter for private enterprise alone; and our magnificent river system, with its superb possibilities for public usefulness, was dealt with by the National Government not as a unit, but as a disconnected series of pork-barrel problems, whose only real interest was in their effect on the reëlection or defeat of a Congressman here and there—a theory which, I regret to say, still obtains."

"The conservation of natural resources is the fundamental problem. Unless we solve that problem, it will avail us little to solve all others."

"The conservationist's most Important task, if we are to save the earth, is to educate."

"Don't waste the Earth - It is our Jewel!"

"There must be a reason why some people can afford to live well. They must have worked for it. I only feel angry when I see waste. When I see people throwing away things we could use."

"The ocean is tired. It's throwing back at us what we're throwing in there."

"Source Reduction is to garbage what preventive medicine is to health."

"To waste, to destroy our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand down to them amplified and developed."

"Man is a wasting animal. From the layer upon layer of ash, bone and rubbish, with here a lost flint knife and there a needle polished and rubbed into shape from a splinter of bone and left on the floor of a British cave, through the piles of refuse of the city of Ur of the Chaldees to modern man, the archaeologist tells us what we were and how we lived by what we threw away."

"Haste makes waste. ~ English proverb"

"Waste not, want not. ~ English proverb"

"Life is waste..if not properly utilized."

"It is that range of biodiversity that we must care for - the whole thing - rather than just one or two stars."

"Although biodiversity loss continues globally, many countries are significantly slowing the rate of loss by shoring up protected natural areas and the services they provide, and in expanding national park systems with tighter management and more secure funding."

"In Georgia, UNDP continues to support the development of democratic institutions. Georgia is part of the global biodiversity hotspot of the Caucasus Ecoregion, with a network of Protected Areas covering seven per cent of the country."

"At Rio+20 we will continue to make the links between sustainable development and the biodiversity and ecosystem services which underpin it, focusing on the additional issues now being addressed, such as the health of oceans and food security."

"Biodiversity is defined as the natural variety and variability among living organisms, the ecological complexes among living organisms, the ecological complexes in which they naturally occur, and the ways in which they interact with each other and with the physical environment rooted in biological science."

"Biodiversity is defined as 'the variability among living organisms from all sources, including, inter alia, terrestrial, marine, and water aquatic ecosystems, and the ecological complexes of which they are part; this includes diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems."

"To many people, 'biodiversity' is almost synonymous with the word 'nature,' and 'nature' brings to mind steamy forests and the big creatures that dwell there. Fair enough. But biodiversity is much more than that, for it encompasses not only the diversity of species, but also the diversity within species... It is the diversity within species that keeps species going. This is the diversity upon which natural selection works, the diversity that fuels adaptation and evolution for everything from pandas to peas. Unless we appreciate the critical role that intra-species biodiversity plays in the survival of species, we risk seeing extinction as a numbers game, as something that happens when the last individual dies."

"Whether we consciously realize it or not, the biodiversity with which we are most familiar, and the biodiversity with which we have most intimate historical, cultural and biological connections, is that associated with food plants.We all know that apples come in red, yellow and green models, and we know some of the varietal names. But how many people realize that there are thousands of distinct varieties of potatoes, tens of thousands of varieties of beans, hundreds of thousands of types of wheat, and even more of rice?"

"Biodiversity, the variety of life, is distributed heterogeneously across the Earth. Some areas teem with biological variation (for example, some moist tropical forests and coral reefs), others are virtually devoid of life (for example, some deserts and polar regions), and most fall somewhere in between. Determining why these differences occur has long been a core objective for ecologists and biogeographers. It constitutes a continuing, an important, and to many an enthralling, challenge."

"Spatial heterogeneity in species richness, in particular, is an obvious feature of the natural world. An understanding of its determinants will impinge on applied issues of major concern to humankind, including the role of biodiversity in ecosystem processes, the spread of alien invasive species, the control of diseases and their vectors, and the likely effects of global environmental change on the maintenance of biodiversity."

"The human domination of the planet has also meant that livestock and humans far outweigh wild animals. In terms of biomass, plants are the most abundant, comprising 82% of the total, according to a 2018 estimate. Of mammals, which make up a tiny portion of the overall figure, livestock comprise 60%, humans 36% and wild animals just 4%."

"There are more effective ways of tackling environmental problems including global warming, proliferation of plastics, urban sprawl, and the loss of biodiversity than by treaties, top-down regulations, and other approaches offered by big governments and their dependents. These “more effective ways” focus on harnessing a multitude of local and small-scale initiatives to the task – the “little platoons” of civil society."

"Simply put, design matters. And at a moment in our history in which the scientific community has issued serious warnings about the negative impacts of our flawed designs-from global warming and water pollution to the loss of biodiversity and natural resources-designers have a critical role to play in the creation of a more just, healthful and sustainable world."

"In the context of conservation science the term ‘biodiversity’, a contraction of ‘biological diversity’, is relatively young. ‘Biological diversity’ in its current sense began to be used in the early 1980s, with interest in the concept elevated by publications such as ‘Limits to Growth'."

"We see evidence that lakes and forests and wetlands can have different equilibria - so you have a savanna system that may be stable and thriving, but it can also tip over and become an arid steppe if pushed too far by warming, land degradation, and biodiversity loss."

"Scientists themselves readily admit that they do not fully understand the consequences of our many-faceted assault upon the interwoven fabric of atmosphere, water, land and life in all its biological diversity. Things could turn out to be worse than the current scientific best guess. In military affairs, policy has long been based on the dictum that we should be prepared for the worst case. Why should it be so different when the security is that of the planet and our long-term future?"

"The cutting of primeval forest and other disasters, fueled by the demands of growing human populations, are the overriding threat to biological diversity everywhere."

"This is the assembly of life that took a billion years to evolve. It has eaten the storms-folded them into its genes-and created the world that created us. It holds the world steady."

"We should preserve every scrap of biodiversity as priceless while we learn to use it and come to understand what it means to humanity. We should not knowingly allow any species or race to go extinct."

"The variety of life at every hierarchical level and spatial scale of biological organisations are: genes within populations, populations within species, species within communities, communities within landscapes, landscapes within biomes, and biomes within the biosphere."

"When predators are capable of regulating prey populations, then they may indirectly influence both the composition and biomass of plant communities by releasing them from herbivory."

"Predation is probably as old as (cellular) life itself, and it is likely to have existed in many different forms and at many different levels during the formative phases of the Cambrian explosion (which culminated between 550 and 540 Ma)"

"Each predator directly exerts a negative effect upon its prey, but predators may also provide indirect benefits to their prey. In ecosystems, such benefits are effected via indirect trophic pathways that can provide a more than compensating positive influence. The ecosystem of the Big Cypress National Preserve (southwest Florida) appears to contain an unusually high number of such predators—most notably, the American alligator, Alligator mississippiensis... the predation by alligators on snakes and turtles accounts for most of the trophic benefits bestowed. The actions of alligators in modifying their physical environment contributes to the maintenance of biotic diversity. It appears that the trophic influence of this species adds further evidence to the important role it plays in the functional ecology of the cypress wetland."

"Predation, in animal behaviour, [is] the pursuit, capture, and killing of animals for food. Predatory animals may be solitary hunters, like the leopard, or they may be group hunters, like wolves."

"The senses of predators are adapted in a variety of ways to facilitate hunting behaviour. Visual acuity is great in raptors such as the red-tailed hawk, which soars on high searching for prey. Even on a dark night owls can hear, and focus on, the rustling sound and movement of a mouse."

"Many insect-eating bats hunt by echolocation, emitting a pulsed, high-frequency sound—in the manner of a ship's sonar—while flying; the sensory data thus gained guides them to their prey."

"A flock of white pelicans will cooperate to form a semicircle and, with much flapping of wings, drive fish into shallow water where they are easily captured."

""Natural? Why would I give a damn about what's natural? Nature is a butcher! Nature is a goddamned butcher!" [...] This was a recurring theme with my mother. She loved the beauty of nature, loved animals of any species, but always she saw ugliness behind the beauty. Every bird at our backyard feeder would remind her of how many chicks and fledglings died for each bird that survived to maturity. Every image of wildlife on television or the web would bring to her mind the bloody, rapacious cycle of predator and prey. The boundless, uncaring wastefulness of nature infuriated her. All through my childhood our home was an impromptu hospital, rehabilitation clinic, and long-term rest home for a host of rescued wild and domesticated animals. Orphaned fledgling birds and baby squirrels, starving semi-feral alley cats, and then the mice and birds rescued from the jaws of those same cats."

"Although predation has likely played a central role in the evolution of primate socioecology, we currently lack a thorough understanding of how fine-scale variation in perceived predation risk affects primates' short-term space use patterns and predator avoidance strategies. White-faced capuchins (Cebus capucinus) monkeys perceive reduced predation risk in the high and middle forest layers, and they adjust their vigilance behavior to small-scale spatial variation in perceived risk."

"Stotting appears to inform the predator that it has been detected, but it does not invite or deter the predator from pursuing the Gazelle, it informs the mother that the neonate has been disturbed and is in need of defence. In addition, mothers whose neonates escaped capture by cheetahs stotted significantly more during the attempt than mothers whose neonates were caught."

"Whichever way man may look upon the earth, he is oppressed with the suffering incident to life. It would almost seem as though the earth had been created with malignity and hatred. If we look at what we are pleased to call the lower animals, we behold a universal carnage. We speak of the seemingly peaceful woods, but we need only look beneath the surface to be horrified by the misery of that underworld. Hidden in the grass and watching for its prey is the crawling snake which swiftly darts upon the toad or mouse and gradually swallows it alive; the hapless animal is crushed by the jaws and covered with slime, to be slowly digested in furnishing a meal. The snake knows nothing about sin or pain inflicted upon another; he automatically grabs insects and mice and frogs to preserve his life. The spider carefully weaves his web to catch the unwary fly, winds him into the fatal net until paralyzed and helpless, then drinks his blood and leaves him an empty shell. The hawk swoops down and snatches a chicken and carries it to its nest to feed its young. The wolf pounces on the lamb and tears it to shreds. The cat watches at the hole of the mouse until the mouse cautiously comes out, then with seeming fiendish glee he plays with it until tired of the game, then crunches it to death in his jaws. The beasts of the jungle roam by day and night to find their prey; the lion is endowed with strength of limb and fang to destroy and devour almost any animal that it can surprise or overtake. There is no place in the woods or air or sea where all life is not a carnage of death in terror and agony. Each animal is a hunter, and in turn is hunted, by day and night. No landscape is so beautiful or day so balmy but the cry of suffering and sacrifice rends the air. When night settles down over the earth the slaughter is not abated. Some creatures see best at night, and the outcry of the dying and terrified is always on the wind. Almost all animals meet death by violence and through the most agonizing pain. With the whole animal creation there is nothing like a peaceful death. Nowhere in nature is there the slightest evidence of kindness, of consideration, or a feeling for the suffering and the weak, except in the narrow circle of brief family life."

"The wolf, escorted by his milk-drawn dam, Unknown to mercy, tears the guiltless lamb; The towering eagle, darting from above, Unfeeling rends the inoffensive dove; The lamb and dove on living nature feed, Crop the young herb, or crush the embryon seed. Nor spares the loud owl in her dusky flight, Smit with sweet notes, the minstrel of the night; Nor spares, enamour'd of his radiant form, The hungry nightingale the glowing worm; Who with bright lamp alarms the midnight hour, Climbs the green stem, and slays the sleeping flower."

"Arrest with rising jaw the tribes above; With monstrous gape sepulchral whales devour Shoals at a gulp, a million in an hour. ―Air, earth, and ocean, to astonish'd day One scene of blood, one mighty tomb display! From Hunger's arm the shafts of Death are hurl'd, And one great Slaughter-house the warring world!""

"[[File:Eutropis (skink) eating a frog.jpg|alt=|thumb|One simple test of the claim that the pleasure in the world outweighs the pain [...] is to compare the feelings of an animal that is devouring another with those of the animal being devoured. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer]]It is better for the genes of Darwin's wasp that the caterpillar should be alive, and therefore fresh, when it is eaten, no matter what the cost in suffering. If Nature were kind, She would at least make the minor concession of anesthetizing caterpillars before they were eaten alive from within. But Nature is neither kind nor unkind. She is neither against suffering nor for it. Nature is not interested in suffering one way or the other unless it affects the survival of DNA. It is easy to imagine a gene that, say, tranquilizes gazelles when they are about to suffer a killing bite. Would such a gene be favored by natural selection? Not unless the act of tranquilizing a gazelle improved that gene's chances of being propagated into future generations. It is hard to see why this should be so, and we may therefore guess that gazelles suffer horrible pain and fear when they are pursued to the death– as many of them eventually are."

"Predation is an important selective force in evolution and is generally assumed to select against substandard individuals, i.e. the young, senescent, sick, or individuals in poor physical condition. Raptors did not hunt randomly, but rather preferentially predate on juveniles, sick gulls, and individuals with poor muscle condition. Strikingly, gulls with an unusually good muscle condition were also predated more than expected, supporting the mass-dependent predation risk theory."

"At first sight, domesticated animals may seem much better off than their wild cousins and ancestors. Wild buffaloes spend their days searching for food, water and shelter, and are constantly threatened by lions, parasites, floods and droughts. Domesticated cattle, by contrast, enjoy care and protection from humans. People provide cows and calves with food, water and shelter, they treat their diseases, and protect them from predators and natural disasters. True, most cows and calves sooner or later find themselves in the slaughterhouse. Yet does that make their fate any worse than that of wild buffaloes? Is it better to be devoured by a lion than slaughtered by a man? Are crocodile teeth kinder than steel blades?"

"Psychopaths are social predators, and like all predators, they are looking for feeding grounds. Wherever you get power, prestige and money, you will find them."

"Nature is babies with teeth growing up into their skulls. It's animals with open wounds rotting over without treatment. It's swollen feet and hunger and painful, infectious blindness. I see a healthy-looking animal getting ripped open and eaten alive by a predator, and while I flinch, I honestly think "Wow, it looked healthy - it was really lucky that only those last 30 minutes were intensely painful.""

"Observe, too, says Philo, the curious artifices of nature, in order to embitter the life of every living being. The stronger prey upon the weaker, and keep them in perpetual terror and anxiety. The weaker too, in their turn, often prey upon the stronger, and vex and molest them without relaxation. Consider that innumerable race of insects, which either are bred on the body of each animal, or flying about infix their stings in him. These insects have others still less than themselves, which torment them. And thus on each hand, before and behind, above and below, every animal is surrounded with enemies, which incessantly seek his misery and destruction."

"For many animals, alarm calls are more than simple squawks of fear. Vervet monkeys, for instance, use different sounds to warn of different types of predator. "Leopard!" is not the same as "snake!" or "eagle!" If you hide a loudspeaker in the bushes, and startle unsuspecting monkeys by playing recordings of "snake!" at them, they will look around at the ground. "Eagle!" makes them look up. "Leopard!" sends them scampering to the trees."

"Meerkats — those charismatic mongooses that stand on their hind legs to scan for predators — give calls that announce both the general type of predator (coming from the sky, coming from the ground) and how close it is — in other words, how urgently everyone should react. Black-capped chickadees — small songbirds that live in North America — have calls that say whether a predator is flying or resting, and if it is resting, how dangerous it is."

"Predators sometimes respond too. After all, alarm calls don't just let other animals know there's danger in the area. They can also let a predator know that it's been seen. Ambush predators, like leopards, often give up and go away once an alarm has been sounded."

"A while ago I watched a wildlife documentary about Komodo dragons poisoning, tracking for a week or so, and then, finally, when their victim became too weak to defend itself, disembowelling and eating alive, a water buffalo. The cameraman said this had been his first ever wildlife assignment, and it would probably also be his last, because he couldn't cope with the depth of suffering he had been forced to witness. That was just one poor creature. Each day, millions of animals are similarly forced to tear each other limb from limb to survive. And this has been going on for hundreds of millions of years. This is, in many ways, a beautiful world. But it's also a staggeringly cruel and horrific world for very many of its inhabitants."

"So flees the squirrel from the rattlesnake, and runs in its haste deliberately into the mouth of its tormentor. I am [Nature] that from which thou fleest."

"Whilst they discussed these and similar questions, two lions are said to have suddenly appeared. The beasts were so enfeebled and emaciated with hunger that they were scarcely able to devour the Icelander. They accomplished the feat however, and thus gained sufficient strength to live to the end of the day."

"Most Australian mammals are now protected by law to some degree, but this protection has come too late to prevent the endangerment of many species that, like the Tasmanian Tiger, may yet face extinction. Massive human predation of koalas for their fur and to clear land for farming and building, for example, coupled with ongoing loss of habitat, has meant that these iconic Australian animals are no longer a common sight across their once extensive range."

"Today, snares remain prevalent around the world. They are used in subsistence and commercial hunting (including the fur trade), poaching (including the bushmeat trade), recreational bushcraft, population control, predator and "pset" species control and occasionally research."

"Firefly females of the genus Photuris, long known to be carnivorous, attract and devour males of the genus Photinus by mimicking the flash-responses of Photinus females."

"Animals do not survive by rational thought (nor by sign languages allegedly taught to them by psychologists). They survive through inborn reflexes and sensory-perceptual association. They cannot reason. They cannot learn a code of ethics. A lion is not immoral for eating a zebra (or even for attacking a man). Predation is their natural and only means of survival; they do not have the capacity to learn any other."

"In the immense sphere of living things, the obvious rule is violence, a kind of inevitable frenzy which arms all things in mutua funera. Once you leave the world of insensible substances, you find the decree of violent death written on the very frontiers of life. Even in the vegetable kingdom, this law can be perceived: from the huge catalpa to the smallest of grasses, how many plants die and how many are killed! But once you enter the animal kingdom, the law suddenly becomes frighteningly obvious. A power at once hidden and palpable appears constantly occupied in bringing to light the principle of life by violent means. In each great division of the animal world, it has chosen a certain number of animals charged with devouring the others; so there are insects of prey, reptiles of prey, birds of prey, fish of prey, and quadrupeds of prey. There is not an instant of time when some living creature is not devoured by another [...] Thus is worked out, from maggots up to man, the universal law of the violent destruction of living beings. The whole earth, continually steeped in blood, is nothing but an immense altar on which every living thing must be sacrificed without end, without restraint, without respite until the consummation of the world, the extinction of evil, the death of death."

"...the most vicious predators, like most dread disease-causing microbes, bring about their own ruin by killing their victims. Restrained predation—the attack that doesn't kill or does kill only slowly—is a recurring theme in evolution. The predatory precursors of mitochondria invaded and exploited their hosts, but the prey resisted. Forced to be content with an expendable part of the prey (its waste)... some mitochondria precursors grew but never killed their providers. ...The original prey was probably a larger bacterium... - Leslie A. Real]]"

"The lioness sinks her scimitar talons into the zebra's rump. They rip through the tough hide and anchor deep into the muscle. The startled animal lets out a loud bellow as its body hits the ground. An instant later the lioness releases her claws from its buttocks and sinks her teeth into the zebra's throat, choking off the sound of terror. Her canine teeth are long and sharp, but an animal as large as a zebra has a massive neck, with a thick layer of muscle beneath the skin, so although the teeth puncture the hide they are too short to reach any major blood vessels. She must therefore kill the zebra by asphyxiation, clamping her powerful jaws around its trachea (windpipe), cutting off the air to its lungs. It is a slow death. If this had been a small animal, say a Thomson's gazelle (Gazella thomsoni) the size of a large dog, she would have bitten it through the nape of the neck; her canine teeth would then have probably crushed the vertebrae or the base of the skull, causing instant death. As it is, the zebra's death throes will last five or six minutes."

"The suffering that animals undergo while being caught and eaten may be intense and the process by which they are killed may last for a quarter of an hour or more. Because the number of predators worldwide is enormous, and because, like us, many of them must eat with considerable frequency, the aggregate amount of suffering in the world at any time that is caused by predation is unimaginably vast."

"Viewed from a distance, the natural world often presents a vista of sublime, majestic placidity. Yet beneath the foliage and hidden from the distant eye, a vast, unceasing slaughter rages. Wherever there is animal life, predators are stalking, chasing, capturing, killing, and devouring their prey. Agonized suffering and violent death are ubiquitous and continuous."

"Suppose that we could arrange the gradual extinction of carnivorous species, replacing them with new herbivorous ones. Or suppose that we could intervene genetically, so that currently carnivorous species would gradually evolve into herbivorous ones, thereby fulfilling Isaiah's prophecy. If we could bring about the end of predation by one or the other of these means at little cost to ourselves, ought we to do it?"

"The endangered western stock of the Steller sea lion (Eumetopias jubatus) – the largest of the eared seals – has declined by 80% from population levels encountered four decades ago. Current overall trends from the Gulf of Alaska to the Aleutian Islands appear neutral with strong regional heterogeneities...[studies] suggest predation on juvenile sea lions as the largest impediment to recovery of the species in the eastern Gulf of Alaska region...[study conclusion also suggests] the distinct possibility of predation as a major component of Steller sea lion population dynamics in particular at intermediate and low abundance levels."

"If there are any marks at all of special design in creation, one of the things most evidently designed is that a large proportion of all animals should pass their existence in tormenting and devouring other animals. They have been lavishly fitted out with the instruments necessary for that purpose; their strongest instincts impel them to it, and many of them seem to have been constructed incapable of supporting themselves by any other food. If a tenth part of the pains which have been expended in finding benevolent adaptations in all nature, had been employed in collecting evidence: to blacken the character of the Creator, what scope for comment would not have been found in the entire existence of the lower animals, divided, with scarcely an exception, into devourers and devoured, and a prey to a thousand ills from which they are denied the faculties necessary for protecting themselves! If were not obliged to believe the animal creation to be the work of a demon, it is because we need not suppose it to have been made by a Being of infinite power. But if imitation of the Creator's will as revealed in nature, were applied as a rule of action in this case, the most atrocious enormities of the worst men would be more than justified by the apparent intention of Providence that throughout all animated nature the strong should prey upon the weak."

"Why tinker with the plain truth that we hurry the darker races to their graves in order to take their land & its riches? Wolves don't sit in their caves, concocting crapulous theories of race to justify devouring a flock of sheep! "Intellectual courage"? True "intellectual courage" is to dispense with these fig leaves & admit all peoples are predatory, but White predators, with our deadly duet of disease dust & firearms, are examplars of predacity par excellence, & what of it?"

"'You didn't build that' will be Obama's political epitaph: With these remarks, Obama has come out of the closet as a most odious collectivist, who believes religiously that government predation is a condition for production Or, put simply, that the parasite created the host."

"The chief activities of beings, both human and non-human, are put forth, directly or indirectly, for the purpose of procuring food. The suppression, entire or partial, of one being by another for nutritive purposes is, therefore, the form of the most frequent and excessive egoism. The lowly forms of life—the worms, echinoderms, mollusks, and the like—are, for the most part, vegetarians. So, also, are prevalently the insects, birds, rodents, and ungulates. These creatures are not, as a rule, aggressively harmful to each other, chiefly indifferent. But upon these inoffensive races feed with remorseless maw the reptilia, the insectivora, and the carnivora. These being-eaters cause to the earth-world its bloodiest experiences. It is their nature (established organically by long selection, or, as in the case of man, acquired tentatively) to subsist, not on the kingdom of the plant, the natural and primal storehouse of animal energy, but on the skeletons and sensibilities of their neighbors and friends. The serpent dines on the sparrow and the sparrow ingulfs the gnat; the tiger slays the jungle-fowl and the coyote plunders the lamb; the seal subsists on fish and the ursus maritimus subsists on seal; the ant enslaves the aphidae and man eats and enslaves what can not get away from him. Life riots on life—tooth and talon, beak and paw. It is a sickening contemplation, But life everywhere, in its aspect of activity, is largely made up of the struggle by one being against another for existence—of the effort by one being to circumvent, subjugate, or destroy another, and of the counter effort to reciprocate or escape."

"Predators make it much more difficult to find consensus. It's a lot easier to agree about birds and plants than about animals that endanger people and livestock."

"It is easy to romanticise, say, tigers or lions and cats. We admire their magnificent beauty, strength and agility. But we would regard their notional human counterparts as wanton psychopaths of the worst kind."

"Think about Praying Mantis. The deadliest ninja predator. Why isn't his animus a lion or a polar bear - two of the most successful killing machines in the animal kingdom? The answer is that these animals would not be right for him. Think how a praying mantis is invisible on a leaf, how they are carnivores who will devour their own species. The female will even eat her own partner once they've mated and, as hatchlings, their first meal is often one of their own siblings. These are the things that matter to Praying Mantis - and if you study his attributes, they are elements that will help you defeat him."

"At the top of the pyramid—the terminal step—is a population of predators not generally subject to predation themselves."

"The suffering and death I saw seemed to me in some meaningful respect lamentable—that is, unfortunate, regrettable, worthy of sadness, the kind of thing it would be better if the world did not involve. What can be said for such a response, and what against it? Can my lamentation be rationally defended as appropriate, or must it be viewed as nothing more than mawkish sentimentalism? How should we view the fact that some animals need to kill other animals in order to live? Can a world in which animals did not kill each other, and indeed did not need to do so in order to live, plausibly be called a better one?"

"Predators merely remove surplus animals, ones that would succumb even in the absence of natural enemies. P.L. Errington exempts certain predator-prey relations from this scheme, however, and quotes the predation of wolves on deer as an example where predation probably is not related to the carrying capacity of the habitat."

"The principle of natural selection is not obviously a humanitarian principle; the predator-prey relation does not depend on moral empathy. Nature ruthlessly limits animal populations by doing violence to virtually every individual before it reaches maturity; these conditions respect animal equality only in the darkest sense."

"Where we can prevent predation without occasioning as much or more suffering than we would prevent, we are obligated to do so by the principle that we are obligated to alleviate avoidable animal suffering. Where we cannot prevent or cannot do so without occasioning as much or more suffering than we would prevent, that principle does not obligate us to attempt to prevent predation."

"Baldner contends that is "arrogant" and "paternalistic" morally to condemn something as definitive of the natural order as predation. However, it is in the nature of morality to devise ideals of a better world and to work toward realizing them. This entails judging this world to be less than ideal and working to change it. One could restrict moral evaluations to the products of human activity, but that would be arbitrary: what makes suffering (prima facie) morally bad is not that it is the result of human activity but that it is suffering. Our commitment to making the world a morally better place impels us to make moral evaluations of the natural order. There need be nothing either arrogant or paternalistic in making and acting on such evaluations, provided we recognize the very limited nature of our understanding and our power to make improvements."

"[A]nimals are not just subject to suffering like man, but subject to much more suffering; their existence is considered to be extremely unhappy, not only because they are exploited and tortured by man but also in nature itself, where the weaker one is threatened and devoured by the stronger, and, moreover, because at least many of them live on disgusting food or in uncomfortable places."

"One simple test of the claim that the pleasure in the world outweighs the pain [...] is to compare the feelings of an animal that is devouring another with those of the animal being devoured."

"[H]e saw in Java a plain far as the eye could reach entirely covered with skeletons, and took it for a battlefield; they were, however, merely the skeletons of large turtles, five feet long and three feet broad, and the same height, which come this way out of the sea in order to lay their eggs, and are then attacked by wild dogs , who with their united strength lay them on their backs, strip off their lower armour, that is, the small shell of the stomach, and so devour them alive. But often then a tiger pounces upon the dogs. Now all this misery repeats itself thousands and thousands of times, year out, year in. For this, then, these turtles are born. For whose guilt must they suffer this torment? Where fore the whole scene of horror? To this the only answer is: it is thus that the will to live objectifies itself."

"I bought from some villagers a young osprey they had caught on a sandbank, in order to rescue it from their cruel hands. But then I had to decide whether I should let it starve, or kill a number of small fishes every day in order to keep it alive. I decided on the latter course, but every day the responsibility to sacrifice one life for another caused me pain."

"It must be admitted that the existence of carnivorous animals does pose one problem for the ethics of Animal Liberation, and that is whether we should do anything about it. Assuming that humans could eliminate carnivorous species from the earth, and that the total amount of suffering among animals in the world were thereby reduced, should we do it?"

"Remove the predators, and the whole ecosystem begins to crash like a house of cards. As the sharks disappear, the predator-prey balance dramatically shifts, and the health of our oceans declines."

"I think that most people would associate big schools of fish with healthy coral reefs. At Kingman, the predators keep the herd thin, so there aren't a lot of big fish schools."

"I have come to view vegetarianism as a standing protest against predation, which is life's greatest evil. If there were no other argument in its favor, that would be sufficient."

"[Predation is] a great evil that a wise or benevolent creator would have avoided."

"Earth has no more distressing spectacle than that of a predator suddenly striking down some defenseless creature innocently singing or attending its young, no sight more pitifully repulsive than the hideously mangled remains of what, a few hours before, was a beautiful animal enjoying its life."

"Not long ago I was sleeping in a cabin in the woods and was awoken in the middle of the night by the sounds of a struggle between two animals. Cries of terror and extreme agony rent the night, intermingled with the sounds of jaws snapping bones and flesh being torn from limbs. One animal was being savagely attacked, killed and then devoured by another. [I]t seems to me that the horror I experienced on that dark night in the woods was a veridical insight. What I experienced was a brief and terrifying glimpse into the ultimately evil dimension of a godless world."

"For many decades, ecology textbooks presented classical competition theory without reservation. The central principle here is that two species sharing an essential resource that is in limited supply cannot coexist for long because the competitively superior species will eliminate the other one. The implication is that ecological communities should be characterized by division of resources among species, or niche partitioning. Predation and physical disturbance inflict so much damage on biotas of the seafloor that populations of one species seldom monopolize a potentially limiting resource, except sporadically and locally. As a result, it is uncommon for any species to drive another to extinction through competitive exclusion—or even to force another species to drastically change its exploitation of any environmental resource throughout its geographic range."

"Naysayers at their polite best chided the rewilders for romanticizing the past; at their sniping worst, for tempting a 'Jurassic Park' disaster. To these the rewilders quietly voiced a sad and stinging reply. The most dangerous experiment is already underway. The future most to be feared is the one now dictated by the status quo. In vanquishing our most fearsome beasts from the modern world, we have released worse monsters from the compound. They come in disarmingly meek and insidious forms, in chewing plagues of hoofed beasts and sweeping hordes of rats and cats and second-order predators. They come in the form of denuded seascapes and barren forests, ruled by jellyfish and urchins, killer deer and sociopathic monkeys. They come as haunting demons of the human mind. In conquering the fearsome beasts, the conquerors had unwittingly orphaned themselves."

"Heartless though it may seem to some, among the least harmful things to eat are sustainably culled wild animals. In the absence of natural predators, deer populations in parts of Britain have reached such dense numbers that the woodlands they browse fail to regenerate."

"Nature can be cruel. Predators are everywhere. Those who don't need to be protected from outside forces often need to be protected from themselves. In society, women are referred to as "the fairer sex". But in the wild, the female species can be far more ferocious than their male counterparts. Defending the nest is both our oldest and strongest instinct. And sometimes, it can also be the most gratifying."

"[W]hile many animals appear to endure such conditions rather calmly, this doesn't necessarily mean they aren't suffering. Sick and injured members of a prey species are the easiest to catch, so predators deliberately target these individuals. As a consequence, those prey that appear sick or injured will be the ones killed most often. Thus, evolutionary pressure pushes prey species to avoid drawing attention to their suffering."

"And even for the survivors, life involves a constant struggle to find enough food, avoid predators, and overcome sickness and injury for a few brief years (or months) before death comes at the jaws of a predator or the grip of a parasite. Pain is a powerful motivational tool, and evolution has no qualms about using it to maximum effect."

"When the predatory habit of life has been settled upon the group by long habituation, it becomes the able-bodied man's accredited office in the social economy or elude him, to overcome and reduce to subservience those alien forces that assert themselves refractorily in the environment."

"Predation can not become the habitual, conventional resource of any group or any class until industrial methods have been developed to such a degree of efficiency as to leave a margin worth fighting for, above the subsistence of those engaged in getting a living....The early development of tools and of weapons is of course the same fact seen from two different points of view. ...The predatory phase of culture is therefore conceived to come on gradually."

"Man and animals are really the passage and the conduit of food, the sepulchre of animals and resting place of the dead, one causing the death of the other, making themselves the covering for the corruption of other dead [bodies]."

"The simple facts are that both predation and starvation are painful prospects for deer, and that the lion's lot is no more enviable."

"What had been released into the desert vacuum and starry oases of the galaxy was the inexorable logic of reproduction and natural selection. What followed was parasitism, predation, symbiosis, interdependency—chaos, complexity, life."

"Well, let me tell you, ants are the dominant insects. They make up as much as a quarter of the biomass of all insects in the world. They are the principal predators. They're the cemetery workers."

"In prehistoric times, Homo sapiens were deeply endangered. Early humans were less fleet of foot, with fewer natural weapons and less well-honed senses than all the predators that threatened them. Moreover, they were hampered in their movements by the need to protect their uniquely immature young - juicy meals for any hungry beast."

"What is a predator? The answer is relatively straightforward for many species: an animal that eats another animal. However, recent research has shown that for other species the answer is more complex and that predatory species may not be as diet-limited as previously assumed."

"Regardless of whether one defines predator-prey interactions narrowly or broadly, what is clear is that at one point or another in the lives of most animals they are predators, prey, or both."

"Variation in plant food, especially flowers, has a strong effect on the dispersal of most omnivorous insect predators."

"Historically, predation and competition has received much more attention than mutualism. This bias is exemplified in the attention given to inter-specific interactions in ecology textbooks."

"An individual's response to local predation risk is shaped by the conflicting demands of predator avoidance and the benefits associated with a suite of fitness-related behaviors, such as foraging, mating and terrestrial defense."

"...predator avoidance can lead to delayed ontogenetic niche shifts, resulting in decreased growth rates"

"Trinidadian guppies from a high-predation population exhibited a more intense antipredator response than conspecifics from a low-predation-risk population."

"Populations exposed to varying predation threats, over time, may be selected toward the use of a learned response, because it would allow individuals to optimize the threat-sensitive trade-offs between survival and other fitness related benefits."

"Whether a species is a traditional predator (or an omnivore), or whether it responds to predation risk with fixed rather than learned behaviors, its success as a predator or a prey is determined by the capacity and efficiency of its sensory organs."

"Interactions between predators and prey are a major driving force for evolution and adaptation in animals. In any single encounter, the prey has more at stake, because failure means death, whereas the predator misses only a feeding opportunity."

"Flying insects can exhibit other characteristics that protect them from bat predation (which may also reduce the selective pressure for evolving auditory defenses). In rare cases, nocturnal insects reduce their exposure to bat predation by becoming diurnal (and restricting their amount of time that they fly at night) or by flying only at dusk before bats emerge."

"A more common strategy some insects employ to avoid bad predation is to continue flying at night but to vary their seasonal activity (either just after or before bats hibernate)."

"Both predation and predator evasion are expensive and themselves dangerous. Some of the costs are metabolic, and these costs have been studied at length. Potentially more important, however, are the structural and behavioral trade-offs animals must make to be successful predators or long lived prey."

"The ability of animals to perceive changes in predation risk forms the foundation on which the nonlethal effects of predators are transmitted to prey populations and communities."

"Recent neurological work suggests that the amygdala (in the vertebrate midbrain) is a key component in the assessment of predation risk and that differences in risk perception may reflect differences in the neural architecture of the amygdala."

"Sensory compensation is probably common in animals, for just about every species has at least two sensory modes that might be directed toward predator detection."

"The Challenge of Eating versus Being Eaten: Most prey that respond to predators also face a trade-off between increased survival in the presence of predators and slower growth and development. For example, many species of rotifers and cladocerons develop spines in response to fish and invertebrate predators."

"The extent that habitat structure influences spatial processes (e.g., numerical responses of predators, their inter-habitat dispersal, edge effects, and thus the coupling of predator-prey interactions in habitats compromised by human activity (e.g., fragmented landscapes) is also of immediate concern in conservation biology."

"Diverse feeding habits might act to buffer predator populations against fluctuations in nutrient availability of particular prey species."

"If we recognise that every ecosystem can also be viewed as a food web, we can think of it as a circular, interlacing nexus of plant animal relationships (rather than a stratified pyramid with man at the apex)... Each species, be it a form of bacteria or deer, is knitted together in a network of interdependence, however indirect the links may be."

"I dare you to stand in a redwood grove and not be humbled, or to dive on a coral reef and see even just the glimmer of its former magnificence and have some respect for these ecosystems and the fact that we are sharing this planet."

"The organization of life extends beyond the individual organism to the biosphere, the zone of air, land, and water at the surface of the Earth where organisms exist. Individual organisms belong to a population, which is all the members of a species within a particular area. The populations of a community interact among themselves and with the physical environment (e.g., soil, atmosphere, and chemicals), thereby forming an ecosystem."

"Ecosystems are characterized by chemical cycling and energy flow, both of which begin when photosynthetic plants, aquatic algae, and some bacteria take in solar energy and inorganic nutrients to produce food in the form of organic nutrients."

"Planet Earth was separated into several ecosystems, each made up of a unique assembly of animals and plants. Homo sapiens was about to put an end to this biological exuberance."

"The real question of government versus private enterprise is argued on too philosophical and abstract a basis. Theoretically, planning may be good. But nobody has ever figured out the cause of government stupidity—and until they do (and find the cure), all ideal plans will fall into quicksand."

"Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity."

"This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilising drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God's children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children."

"Making the best of things is … a damn poor way of dealing with them.... My whole life has been a series of escapes from that quicksand."

"With me, the present is forever, and forever is always shifting, flowing, melting. This second is life. And when it is gone it is dead. But you can't start over with each new second. You have to judge by what is dead. It's like quicksand…hopeless from the start."

"A quicksand of deceit."

"Henry "Mutt" Williams-Jones III: What is it, quicksand? Marion Ravenwood: I'm calm. Dr. Henry "Indiana" Jones, Jr.: No, it's a drysand pit. Marion: I'm sinking, but I'm calm. "Indiana": Quicksand is a mix of sand, mud and water and depending on the viscosity it's not as dangerous as people sometimes think. Marion: For Pete's sake, Jones, we're not in school! "Indiana": Don't worry. There's nothing to worry about unless there's a… [suddenly there is a void collapse] …a void collapse."

"Sergeant Calhoun: What is this? [sees sign] Nesquik-sand!? Fix-It Felix, Jr: Quicksand? Oh, I'll hop out and grab you one of those vines. [tries unsuccessfully to hop] I can't hop. I'm hopless. This is hopeless! We're gonna drown here! Sergeant Calhoun: Stop thrashing. Stop—stop, you're making us sink faster. [Felix continues thrashing] Get ahold of yourself! [hits Felix]"

"I have died a thousand days Just to feel this quicksand And every movement is embraced By this sweet frustration"

"Our mother's philosophy It feels like quicksand And if she sinks I'm going down with her"

"Should I kiss the viper's fang Or herald loud the death of Man I'm sinking in the quicksand of my thought And I ain't got the power anymore"

"Your father's gone a-hunting In the quicksand and the clay And a woman cannot follow him Although she knows the way"

"Slow, sinking feeling Kills the mood you're conveying And it pulls me far down below"

"'Cause the world waits around But I keep slipping and losing ground"

"Stop you're talking down I lack the strength to sit or stand I lost my self confidence in the quicksand In the quicksand In the quicksand In the quicksand"

"Our love is quicksand So easy to drown They steal the gravity, yeah From moving ground"

"As If I ever had a choice All in the hands of the energy Once again feel the quicksand swallow me Tonight, I won't struggle"

"Some people fall in love and touch the sky Some people fall in love and find quicksand"

"Nothing but a castle built on top of a swamp of quicksand"

"I'm running in quicksand Something's haunting me The guilty past I've buried My mind won't let me sleep"

"Figure eighting in quicksand"

"That someone is you That someone is you That someone has pulled me up and out of cartoon quicksand Pulled me up and out of me"

"Feet first into the quicksand Every day we are surrendering Never straying from the game plan I keep hoping you will take my hand and stand up"

"Quicksand's got no sense of humour I'm still laughing like hell"

"You're nothing but a history A second here and then you're gone Quicksand, quicksand all around Turn the corner just beyond"

"Time's like quicksand Soon again, I'm standing naked in Wonderland"

"Deviate all by means in name 'Cause we all crawl in quicksand the same"

"The quicksand of time You know it makes me want to cry"

"These hands disappear as I wave farewell This gentle quicksand turns into hard times"

"You're dancing in quicksand"

"There are two basic ways market organization is brought about... Some combination of the two is usual the case:"

"# Strategic structuring, informal or formal, whereby social agents, including the state, establish a rule regime regulating market access and transactions..."

"# Emergent structuring, whereby participants discover or adopt certain similar strategies within bounded rationality and situations with certain opportunity structures and incentive structures. Social network and ecological properties result in relatively well-defined aggregate performance characteristics..."

"The new paradigm may be called a holistic world view, seeing the world as an integrated whole rather than a dissociated collection of parts. It may also be called an ecological view, if the term "ecological" is used in a much broader and deeper sense than usual. Deep ecological awareness recognizes the fundamental interdependence of all phenomena and the fact that, as individuals and societies we are all embedded in (and ultimately dependent on) the cyclical process of nature."

"Ecological Economics studies the ecology of humans and the economy of nature, the web of interconnections uniting the economic subsystem to the global ecosystem of which it is a part."

"Standard economists don't seem to understand exponential growth. Ecological economics recognizes that the economy, like any other subsystem on the planet, cannot grow forever. And if you think of an organism as an analogy, organisms grow for a period and then they stop growing. They can still continue to improve and develop, but without physically growing, because if organisms did that you’d end up with nine-billion-ton hamsters. There is a great video on this."

"In the quantitative models that appear in leading economics journals and textbooks, nature is taken to be a fixed, indestructible factor of production. The problem with the assumption is that it is wrong: nature consists of degradable resources."

"Even if we can never quantify [satisfaction or happiness]... as precisely as we currently quantify GNP,... perhaps it is better to be vaguely right than precisely wrong."

"Ecological economics is the name that has been given to the effort to transcend traditional disciplinary boundaries in order to address the interrelationship between ecological and economic systems in a broad and comprehensive way."

"K. William Kapp's book "The Social Costs of Private Enterprise" was one of the first economic treatise that called attention to the ecological and social external costs of the market economy. His book is considered one of the origins of and a foundation for ecological economics."

"There always will be limits to growth."

"A quantity growing exponentially toward a limit reaches that limit in a surprisingly short time."

"When there are long delays in feedback loops, some sort of foresight is essential."

"The bounded rationality of each actor in a system may not lead to decisions that further the welfare of the system as a whole."

"Ecologists and economists made unlikely partners -- indeed, these disciplines have often appeared at odds with, and determined to ignore, each other... The modeling of ecological communities or systems seemed purposely to leave out the human economy.6 At the same time, economists either took for granted or ignored the principles, powers, or forces that ecologists believed governed the world's natural communities. The market mechanism, or competitive equilibrium, that mainstream economists studied assigned no role to the natural ecosystem.7 Ecological economics sought to embed the study of economics within a larger understanding of how ecosystems work."

"Ecological rationality uses reason – rational reconstruction – to examine the behavior of individuals based on their experience and folk knowledge, who are ‘naïve’ in their ability to apply constructivist tools to the decisions they make; to understand the emergent order in human cultures; to discover the possible intelligence embodied in the rules, norms and institutions of our cultural and biological heritage that are created from human interactions but not by deliberate human design. People follow rules without being able to articulate them, but they can be discovered."

"The development of a global economy has not been matched by the development of a global society. The basic unit for political and social life remains the nation-state. International law and international institutions, insofar as they exist, are not strong enough to prevent war or the large-scale abuse of human rights in individual countries. Ecological threats are not adequately dealt with. Global financial markets are largely beyond the control of national or international authorities."

"What is happening in the US between now and 2025 [is] a huge expansion of oil production, about 80% of the global oil production growth comes from the US. It exceeds the huge expansion of Saudi Arabia which we witnessed in the 1960s and 70s."

"Rex Buchanan, interim director of the Kansas Geological Survey, was watching a Kansas City Royals game in September 2014 when his cell phone started buzzing with alerts from the USGS. Tremors were shaking south-central Kansas near the state's border with Oklahoma. This was not a surprise, because more than 100 earthquakes had visited Kansas during that year, up from an average of one every two years. But the tremors were growing stronger and soon reached magnitude 4.2. Kansas governor Sam Brownback convened an induced-seismicity task force to evaluate the quakes. The task force, chaired by Buchanan, recommended restricting injection volumes within five seismic zones across two counties. How were Kansas officials able to reach a consensus? “I don't think we could come up with any other explanation,” Buchanan says. “You see a level of activity like we saw: a dramatic, dramatic increase, and in almost exactly the place where the really large-volume wells are going in—and where you see the same correlation in Oklahoma. It's pretty hard to come to any other conclusion.” He adds that he and his colleagues had the benefit of watching science and regulations develop in Ohio, Texas and Oklahoma. So far the measures Kansas took seem to have had an impact. “Certainly our activity has been down lately,” he says, in terms of both earthquake rates and size. “But I have pressed people real hard not to take the approach that this is some sort of problem solved, because it's not.”"

"“Scores of papers on injection-induced earthquakes were published in the geophysical literature in the following 40-plus years, and the problem was well understood and appreciated by seismologists,” says Bill Ellsworth, a Stanford University geophysicist who launched his career at the USGS while the Rangely experiment was under way. He believes professional skepticism slowed the formation of a consensus. “There were a lot of doubts expressed by very good petroleum engineers that [earthquakes caused by injection wells] were even possible,” he says. “Knowledge of the whole physical process was either lost or had not been effectively communicated to a broad community.”"

"To many Oklahomans, it is clear that that risk has risen sharply. Data back up their experiences. The earthquake rate in the state has grown at an astounding pace. In 2013 the state recorded 109 quakes of magnitude 3 and greater. The following year the number jumped to 585, and in 2015 it reached 890. The escalation prompted two unusual warnings jointly issued by the USGS and the OGS in October 2013 and May 2014. Seismologists stated that Oklahoma had a significantly increased chance of seeing a damaging magnitude 5.5 temblor. “It was the first time I think we'd ever issued an earthquake advisory east of the Rockies,” says Robert Williams, the USGS central and eastern U.S. coordinator for earthquake hazards."

"Over the past few years, fracking fever has swept through several European nations, including Denmark, Lithuania, Romania and especially Poland, which has seen more shale exploration than any other nation on the continent. Fracking might help to boost gas production in Europe at a time when it is facing a sharp decline. Older gas fields in the North Sea are running out, as are deposits in Germany, Italy and Romania. The disappointing output has increased Europe's dependence on imported gas, mainly from Russia."

"The results in Poland to date indeed have been disappointing,” concedes geologist Scott Stevens of ARI. He says that the main reason for the unproductive wells was “extremely high” stresses in the rock, which makes fracking less effective. “There was no way that the exploration companies could know that in advance,” he notes. Nonetheless, he argues, “It is too soon to dismiss Poland's extensive shale potential.” Given the limited available data, he does not see a reason to revise ARI's estimate."

"By the time Shell tasked Hubbert with explaining how fracking worked, “we had the records of several thousand fracturing jobs, with varying degrees of reliability in their data,” he recalled. “We had to smoke out useful information.”"

"When Hubbert presented the results at the Amsterdam conference, “it was very well received by the highest level technical people,” he recalled, “accepted completely, with no significant criticism.” After this vote of confidence, Shell organized training sessions on the new analysis for its field engineers. When it came time for the first course, Willis was away so Hubbert gave it himself. “What I discovered was that the theoretical argument was having no effect whatever on these men,” Hubbert recalled. The engineers were absolutely sure that the fractures were horizontal. Every article, every ad on fracking showed fractures oriented that way. They had been “completely brainwashed,” Hubbert thought. “They didn’t have any real evidence, but they’d been so thoroughly indoctrinated on this thing that they knew damned well these fractures were horizontal.” It mattered, because if they didn’t understand the forces at work, they couldn’t control it precisely. The technique would remain more art than science."

"In Shell’s Bellaire lab, one of the nation’s best-funded research facilities, sat the contraption Willis had assembled at home over the weekend. It was a goldfish bowl, filled with liquid Knox gelatin and some plaster in it. Willis had used the gelatin to simulate rock—appropriate, given Hubbert’s work on laws of scaling—and had stuck an Alka-Seltzer bottle in the middle of it to mimic a well. He’d put the liquid gelatin in the fridge and let it set, then pulled out the bottle. Then he’d used a baster to pump a slurry of plaster of Paris down the hole, filling it until the plaster began to push its way into the gelatin, forming fractures. As their theory predicted, the fractures were vertical. Although Willis’s setup was kludged together, Hubbert immediately realized it was what they needed to win over the field engineers: a clear demonstration. They’d have an opportunity to make their case at an internal Shell conference in early 1956, in several weeks’ time. They got to work on building a larger version of the model. To replace Willis’s goldfish bowl, Hubbert scoped out bigger aquariums on sale at local shops. At the Shell conference, Hubbert and Willis explained their experiment and showed the plaster casts, first from one angle, with the fractures flaring out from either side of the well. Then they rotated the cast, so the audience could see that the fractures were thin and sharp, like a knife’s blade. And of course, they were undoubtedly vertical. Within a week of this demonstration, field engineers began sending in data they’d collected after fracturing wells. Some of them had put rubber plugs down wells to form an impression of the wall. Others sent cameras down the hole. This field data showed the fractures were indeed vertical. The theory was right—and finally the engineers believed it. Willis’s contraption “had a magical effect,” as Hubbert put it. “It made Christians out of these people.”"

"Unlike Ahab (spoiler alert), Drake wasn’t destroyed by his discovery — at least not instantly. But although he was the first to engineer a successful oil-drilling system, lining his well with pipe to keep it from caving in, he never patented the method, and the money he’d made when he struck oil soon dried up. A century later, TIME referred to him as “a sickly, bearded failure of a man in a stovepipe hat” in a story that nonetheless acknowledged that “[t]hough Discoverer Drake wound up virtually penniless and forgotten, his find opened the scramble for oil across the land,” inspiring a legion of oil prospectors to chase what had become, by 1959, “the greatest single source of wealth in America.”"

"We currently import around half of our gas needs, but by 2030 that could be as high as 75%. That's why we're encouraging investment in our shale-gas exploration so we can add new sources of home-grown supply."

"With that gas and oil, however, come vast quantities of very salty water. “The oil and gas business is really a water-handling business,” says Scott Tinker, Texas's state geologist and director of the University of Texas at Austin's Bureau of Economic Geology. The water comes from the same rocks as the oil and gas. All three are remnants of ancient seas that heat, pressure and time transformed. “The pore spaces, or tiny holes, in the rock remain filled with these ancient oceans, so when we drill wells today that water is produced to the surface,” Tinker says. Although the water is natural, it can be several orders of magnitude more saline than seawater and is often laced with naturally occurring radioactive material. It is toxic to plants and animals, so operators bury it deep underground to protect drinking-water supplies closer to the surface."

"There is enough suffering here for a thousand warrens ... In these holes lie all the plagues and diseases that come to rabbits—fever and mange and the sickness of the bowels. And here, too, in this nearest hole, lies the white blindness, that sends creatures hobbling out to die in the fields, where even the elil will not touch their rotting bodies."

"Many human beings say that they enjoy the winter, but what they really enjoy is feeling proof against it. For them there is no winter food problem. They have fires and warm clothes. The winter cannot hurt them and therefore increases their sense of cleverness and security. For birds and animals, as for poor men, winter is another matter. Rabbits, like most wild animals, suffer hardship."

"In the middle of the floor lay a dead swallow, with his lovely wings folded at his sides and his head tucked under his feathers. The poor bird must certainly have died of the cold. Thumbelina felt so sorry for him. She loved all the little birds who had sung and sweetly twittered to her all through the summer. But the mole gave the body a kick with his short stumps, and said, "Now he won't be chirping any more. What a wretched thing it is to be born a little bird. Thank goodness none of my children can be a bird, who has nothing but his 'chirp, chirp', and must starve to death when winter comes along." "Yes, you are so right, you sensible man," the field mouse agreed. "What good is all his chirp-chirping to a bird in the winter time, when he starves and freezes?""

"The winter grew cold – so bitterly cold that the duckling had to swim to and fro in the water to keep it from freezing over. But every night the hole in which he swam kept getting smaller and smaller. Then it froze so hard that the duckling had to paddle continuously to keep the crackling ice from closing in upon him. At last, too tired to move, he was frozen fast in the ice."

"Many people today have a romanticized view of nature and of the situation of animals in the wild. They believe nature is some kind of paradise where animals live happy lives. Other people are aware that animals in the wild can suffer and die prematurely in different ways but believe these are exceptions. The truth, however, is very different from this."

"All things spoke peace and plenty, and the Prince Saw and rejoiced. But, looking deep, he saw The thorns which grow upon this rose of life: [...] How lizard fed on ant, and snake on him, And kite on both; and how the fish-hawk robbed The fish-tiger of that which it had seized; The shrike chasing the bulbul, which did chase The jeweled butterflies; till everywhere Each slew a slayer and in turn was slain, Life living upon death. So the fair show Veiled one vast, savage, grim conspiracy Of mutual murder, from the worm to man, [...] The rage to live which makes all living strife—"

"On the one hand, animals in nature face all kinds of coercive horrors, such as starvation and disease. According to the Principle of Negative Fairness, these natural horrors are a moral issue: we should care about the coercive horrors that animals experience in nature. Simply leaving animals alone in nature – however much animal advocates may like to romanticize it – is, on Rightness as Fairness, not fair to animals. Just as there is nothing fair about leaving fellow human beings to suffer or die from starvation or disease, so too is there nothing fair about leaving animals to suffer and die from such things in nature."

"Near the brook a heron lay in frozen stubble. Its wings were stuck to the ground by frost, and the mandibles of its bill were frozen together. Its eyes were open and living, the rest of it was dead ... As I approached I could see its whole body craving into flight. But it could not fly. I gave it peace, and saw the agonised sunlight of its eyes slowly heal with cloud."

"[J]ust a smidgen of biological insight makes it clear that, although the natural world can be marvelous, it is also filled with ethical horrors: predation, parasitism, fratricide, infanticide, disease, pain, old age and death — and that suffering (like joy) is built into the nature of things. The more we know of evolution, the more unavoidable is the conclusion that living things, including human beings, are produced by a natural, totally amoral process, with no indication of a benevolent, controlling creator."

"What expressions can sufficiently declare the shocking scene that for some minutes continued, whilst this mighty army of fish were forcing the pass? During this attempt, thousands, I may say hundreds of thousands of them were caught and swallowed by the devouring alligators. I have seen an alligator take up out of the water several great fish at a time, and just squeeze them betwixt his jaws while the tails of the great trout flapped about his eyes and lips, ere he had swallowed them. The horrid noise of their closing jaws, their plunging amidst the broken banks of fish, and rising with their prey some feet upright above the water, the floods of water and blood rushing out of their mouths, and the clouds of vapour issuing from their wide nostrils, were truly frightful."

"Why does the Raven cry aloud and no eye pities her? Why fall the Sparrow & the Robin in the foodless winter? Faint! shivering they sit on leafless bush, or frozen stone Wearied with seeking food across the snowy waste; the little Heart, cold; and the little tongue consum'd, that once in thoughtless joy Gave songs of gratitude to waving corn fields round their nest. Why howl the Lion & the Wolf? why do they roam abroad? Deluded by summers heat they sport in enormous love And cast their young out to the hungry wilds & sandy desarts"

"The Spider sits in his labourd Web, eager watching for the Fly Presently comes a famishd Bird & takes away the Spider His Web is left all desolate, that his little anxious heart So careful wove; & spread it out with sighs and weariness."

"Tennyson nailed it. We trust that God is love. But we also believe that God is the creator of the nature, and nature simply does not seem to point to a God of love. Parasites, viruses, bacteria, diseases and cancer kill millions and torment millions more, humans and animals alike. Earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, mudslides and volcanoes do the same. And the animal kingdom is, as Tennyson said, red in tooth in claw. (So is the human kingdom for that matter). The creation looks almost as much like it was created by a cosmic predator (I Pet 5:8) as it does like it was created by an all loving, peaceful, benevolent Creator. There seems to be a "Lucifer Principle" at work in the world, as Howard Bloom noted. "Nature does not abhor evil," he says. "[S]he embraces it." (The Lucifer Principle)."

"The stag, and most wild animals ... who suffer much from want in the winter, have no superabundance, nor are in a state to engender till they have recruited themselves during the summer; and it is then the rutting season commences, and during which he exhausts himself so much that he remains the whole winter in a state of langour. His flesh and blood are then so impoverished that worms breed under his skin, which still adds to his misery; and which do not perish till the spring, when he recovers new life from the active nourishment he is abundantly furnished with by the fresh production of the earth."

"Born to destroy those beings which are subordinate, we should exhaust Nature if she were not exhaustless, and by a fertility superior to our depredations, renovates the destruction we continually make. But it is so ordained that death should contribute to life, and that reproduction should spring from destruction. However groat, therefore, may be the waste made by man and carnivorous animals, the total quantity of living matter is never diminished, and if they hasten deaths they are also the cause of new births being produced."

"Plants are only reproduced once a year, whereas in insects, especially among the smaller species, one season gives birth to several generations. Among insects there are numbers who live upon other insects; there are some, as the spiders, which devour with indifference their own as well as other species; they serve for food to the birds; and fowls, both wild and tame, are destined for the nourishment of man, or the prey of carnivorous animals. Thus violent deaths seem to be equally as necessary as natural ones; they are both modes of destruction and renovation; the one serves to preserve nature in a perpetual spring, and the other maintains the order of her productions, and limits the number of each species."

"Let us consider any of the inferior species which serve as food to others, herrings, for example, present themselves in millions to our fishermen, and after having fed all the monsters of the northern sea, they contribute to the subsistence of all the nations in Europe for a certain part of the year. If prodigious numbers of them were not destroyed, what would be the effects of their prodigious multiplication? By them alone would the whole surface of the sea be covered. But their numbers would soon prove a nuisance, they would corrupt and destroy each other. For want of sufficient nourishment their fecundity would diminish, by contagion and famine they would be equally destroyed, the number of their own species would not be increased, but the number of those that feed upon them would be diminished. As this remark is alike applicable to any other species, so it is necessary they should prey upon each other, the killing of animals, therefore, is both a lawful and innocent custom, since it is founded in nature, and it is upon that seemingly hard condition they are brought into existence."

"Among these, animals are classified as the one of the three (or four) unfortunate rebirth destinies ... The category of animals includes both land and sea creatures, as well as insects. The specific kinds of suffering that animals undergo are frequently mentioned in Buddhist texts; these include the constant need to search for their own food while always seeking to avoid becoming food for others. ... The possibility of achieving rebirth out of the realm of animals is said to be particularly difficult because of either the inevitable killing in which predators engage or because of animals' constant fear of becoming prey; neither mental state is conducive to higher rebirth."

"It seems to me that many theories of the universe may be dismissed at once, not as too good, but as too cosy, to be true. One feels sure that they could have arisen only among people living a peculiarly sheltered life at a peculiarly favourable period of the world's history. No theory need be seriously considered unless it recognises that the world has always been for most [humans] and all animals other than domestic pets a scene of desperate struggle in which great evils are suffered and inflicted."

"But, good heavens! the whole plan of life is one of rapine. We did not fashion the spider to prey upon the fly, or the cat to play with the wounded mouse. We did not ordain that the strong should fall upon the weak, and tear and torture them for their own benefit. Surely we are not responsible for the brutalities of the animal creation."

"More seriously still, the value commitments of the humane movement seem at bottom to betray a world-denying or rather a life-Ioathing philosophy. The natural world as actually constituted is one in which one being lives at the expense of others. Each organism, in Darwin's metaphor, struggles to maintain its own organic integrity. The more complex animals seem to experience Gudging from our own case, and reasoning from analogy appropriate and adaptive psychological accompaniments to organic existence. There is a palpable passion for self-preservation. There are desire, pleasure in the satisfaction of desires, acute agony attending injury, frustration, and chronic dread of death. But these experiences are the psychological substance of living. To live is to be anxious about life, to feel pain and pleasure in a fitting mixture, and sooner or later to die. That is the way the system works. If nature as a whole is good, then pain and death are also good."

"It is often assumed that wild animals live in a kind of natural paradise and that it is only the appearance and intervention of human agencies that bring about suffering. This essentially Rousseauian view is at odds with the wealth of informatio n derived from field studies of animal populations. Scarcity of food and water, predation, disease and intraspecific aggression are some of the factors which have been identified as normal parts of a wild environment which cause suffering in wild animals on a regular basis."

"A happy home of sunshine, flowers and streams. Yet in the sweetest places cometh ill, A noisome weed that burthens every soil; For snakes are known with chill and deadly coil To watch such nests and seize the helpless young, And like as though the plague became a guest, Leaving a houseless home, a ruined nest— And mournful hath the little warblers sung When such like woes hath rent its little breast."

"[E]cosystems do not only have value aesthetically and prudentially, they also have disvalue. In aesthetic terms, few of us enjoy the sight of animals dying through starvation or disease. And many of us also recoil rather than feel a sense of wonder at the reality of predation. And, as we have seen, ecosystems also possess prudential disvalue. As well as improving the well-being of sentient animals of which they are a part, they also facilitate their suffering. This means that if we value ecosystems for the the beauty and the well-being they afford, we cannot object to interventions which interfere with and change those ecosystems if they increase that beauty and well-being. In other words, then, it appears that sometimes out duty may be to protect ecosystems, and at other times it may be to interfere with them."

"Utility, rights, and holistic standards all point toward some modest steps to limit or check the predatory activity of carnivores relative to their victims. At the very least, we should limit current subsidies to nature's carnivores. Policing nature need not be absurdly costly or violate common-sense intuitions."

"Many believers in animal rights and the relevance of animal welfare do not critically examine their basic assumptions ... [T]ypically these individuals hold two conflicting views. The first view is that animal welfare counts, and that people should treat animals as decently as possible. The second view is a presumption of human non-interference with nature, as much as possible ... [T]he two views are less compatible than is commonly supposed. If we care about the welfare and rights of individual animals, we may be led to interfere with nature whenever the costs of doing so are sufficiently low."

"In other cases we are interfering with nature, whether we like it or not. It is not a question of uncertainty holding us back from policing, but rather how to compare one form of policing to another. Humans change water levels, fertilize particular soils, influence climatic conditions, and do many other things that affect the balance of power in nature. These human activities will not go away any time soon, but in the meantime we need to evaluate their effects on carnivores and their victims."

"If the universe were self-aware, the only reasonable conclusion one could reach about it is that it hates itself, as it has decided to manifest itself as a legion of survival machines that tear each other apart for a living."

"Whichever way man may look upon the earth, he is oppressed with the suffering incident to life. It would almost seem as though the earth had been created with malignity and hatred. If we look at what we are pleased to call the lower animals, we behold a universal carnage. We speak of the seemingly peaceful woods, but we need only look beneath the surface to be horrified by the misery of that underworld. Hidden in the grass and watching for its prey is the crawling snake which swiftly darts upon the toad or mouse and gradually swallows it alive; the hapless animal is crushed by the jaws and covered with slime, to be slowly digested in furnishing a meal. The snake knows nothing about sin or pain inflicted upon another; he automatically grabs insects and mice and frogs to preserve his life. The spider carefully weaves his web to catch the unwary fly, winds him into the fatal net until paralyzed and helpless, then drinks his blood and leaves him an empty shell. The hawk swoops down and snatches a chicken and carries it to its nest to feed its young. The wolf pounces on the lamb and tears it to shreds. The cat watches at the hole of the mouse until the mouse cautiously comes out, then with seeming fiendish glee he plays with it until tired of the game, then crunches it to death in his jaws. The beasts of the jungle roam by day and night to find their prey; the lion is endowed with strength of limb and fang to destroy and devour almost any animal that it can surprise or overtake. There is no place in the woods or air or sea where all life is not a carnage of death in terror and agony. Each animal is a hunter, and in turn is hunted, by day and night. No landscape is so beautiful or day so balmy but the cry of suffering and sacrifice rends the air. When night settles down over the earth the slaughter is not abated. Some creatures see best at night, and the outcry of the dying and terrified is always on the wind. Almost all animals meet death by violence and through the most agonizing pain. With the whole animal creation there is nothing like a peaceful death. Nowhere in nature is there the slightest evidence of kindness, of consideration, or a feeling for the suffering and the weak, except in the narrow circle of brief family life."

"Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows."

"That there is much suffering in the world no one disputes. Some have attempted to explain this in reference to man by imagining that it serves for his moral improvement. But the number of men in the world is as nothing compared with that of all other sentient beings, and these often suffer greatly without any moral improvement. A being so powerful and so full of knowledge as a God who could create the universe, is to our finite minds omnipotent and omniscient, and it revolts our understanding to suppose that his benevolence is not unbounded, for what advantage can there be in the sufferings of millions of the lower animals throughout almost endless time?"

"Such is the condition of organic nature! whose first law might be expressed in the words, "Eat or be Eaten!" and which would seem to be one great slaughter-house, one universal scene of rapacity and injustice!"

"The wolf, escorted by his milk-drawn dam, Unknown to mercy, tears the guiltless lamb; The towering eagle, darting from above, Unfeeling rends the inoffensive dove; The lamb and dove on living nature feed, Crop the young herb, or crush the embryon seed. Nor spares the loud owl in her dusky flight, Smit with sweet notes, the minstrel of the night; Nor spares, enamour'd of his radiant form, The hungry nightingale the glowing worm; Who with bright lamp alarms the midnight hour, Climbs the green stem, and slays the sleeping flower."

"Fell Oestrus buries in her rapid course Her countless brood in stag, or bull, or horse; Whose hungry larva eats its living way, Hatch'd by the warmth, and issues into day."

"The wing'd Ichneumon for her embryon young. Gores, with sharp horn, the catterpiller throng. The cruel larva mines its silky course, And tears the vitals of its fostering nurse"

"Arrest with rising jaw the tribes above; With monstrous gape sepulchral whales devour Shoals at a gulp, a million in an hour. ―Air, earth, and ocean, to astonish'd day One scene of blood, one mighty tomb display! From Hunger's arm the shafts of Death are hurl'd, And one great Slaughter-house the warring world!"

"Wild animals almost never die of old age: starvation, disease, or predators catch up with them long before they become really senile. Until recently this was true of man too. Most animals die in childhood, many never get beyond the egg stage. Starvation and other causes of death are the ultimate reason why populations cannot increase indefinitely. But as we have seen for our own species, there is no necessary reason why it ever has to come to that. If only animals would control their birth rates, starvation need never happen."

"It is better for the genes of Darwin's wasp that the caterpillar should be alive, and therefore fresh, when it is eaten, no matter what the cost in suffering. If Nature were kind, She would at least make the minor concession of anesthetizing caterpillars before they were eaten alive from within. But Nature is neither kind nor unkind. She is neither against suffering nor for it. Nature is not interested in suffering one way or the other unless it affects the survival of DNA. It is easy to imagine a gene that, say, tranquilizes gazelles when they are about to suffer a killing bite. Would such a gene be favored by natural selection? Not unless the act of tranquilizing a gazelle improved that gene's chances of being propagated into future generations. It is hard to see why this should be so, and we may therefore guess that gazelles suffer horrible pain and fear when they are pursued to the death– as many of them eventually are."

"The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored."

"Even if we were required to meddle in nature, protecting animals from predators would not be a high priority – if it would be sensible at all. Better that we help whales stuck in ice or protect animals threatened by natural disaster. Predators are, with very few exceptions (such as humans), exclusively or primarily carnivores, being unable to survive without meat. To protect the gazelle from the lion, or the elephant from the hyena, would be to save one but doom the other. It seems very doubtful that we are obligated to pick sides here (even if shooting a lion might cause the lion less suffering than what her gazelle victims would experience). Nature really seems to be "red in tooth and claw" when it comes to carnivores. In conclusion, the reductio argument concerning positive obligations to animals fails. Contrary to that argument, if the combination of equal consideration and our obligations to humans supports any positive obligations to animals, these obligations prove to be plausible ones."

"He didn’t jump; I crept closer. At last I knelt on the island’s winter killed grass, lost, dumbstruck, staring at the frog in the creek just four feet away. He was a very small frog with wide, dull eyes. And just as I looked at him, he slowly crumpled and began to sag. The spirit vanished from his eyes as if snuffed. His skin emptied and drooped; his very skull seemed to collapse and settle like a kicked tent. He was shrinking before my eyes like a deflating football. I watched the taut, glistening skin on his shoulders ruck, and rumple, and fall. Soon, part of his skin, formless as a pricked balloon, lay in floating folds like bright scum on top of the water: it was a monstrous and terrifying thing. I gaped bewildered, appalled. An oval shadow hung in the water behind the drained frog; then the shadow glided away. The frog skin bag started to sink. I had read about the giant water bug, but never seen one. "Giant water bug" is really the name of the creature, which is an enormous, heavy-bodied brown bug. It eats insects, tadpoles, fish, and frogs. Its grasping forelegs are mighty and hooked inward. It seizes a victim with these legs, hugs it tight, and paralyzes it with enzymes injected during a vicious bite. That one bite is the only bite it ever takes. Through the puncture shoot the poisons that dissolve the victim’s muscles and bones and organs—all but the skin—and through it the giant water bug sucks out the victim’s body, reduced to a juice. This event is quite common in warm fresh water. The frog I saw was being sucked by a giant water bug. I had been kneeling on the island grass; when the unrecognizable flap of frog skin settled on the creek bottom, swaying, I stood up and brushed the knees of my pants. I couldn’t catch my breath."

"I don't know what it is about fecundity that so appalls. I suppose it is the teeming evidence that birth and growth, which we value, are ubiquitous and blind, that life itself is so astonishingly cheap, that nature is as careless as it is bountiful, and that with extravagance goes a crushing waste that will one day include our own cheap lives, Henle's loops and all. Every glistening egg is a memento mori."

"After a natural disaster such as a flood, nature "stages a comeback." People use the optimistic expression without any real idea of the pressures and waste the comeback involves. Now, in late June, things are popping outside. Creatures extrude or vent eggs; larvae fatten, split their shells, and eat them; spores dissolve or explode; root hairs multiply, corn puffs on the stalk, grass yields seed, shoots erupt from the earth turgid and sheathed; wet muskrats, rabbits, and squirrels slide into the sunlight, mewling and blind; and everywhere watery cells divide and swell, swell and divide. I can like it and call it birth and regeneration, or I can play the devil's advocate and call it rank fecundity—and say that it's hell that's a-poppin"

"The intricacy of Ellery and aphids multiplied mindlessly into tons and light-years is more than extravagance; it is holocaust, parody, glut."

"The pressure of growth among animals is a kind of terrible hunger. These billions must eat in order to fuel their surge to sexual maturity so that they may pump out more billions of eggs. And what are the fish on the bed going to eat, or the hatched mantises in the Mason jar going to eat, but each other? There is a terrible innocence in the benumbed world of the lower animals, reducing life there to a universal chomp. Edwin Way Teale, in The Strange Lives of Familiar Insects—a book I couldn't live without—describes several occasions of meals mouthed under the pressure of a hunger that knew no bounds."

"Beasts are the subjects of tyrannic sway, Where still the stronger on the weaker prey; Man only of a softer mold is made, Not for his fellows' ruin, but their aid."

"Nature is no sentimentalist,—does not cosset or pamper us. We must see that the world is rough and surly, and will not mind drowning a man or a woman; but swallows your ship like a grain of dust. The cold, inconsiderate of persons, tingles your blood, benumbs your feet, freezes a man like an apple. The diseases, the elements, fortune, gravity, lightning, respect no persons. The way of Providence is a little rude. The habit of snake and spider, the snap of the tiger and other leapers and bloody jumpers, the crackle of the bones of his prey in the coil of the anaconda,—these are in the system, and our habits are like theirs. You have just dined, and, however scrupulously the slaughter-house is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity,—expensive races,—race living at the expense of race. ... The cholera, the small-pox, have proved as mortal to some tribes, as a frost to the crickets, which, having filled the summer with noise, are silenced by a fall of the temperature of one night. Without uncovering what does not concern us, or counting how many species of parasites hang on a bombyx; or groping after intestinal parasites, or infusory biters, or the obscurities of alternate generation;—the forms of the shark, the labrus, the jaw of the sea-wolf paved with crushing teeth, the weapons of the grampus, and other warriors hidden in the sea,—are hints of ferocity in the interiors of nature. Let us not deny it up and down. Providence has a wild, rough, incalculable road to its end, and it is of no use to try to whitewash its huge, mixed instrumentalities, or to dress up that terrific benefactor in a clean shirt and white neckcloth of a student in divinity."

"Nature isn't good or bad. It doesn't say anything about happiness or suffering. What we can do is look at what drives our existence, and then figure out what experiences animals are most likely to have as a result."

"Attic maid, honey-fed, chatterer, snatchest thou and bearest the chattering cricket for feast to thy unfledged young, thou chatterer the chatterer, thou winged the winged, thou summer guest the summer guest, and wilt not quickly cast it loose? for it is not right nor just that singers should perish by singers' mouths."

"[I]t is clear you have either never taken a course in ecology and evolution, or forgot the message. There is this strange thing called a food web – in which organisms are primary producers, eat primary producers, eat the eaters of primary producers – and so on. That is called life. It has NO ethical or moral values. Those are HUMAN values. A wolf or lion kills another animal – the pain and suffering are not ecological issues – the life of the wolf or lion is the issue. If the wolf or lion dies of starvation – then the prey potentially become over populated – like the deer in Princeton. Your values are not the values of nature."

"Indeed the amount of suffering and premature death present in nature could still be glimpsed were we only to consider the tiny number of animals that successfully reach maturity in comparison to those who die shortly after coming into existence. Population dynamics shows how this figure is very low because of the prevalent reproductive strategy in nature, which consists in producing very large numbers of offspring who have very little chance of survival."

"[I]t is not inherently absurd to suppose that there is an obligation to protect animals from natural predators, even if this obligation has limited practical application. Nor (except, perhaps, in the case of ethical holists) does it conflict with our deepest moral convictions. If one of these convictions is that we should strive to reduce the amount of suffering in the world, then assisting prey animals, in some cases at least, is one way in which this might be accomplished."

"In every part of the animal world we find implements of torture surpassing in devilish ingenuity anything that was ever seen in the dungeons of the Inquisition."

"If you stop and think about the sheer number of animals on Earth that make a living by laying eggs in other animals and doing all sorts of horrible things to them before consuming them alive, it can give one pause."

"Among brutes as well as men, everything important and delightful as it may be in its nature and effects, is begun, Continued, and ended in difficulty. We view throughout the whole animal creation the painful anxiety of the mother too often rewarded with the loss of the young progeny, and her trouble about rearing them end in disappointment ... the hawk and the owl will always prey on the infant family of the sparrow and the mouse: all nature is one wide waste of devastation; and, though we may diminish the sufferings of animals under our own eyes, yet the wood and the wilderness will be theatres of woe, and the wide waters of the deep tainted with the blood of savage strife, so long as the world remains in its present condition."

", Philozoia: Or Moral Reflections on the Actual Condition of the Animal Kingdom, and on the Means of Improving the Same (1839), pp. 65–66"

"I never pity animals in captivity because I have seen too many wild animals suffering from starvation and other things. I remember polar bears emaciated to extreme weakness because the ice had gone and with it every chance for them to hunt food. I have seen caribou exhausted by fear, and around them howling wolves forcing them to run and run until they lost sense and strength and became an easy prey. In nature, every animal is merciless toward every other."

"Why ridicule the act, the feeling blame, Which from the spider would the fly reclaim; Since from the reptile, in gradation due, 'Twould link the world in sympathy to you? Let not this bold assertion ease thy mind, "This all is nature, and by heav'n design'd:" Would you not bless the arm, if stretch'd to save Your individual carcass from the grave? From the fierce tiger's unrelenting claw, Or rav'nous wolf; though Nature gave the law?"

"Respecting the state of savage or uncultivated life, man and other animals appear to be very similarly circumstanced; both of them being miserably subject to almost every evil, destitute of the means of palliating them; living in the continual apprehension of immediate starvation, of destruction by their enemies, which swarm around them; of receiving dreadful injuries from the revengeful and malicious feelings of their associates, uncontrolled by laws or by education, and acting as their strength alone dictates; without proper shelter from the inclemencies of the weather; without proper attention and medical or surgical aid in sickness; destitute frequently of fire, of candle-light, and (in man) also of clothing; without amusements or occupations, excepting a few, the chief of which are immediately necessary for their existence, and subject to all the ill consequences arising from the want of them."

"Delightful representations of animated nature have indeed been made by the best authors, which I hope I shall be pardoned in dissenting from, and confess that though I am not blind to there being much enjoyment, the different evils of all animals, and of all classes of mankind, strike me with the most force. Those authors construe almost all things into so many tokens of happiness. If they look at a drop of water through a microscope, and see a multitude of animalcula swimming about, they seem to conclude that they must all be in a state of pleasure; not judging by analogy, that for one whose motions are the effect of happy sensation, there may be several which are struggling for food, from disease, and other such causes; that even the very fluid they inhabit is disputed by larger animals, who are continually destroying them and giving them the agonies of death after a very short life, whether it be of pleasure or of pain, and thereby embittering the draught of the thinking part of mankind. The different actions and cries indeed of all creatures, are adverted to as enlivening scenes of happiness; not noticing how many of them, which to the uninformed may appear to proceed from enjoyment, are in fact produced by fear, anger, pain, and the like; and which close observation will frequently discover them to be. How are the weak and sickly males oppressed by the strong and healthy ones, crossed in their amours, deprived of their food, injured in their bodies, and at last driven to end their lives in solitary places!"

"It is strange that philosophers first show how one animal supports itself by destroying another, and then enter into discussions on the apparent admirable order of things in their present state. But though this may be a necessary contrivance, and the only way in which life can be supported, it can never be a beautiful one, in our short sights, notwithstanding that something worse might be, were this not the case."

"Though brutes suffer much in a natural state, they seem to endure much more when in our power; and in the former state all appearing to mix much enjoyment with their troubles, particularly the horse and the ass, which (as is well known) when wild, form societies, and appoint sentinels to warn them of danger, find their food beneath their feet, their shelter in the warmth of the climate, and make use of their strength with which they are end owed, in travelling about for fresh food, in defending themselves, and in escaping from their enemies; in this state the ass is known to be as active and spirited, as he is here dull and dejected."

"Y: As you think it wrong for man to kill other animals for food, do you also think it wrong that animals should devour each other? As this is the general law of nature. Z: It appears wrong, according to the rules by which we govern our own actions to each other; and should I witness the attempt in any animal of destroying another, I would endeavour to frustrate it; though this might probably be wrong."

"Y: But the whole species of the carnivorous kind would then become extinct. Were they created to be annihilated? Z: I do not see why the whole species of one animal is more important than an equal number of another, although that number might not comprise the whole species of the latter: and, besides, it is not proved that the whole species would perish; as some might feed on the bodies of those animals which they might find that were in a fit state; and also upon vegetables, which they will eat occasionally. It is known that wolves will live in the two ways mentioned, when deprived of other means."

"Can a reflecting mind turn for a moment to any quarter without shrinking at the scenes of carnage and suffering which constitute not only the minor streams, but the grand tide of life: though mingled with many pleasures we admit; but the goods falling mostly on man, and the evils mostly on animals. Those men, however, who are above others, and still more above dumb animals in happiness, are readily led to believe that the sweets of life greatly predominate in the whole classes of animated beings, yet an impartial view seems to tell a very different tale."

"Yet it must be confessed that whichever way we turn our eyes we see a system of aggression and destruction. In order for one animal to live, thousands must die: directly so if the one be carnivorous, and indirectly so if graminivorous. It has been calculated that some birds destroy thousands of butterflies during the rearing of a single brood; and if we take man, who is half carnivorous, and calculate how many lives are destroyed to maintain him in comfort during his life, even without sport, the number will appear enormous, no estimate of which can however be made without taking into account the size of the animals he feeds on."

"But as the multiplication of animals exceeds the vegetable food, it is true that by killing some of the animals not any the less live, as they are only killed instead of starved. This, we are sorry to confess, is the system of nature, but this is no justification of a partial destruction of lives. It is generally, tritely enough said, that animals most be destroyed by every means they now are,—that destruction is the general law of nature, and otherwise overstock would result; let us for a moment admit it, we must then on the same plea massacre human beings, namely, to prevent overstock; and we ask the advocates of this principle just to point out what crime consists of, as it seems to us that most crimes can be defended on the same ground."

"Much as animals suffer in a natural state, much more do they seem to suffer when under the dominion of the generality of men. What suffering in the former can be supposed to equal the constant torture of a hackney-coach horse?"

"We now know that the whole of organic nature on our planet exists only by a relentless war of all against all. Thousands of animals and plants must daily perish in every part of the earth, in order that a few chosen individuals may continue to subsist and to enjoy life. But even the existence of these favoured few is a continual conflict with threatening dangers of every kind. Thousands of hopeful germs perish uselessly every minute. The raging war of interests in human society is only a feeble picture of the unceasing and terrible war of existence which reigns throughout the whole of the living world. The beautiful dream of God's goodness and wisdom in nature, to which as children we listened so devoutly fifty years ago, no longer finds credit now – at least among educated people who think."

"[I]n other parts of the African continent, when the fierceness of the summer has dried up the rivers, the amphibia, great and small, collect in uncongenial crowds in the pools left along the deeper parts of the channel; and the land animals, the deer, the apes, the birds, stoop hastily and furtively to snatch insufficient draughts from the depths where lurk so many ravenous foes. Then, in colder lands, what wretchedness does winter bring—when the snow puts an end to the livelihood of all the tribes which seek sustenance on the earth, and the frost mocks the misery of those whose food is in the marsh or the pool. The frozen-out woodcock taps in vain for a soft spot in which to insert his slender bill—his larder is locked up and the key gone. Now and then comes a winter so sharp that the naturalist misses, next summer, whole species from their accustomed haunts. In one long frost all the snipe perished in parts of Scotland, and have never been plentiful since."

"How mournful for these poor starvelings the fact, apparently so insignificant, that the temperature has fallen below freezing-point! What misery is approaching them in the leaden gloom of the northeast! And in those circles of the earth where the reign of winter is prolonged, hunger is the inseparable associate of life, lying down with it in its shivering sleep, rising with it in its gloomy waking, and tracking its footsteps always along the ice-bound circuit of its weary quest."

"But if the vicissitudes of climate are fraught with suffering, so are the vicissitudes of age. The infancy of many animals is as helpless as babyhood. Few hired nurses, it is true, are so patient, so provident, so watchful, so untiring in care, as the dams, feathered or furred, who, in nest or lair, watch over their young. But then the lives of these guardians are terribly precarious, and innumerable are the orphans of the animal world."

"Every wet spring drowns in the holes they have never learnt to quit a multitude of small helpless creatures—every storm of early summer casts innumerable half-fledged birds prematurely on the hard world to cower, and scramble, and palpitate, and hunger, till inevitable doom overtakes them after a more or less short interval."

"At first sight, domesticated animals may seem much better off than their wild cousins and ancestors. Wild buffaloes spend their days searching for food, water and shelter, and are constantly threatened by lions, parasites, floods and droughts. Domesticated cattle, by contrast, enjoy care and protection from humans. People provide cows and calves with food, water and shelter, they treat their diseases, and protect them from predators and natural disasters. True, most cows and calves sooner or later find themselves in the slaughterhouse. Yet does that make their fate any worse than that of wild buffaloes? Is it better to be devoured by a lion than slaughtered by a man? Are crocodile teeth kinder than steel blades?"

"I just think it may be, in fact, the case that nature is just a horror show. It is bad almost any place you could be born in the natural world, you're unlucky to be a rabbit and you're unlucky to be a fox. We're lucky to be humans, sort of, and we can dimly imagine how much luckier we might get in the future if we don't screw up."

"Most of the 1300 millions of the earth's inhabitants have either a scanty nourishment, unsatisfying and prolonging life with difficulty, or they live for a time in superfluity, from which they derive no preponderating enjoyment, and must for another period actually starve and suffer want, when they must accordingly endure the pains of hunger for long periods, whilst the pleasure of satiety, with perfect stilling of hunger, only occupies a few hours of the day. But now let any one compare the dull delight of satiety and digestion with the distinct gnawing of hunger or the hell-torments of thirst to which animals in deserts, steppes, and such regions, that in the hot season are perfectly dry, are not seldom exposed. How much more, however, must among many species of animals the pain of hunger exceed the pleasure of satiety in the course of life, which at certain seasons die of hunger from want of food, often in considerable numbers, or for weeks and months just on the brink of starvation, prolong their existence in slightly more favourable conditions of life! This happens both with graminivorous birds and birds in the winter of the polar and temperate zones and in the arid tropics, as also with carnivora and beasts of prey, which often for weeks wander about vainly in search of booty until they perish of inanition."

"As for the other spring of Nature, Love, ... In the animal kingdom one can hardly speak of an active sexual selection on the part of the male, even among the highest birds and mammals; of a passive selection through the struggle of the males in which the strongest remains victor, only among a small part of the higher animals, or the rest, the sexual impulse is not individual, but is purely general. But now in the infinitely larger part of the animal kingdom there do not exist organs of sexual pleasure acting as stimulants to coition; without such accordingly coition is an office indifferent to the egoism of the individual which is carried on by the impelling constraint of instinct, as the spinning of the web of the spider or the building of the bird's nest for the eggs hereafter to be laid. To the absence of enjoyment in the office of fecundation in the case of most animals also the frequently indirect form of this function deviating from direct copulation points. When in the vertebrates a personal physical enjoyment appears to occur, it is at first certainly as flat and insignificant as possible; but soon there is also added the contest of the males for the female, which in many species of animals is waged with the greatest bitterness, and has for its consequence often painful injuries, not seldom also the killing of one of the rivals. Add to that, among those animals which at the time of rut form herds led by the victorious male, the involuntary continence of the younger members, whether they separate into smaller detachments or remain with the main herd, when an invasion of the rights of the head of the family is punished in the cruellest fashion. This involuntary continence of the largest part of the males, and the pains and vexation caused the defeated by the contests, seem to me a hundredfold to exceed the pleasures accruing to the prosperous males from the sexual pleasure. As for the females, in the first place, among most animals they far more rarely couple than the privileged males; and, secondly, the pains of child-bearing in their case far outweigh the pleasure derived from copulation."

"Each strives with each, as each is pressed upon; each must provide for his own subsistence, and defend his own life."

"Why acts nature thus? and why does she thus crowd her creatures one upon another? Because she would produce the greatest number and variety of living beings in the least space, so that one crushes another, and an equilibrium of powers can alone produce peace in the creation. Every species cares for itself, as if it were the only one in existence: but by its side stands another, which confines it within due bounds: and in this adjustment of opposing species creative nature found the only mean of maintaining the whole. She weighed the powers, she numbered the limbs, she determined the instincts of the species toward each other; and left the earth to produce what it was capable of producing."

"The jungle, existing exclusively in the present, is certainly subject to time, but remains forever ageless. Any concept of justice would be antithetical to all this. But is there justice in the desert, either? Or in the oceans? And in the depths? Life in the sea must be pure hell, an infinite hell of constant and ever-present danger, so unbearable that in the course of evolution some species – including Homo Sapiens – crawled, fled, onto some clods of firm land, the future continents."

"Nature here is vile and base. I wouldn't see anything erotical here. I would see fornication and asphyxiation and choking and fighting for survival and growing and just rotting away. Of course, there's a lot of misery. But it is the same misery that is all around us. The trees here are in misery, and the birds are in misery. I don't think they sing, they just screech in pain."

"And what haunts me, is that in all the faces of all the bears that Treadwell ever filmed, I discover no kinship, no understanding, no mercy. I see only the overwhelming indifference of nature. To me, there is no such thing as a secret world of the bears. And this blank stare speaks only of a half-bored interest in food."

"The idea that all captive wild animals are necessarily "miserable" is erroneous, because some captive animals are better fed, better protected and are more happy in captivity than similar animals are in a wild state, beset by dangers and harassed by hunger and thirst."

"In their greatest hunger they attack the ranchmen's haystacks, just as far as the stout and high log fences will permit them to go, and many a kind-hearted ranchman has robbed his own haystacks to save the lives of starving and despairing elk."

"In the temperate and frigid zones, life was a seasonal battle with bitter cold, torrents of cold rain in early winter or spring, devastating sleet, and deep snow and ice that left no room for argument. At the same time, the species that were not predatory found themselves surrounded by fangs and claws, and the never-ending hunger of their owners."

"If we were asked, "Which one may be called the ruling passion of the wild animal?" we would without hesitation answer,—it is fear."

"From the cradle to the grave, every strictly wild animal lives, day and night, in a state of fear of bodily harm, and dread of hunger and famine."

"Now the 'free, wild life' is a round of strife, And of ceaseless hunger and fear; And the life in the wild of the animal child 'Is not all skittles and beer."

"Next to the plainly expressed desire to quench their thirst the dominant thought in the minds of those animals, one and all, was the fear of being attacked. In some species this ever-present and harassing dread was a pitiful spectacle. I wish it might be witnessed by all those ultra-humane persons who think and say that the free wild animals are the only happy ones!"

"The antlers of the common white-tailed deer seem peculiarly liable to become interlocked so tightly that it is well-nigh impossible to separate them. And whenever this happens, the doom of both deer is sealed. Unless found speedily and killed, they must die of starvation."

"The killing of natural prey for daily food is not murder.A starving wolf on the desolate barren grounds may even kill and devour a wounded pack-mate without becoming a criminal by that act alone. True, such a manifestation of hard-hearted-ness and bad taste is very reprehensible; but its cause is hunger, not sheer blackness of heart."

"It is commonly believed that animal ethics entails respect for natural processes, because nonhuman animals are able to live relatively easy and happy lives in the wild. However, this assumption is wrong. Due to the most widespread reproductive strategy in nature, r-selection, the overwhelming majority of nonhuman animals die shortly after they come into existence. They starve or are eaten alive, which means their suffering vastly outweighs their happiness. Hence, concern for nonhuman animals entails that we should try to intervene in nature to reduce the enormous amount of harm they suffer. Even if this conclusion may seem extremely counter-intuitive at first, it can only be rejected from a speciesist viewpoint."

"Then, I claim that if we abandon a speciesist viewpoint we should change completely the way in which we should intervene in nature. Rather than intervening for environmental or anthropocentric reasons, we should do it in order to reduce the harms that nonhuman animals suffer. This conflicts significantly with some fundamental environmental ideals whose defence is not compatible with the consideration of the interests of nonhuman animals."

"What happens to all the other animals that come into existence? They die, often shortly after they start to be sentient. They starve, are killed by other animals or in other painful ways, and, because they die so soon, they do not have the chance to have many other experiences apart from the suffering of their death. This means that they may never have any positive experiences at all, or just have very few ones. Other animals may be able to survive a bit longer and have some more positive experiences, yet not enough to outweigh the suffering they endure because of the hardships of their existence which eventually lead them to their death. These animals experience more suffering than well-being in their lives."

"Many people think we shouldn't worry about this. Some people hold speciesist views according to which we should only care about what happens to human beings. Others hold environmentalist positions that entail that we should just care about the conservation of ecosystems or species and disregard the interests of individual nonhuman animals. According to those holding these views, nonhuman animals can be sacrificed for the sake of environmental conservation (though, interestingly, they seldom maintain this view when human beings are affected). However, if we agree that the interests of all sentient animals must be taken into account we should reject these anthropocentric and environmentalist views as speciesist."

"Similarly, some people have argued that the harms suffered by animals in the wild (e.g. disease, starvation and predation) should not concern us because they are natural. This sounds like a speciesist claim, given that such a view is rarely held when humans suffer those harms. Also, it seems that if the animals themselves could have a say on this, they would clearly prefer to be spared those harms, as we would in their situation."

"This means that the number of animals that come into existence only to die shortly after is extremely high. On average, if we consider a context in which populations remain stable at least in the mid term, for each animal that reproduces, only one of her or his offspring survives (otherwise animal populations would grow exponentially very fast, and would become massive with just one generation). This means that all the rest of the animals die. Many of them die shortly after coming into existence. These animals starve to death, are eaten by other animals, or die for other reasons that usually entail a great deal of suffering. This means that an enormous number of animals come into existence only to suffer. Their lives contain virtually no enjoyment, since they die shortly after they start to exist. However, their lives do contain significant suffering, because of the painful ways in which they die. They thus live lives in which disvalue outweighs value. Living their lives causes them more harm than good. In fact, in many cases it causes them great harm and no good at all."

"He was less interested in television. Every week, however, his heart in his mouth, he watched The Animal Kingdom. Graceful animals like gazelles and antelopes spent their days in abject terror while lions and panthers lived out their lives in listless imbecility punctuated by explosive bursts of cruelty. They slaughtered weaker animals, dismembered and devoured the sick and the old before falling back into a brutish sleep where the only activity was that of the parasites feeding on them from within. Some of these parasites were hosts to smaller parasites, which in turn were a breeding ground for viruses. Snakes moved among the trees, their fangs bared, ready to strike at bird or mammal, only to be ripped apart by hawks. The pompous, half-witted voice of Claude Darget, filled with awe and unjustifiable admiration, narrated these atrocities. Michel trembled with indignation. But as he watched, the unshakable conviction grew that nature, taken as a whole, was a repulsive cesspit. All in all, nature deserved to be wiped out in a holocaust--and man's mission on earth was probably to do just that."

"But [the human treatment of nonhuman animals is] nothing compared to the suffering doled out by Nature. It boggles the mind to consider the billions upon billions of animals stalked and killed or eaten alive by predators or who died slowly and painfully, decimated by disease, famine, or drought. So it is that we must face a sobering fact: the history of our planet is a history stuffed with undeserved, horrific evil and suffering."

"The whole earth, believe me ... is cursed and polluted. A perpetual war is kindled amongst all living creatures. Necessity, hunger, want, stimulate the strong and courageous: Fear, anxiety, terror, agitate the weak and infirm. The first entrance into life gives anguish to the new-born infant and to its wretched parent: Weakness, impotence, distress, attend each stage of that life: and it is at last finished in agony and horror."

"Observe, too, says Philo, the curious artifices of nature, in order to embitter the life of every living being. The stronger prey upon the weaker, and keep them in perpetual terror and anxiety. The weaker too, in their turn, often prey upon the stronger, and vex and molest them without relaxation. Consider that innumerable race of insects, which either are bred on the body of each animal, or flying about infix their stings in him. These insects have others still less than themselves, which torment them. And thus on each hand, before and behind, above and below, every animal is surrounded with enemies, which incessantly seek his misery and destruction."

"The first circumstance which introduces evil, is that contrivance or economy of the animal creation, by which pains, as well as pleasures, are employed to excite all creatures to action, and make them vigilant in the great work of self-preservation. Now pleasure alone, in its various degrees, seems to human understanding sufficient for this purpose. All animals might be constantly in a state of enjoyment: but when urged by any of the necessities of nature, such as thirst, hunger, weariness; instead of pain, they might feel a diminution of pleasure, by which they might be prompted to seek that object which is necessary to their subsistence. Men pursue pleasure as eagerly as they avoid pain; at least they might have been so constituted. It seems, therefore, plainly possible to carry on the business of life without any pain. Why then is any animal ever rendered susceptible of such a sensation? If animals can be free from it an hour, they might enjoy a perpetual exemption from it; and it required as particular a contrivance of their organs to produce that feeling, as to endow them with sight, hearing, or any of the senses. Shall we conjecture, that such a contrivance was necessary, without any appearance of reason? and shall we build on that conjecture as on the most certain truth?"

"High on the topmost branches of the elm, In sable conversation sits the flock Of social starlings, the withdrawing beam Enjoying, supperless, of hasty day. Half starved and petrified, the pigeon mopes With bloated plumage on the dove-house tile, And seems forgetful of his amorous vow And note of love profound."

"Natural selection, in fact, though like the mills of God in grinding slowly and grinding small, has few other attributes that a civilized religion would call Divine. It is efficient in its way—at the price of extreme slowness and extreme cruelty. But it is blind and mechanical; and accordingly its products are just as likely to be aesthetically, morally, or intellectually repulsive to us as they are to be attractive. We need only think of the ugliness of Sacculina or a bladder-worm, the stupidity of a rhinoceros or a stegosaur, the horror of a female mantis devouring its mate or a brood of ichneumon flies slowly eating out a caterpillar."

"From the point of view of the moralist the animal world is on about the same level as a gladiator's show. The creatures are fairly well treated, and set to fight–whereby the strongest, the swiftest, and the cunningest live to fight another day. The spectator has no need to turn his thumbs down, as no quarter is given. He must admit that the skill and training displayed are wonderful. But he must shut his eyes if he would not see that more or less enduring suffering is the meed of both vanquished and victor. And since the great game is going on in every corner of the world, thousands of times a minute; since, were our ears sharp enough, we need not descend to the gates of hell to hear [sighs and groans of pain like those heard by Dante]"

"Would an infinitely wise, good, and powerful God, intending to produce man, commence with the lowest possible forms of life; with the simplest organism that can be imagined, and during immeasurable periods of time, slowly and almost imperceptibly improve upon the rude beginning, until man was evolved? Would countless ages thus be wasted in the production of awkward forms, afterwards abandoned? Can the intelligence of man discover the least wisdom in covering the earth with crawling, creeping horrors that live only upon the agonies and pangs of others? Can we see the propriety of so constructing the earth, that only an insignificant portion of its surface is capable of producing an intelligent man? Who can appreciate the mercy of so making the world that all animals devour animals; so that every mouth is a slaughterhouse, and every stomach a tomb? Is it possible to discover infinite intelligence and love in universal and eternal carnage?"

"In nature I see, or seem to see, good and evil—intelligence and ignorance—goodness and cruelty—care and carelessness—economy and waste. I see means that do not accomplish the ends—designs that seem to fail. To me it seems infinitely cruel for life to feed on life—to create animals that devour others. The teeth and beaks, the claws and fangs, that tear and rend, fill me with horror. What can be more frightful than a world at-war? Every leaf a battle-field—every flower a Golgotha—in every drop of water pursuit, capture and death. Under every piece of bark, life lying in wait for life. On every blade of grass, something that kills,—something that suffers. Everywhere the strong living on the weak—the superior on the inferior. Everywhere the weak, the insignificant, living on the strong—the inferior on the superior—the highest food for the lowest—man sacrificed for the sake of microbes. Murder universal. Everywhere pain, disease and death—death that does not wait for bent forms and gray hairs, but clutches babes and happy youths. Death that takes the mother from her helpless, dimpled child—death that fills the world with grief and tears."

"The wolf will live with the lamb, The leopard will lie down with the goat, The calf and the lion and the yearling together; And a little child will lead them. The cow will feed with the bear, Their young will lie down together, And the lion will eat straw like the ox. The infant will play near the hole of the cobra, And the young child put his hand into the viper’s nest. They will neither harm nor destroy On all my holy mountain, For the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord, As the waters cover the sea."

"Documentary film of scenes of wild carnivores preying on other animals is usually edited so to not show the harsh reality of nature. A TV program I watched by chance 12 years ago reported the fact without concealing the details ... Five hyenas surrounded an animal like a deer at night and bit its abdomen. The animal had already lost the vigor to run away or to resist and was immobilized by terror at the persistent attack of the hyenas. In a moment, the skin of its abdomen was torn up and the bloody flesh was exposed throughout the abdomen. The animal's four legs staggered but it didn't fall; the legs stood and supported the body full of injuries. The hyenas bit the animal's exposed bloody flesh, bit by bit, and began to eat it. The animal didn't fall down yet and stood still with all its might, but no one saved this pitiful animal; it was eaten alive ...This occurrence is not special but repeated everywhere on the earth every day. I was deeply shocked, however, as if I had learned nature's true colors of cruelty for the first time. I had the intuition that such thing should absolutely not exist. Even if people permit it as natural law, I must deny it firmly. I wanted to drive away the hyenas to save the animals from being eaten alive ... If I had not seen the TV program by chance, I would have continued to eat meat and to hold a superficial philosophy ignorant of the cruelty of nature."

"It is not fair to sympathize only with livestock, and not with animals eaten by carnivores. Everyone would have wanted to help the animal attacked by the carnivores if he had actually observed the scene I described [documentary footage of a deer being attacked by hyenas]."

""The rat goes out for its food, and is clever in getting it, for it eats all animals inferior to it in strength", and in turn, it "has to avoid snakes and birds and serpents of prey, who look for it in order to devour it" and are stronger than the rat. Mosquitos "know instinctively that blood is the thing which makes them live" and when they see an animal, "they know that the skin has been fashioned to serve them as food". In turn, flies hunt the mosquito "which is the food that they like best", and predators eat the flies. "All animals, in short, can not exist without food, neither can the hunting animal escape being hunted in his turn. Every weak animal devours those weaker than itself. Strong animals cannot escape being devoured by other animals stronger than they."

"The normal process of life contains moments as bad as any of those which insane melancholy is filled with, moments in which radical evil gets its innings and takes its solid turn. The lunatic’s visions of horror are all drawn from the material of daily fact. Our civilization is founded on the shambles, and every individual existence goes out in a lonely spasm of helpless agony. If you protest, my friend, wait till you arrive there yourself! To believe in the carnivorous reptiles of geologic times is hard for our imagination—they seem too much like mere museum specimens. Yet there is no tooth in any one of those museum-skulls that did not daily through long years of the foretime hold fast to the body struggling in despair of some fated living victim. Forms of horror just as dreadful to the victims, if on a smaller spatial scale, fill the world about us to-day. Here on our very hearths and in our gardens the infernal cat plays with the panting mouse, or holds the hot bird fluttering in her jaws. Crocodiles and rattlesnakes and pythons are at this moment vessels of life as real as we are; their loathsome existence fills every minute of every day that drags its length along; and whenever they or other wild beasts clutch their living prey, the deadly horror which an agitated melancholiac feels is the literally right reaction on the situation."

"What but the wolf's tooth whittled so fine The fleet limbs of the antelope? What but fear winged the birds, and hunger Jewelled with such eyes the great goshawk’s head? Violence has been the sire of all the world's values."

"The ground is cracked because there is no rain in the land; the farmers are dismayed and cover their heads. Even the doe in the field deserts her newborn fawn because there is no grass. Wild donkeys stand on the barren heights and pant like jackals; their eyes fail for lack of food."

"Do you hunt the prey for the lioness and satisfy the hunger of the lions when they crouch in their dens or lie in wait in a thicket? Who provides food for the raven when its young cry out to God and wander about for lack of food?"

"And should have been most happy, – but I saw Too far into the sea, where every maw The greater on the less feeds evermore. –"

"Still do I that most fierce destruction see, — The Shark at savage prey — the hawk at pounce, — The gentle Robin, like a Pard or Ounce, Ravening a worm, —"

"The tiger pounces upon the giraffe and rides it to death, all the while tearing the flesh from the bleeding animal ; the puma pounces upon the mountain goat; the hyena tears the entrails from its living prey and the cat pounces upon the beautiful song bird and takes its innocent life — where is your merciful, loving, personal God?"

"A while ago I watched a wildlife documentary about Komodo dragons poisoning, tracking for a week or so, and then, finally, when their victim became too weak to defend itself, disembowelling and eating alive, a water buffalo. The cameraman said this had been his first ever wildlife assignment, and it would probably also be his last, because he couldn't cope with the depth of suffering he had been forced to witness. That was just one poor creature. Each day, millions of animals are similarly forced to tear each other limb from limb to survive. And this has been going on for hundreds of millions of years. This is, in many ways, a beautiful world. But it's also a staggeringly cruel and horrific world for very many of its inhabitants."

"[I]n nature, animals suffer a lot. They are constantly in search of food; they are little protected from extreme climatic situations; they do not receive any medical assistance if they are injured or sick; they are regularly attacked by other wild animals; And so on. Moreover, almost all animals brought into the world die before they can reproduce. It is indeed necessary to realize that a population remains stable if, on average, each animal gives life to a descendant which can also reproduce. The fact that the animals that do reproduce give birth to tens, hundreds, or even many more descendants means that very few survive. This massacre shows how trying the conditions in which they live are. Certain antispeciesists therefore believe that, faced with this situation, we should try to find ways of relieving wild animals of the evils that overwhelm them."

"I also naturally come to the conclusion that you are the avowed enemy of men, and all other creatures of your creation. Sometimes alluring, at other times menacing; now attacking, now striking, now pursuing, now destroying; you are always engaged in tormenting us. Either by habit or necessity you are the enemy of your own family, and the executioner of your own flesh and blood."

"Go into a garden of plants, grass, flowers. No matter how lovely it seems. Even in the mildest season of the year. You will not be able to look anywhere and not find suffering. That whole family of vegetation is in a state of 'souffrance', each in its own way to some degree. Here a rose is attacked by the sun, which has given it life; it withers, languishes, wilts. There a lily is sucked cruelly by a bee, in its most sensitive, most life-giving parts. Sweet honey is not produced by industrious, patient, good, virtuous bees without unspeakable torment for those most delicate fibers, without the pitiless massacre of flowerets. That tree is infested by an ant colony, that other one by caterpillars, flies, snails, mosquitoes; this one is injured in its bark and afflicted by the air or by the sun penetrating the wound; that other one has a damaged trunk, or roots; that other has many dry leaves; that other one has its flowers gnawed at, nibbled; that other one has its fruits pierced, eaten away. That plant is too warm, this one too cold; too much light, too much shade; too wet, too dry. One cannot grow or spread easily because there are obstacles and obstructions; another finds nowhere to lean, or has trouble and struggles to reach any support. In the whole garden you will not find a single plant in a state of perfect health. Here a branch is broken by the wind or by its own weight; there a gentle breeze is tearing a flower apart, and carries away a piece, a filament, a leaf, a living part of this or that plant, which has broken or been torn off. Meanwhile you torture the grass by stepping on it; you grind it down, crush it, squeeze out its blood, break it, kill it. A sensitive and gentle young maiden goes sweetly cutting and breaking off stems. A gardener expertly chops down trunks, breaking off sensitive limbs, with his nails, with his tools. Certainly these plants live on; some because their infirmities are not fatal, others because even with fatal diseases, plants, and animals as well, can manage to live on a little while. The spectacle of such abundance of life when you first go into this garden lifts your spirits, and that is why you think it is a joyful place. But in truth this life is wretched and unhappy, every garden is like a vast hospital (a place much more deplorable than a cemetery), and if these beings feel, or rather, were to feel, surely not being would be better for them than being."

"[S]uch order cannot exist without evil ... Animals destined for the nourishment of other species. The inborn envy and hatred of living beings toward their fellows."

"[H. G.] Wells' Utopia is not vegan — nor even vegetarian: the primary motive was to provide human beings with a paradise in which to live. However, there is no reason we should not envisage a vegan version of this Wellsian Utopia, a Garden Earth in which the harms that befall all beings have been eradicated, or at least reduced to a minimum. This might involve eliminating those creatures that are inimical to this project, such as carnivores. Would this be morally acceptable?"

"If, in order to discharge our moral duties, we are obliged to act to prevent harm, then we ought to interfere with nature to stop the suffering and death that occur there. Given the power to create a world free of suffering, or at least in which the amount of suffering is vastly reduced (eg by doing away with hyenas), then we ought to utilize that power. Failure to do so is a culpable omission on our part."

"The terrible pain, suffering, and untimely death caused by events like fire, flood, landslide, hurricane, earthquake, tidal wave, and famine and by diseases like cancer, leprosy and tetanus—as well as crippling defects and deformities like blindness, deafness, dumbness, shriveled limbs, and insanity by which so many sentient beings are cheated of the full benefits of life."

"In the immense sphere of living things, the obvious rule is violence, a kind of inevitable frenzy which arms all things in mutua funera. Once you leave the world of insensible substances, you find the decree of violent death written on the very frontiers of life. Even in the vegetable kingdom, this law can be perceived: from the huge catalpa to the smallest of grasses, how many plants die and how many are killed! But once you enter the animal kingdom, the law suddenly becomes frighteningly obvious. A power at once hidden and palpable appears constantly occupied in bringing to light the principle of life by violent means. In each great division of the animal world, it has chosen a certain number of animals charged with devouring the others; so there are insects of prey, reptiles of prey, birds of prey, fish of prey, and quadrupeds of prey. There is not an instant of time when some living creature is not devoured by another ... Thus is worked out, from maggots up to man, the universal law of the violent destruction of living beings. The whole earth, continually steeped in blood, is nothing but an immense altar on which every living thing must be sacrificed without end, without restraint, without respite until the consummation of the world, the extinction of evil, the death of death."

"A strong duty to relieve suffering that does not discriminate between species would require radical changes in the ways that we relate to other animals. It would, for example, require an end to the practice of factory farming, in which billions of animals are annually subjected to extreme suffering in order to supply humans with meat and other products at the lowest possible cost. It would also raise difficult questions about the practice of experimenting on animals to obtain medical benefits for humans. These cases, much discussed in the literature on animal ethics, involve suffering that is inflicted by human beings. But a species-blind duty to relieve suffering would also make it a prima facie requirement to save animals from suffering brought upon them by natural conditions and other animals."

"The lioness sinks her scimitar talons into the zebra's rump. They rip through the tough hide and anchor deep into the muscle. The startled animal lets out a loud bellow as its body hits the ground. An instant later the lioness releases her claws from its buttocks and sinks her teeth into the zebra's throat, choking off the sound of terror. Her canine teeth are long and sharp, but an animal as large as a zebra has a massive neck, with a thick layer of muscle beneath the skin, so although the teeth puncture the hide they are too short to reach any major blood vessels. She must therefore kill the zebra by asphyxiation, clamping her powerful jaws around its trachea (windpipe), cutting off the air to its lungs. It is a slow death. If this had been a small animal, say a Thomson's gazelle (Gazella thomsoni) the size of a large dog, she would have bitten it through the nape of the neck; her canine teeth would then have probably crushed the vertebrae or the base of the skull, causing instant death. As it is, the zebra's death throes will last five or six minutes."

"Viewed from a distance, the natural world often presents a vista of sublime, majestic placidity. Yet beneath the foliage and hidden from the distant eye, a vast, unceasing slaughter rages. Wherever there is animal life, predators are stalking, chasing, capturing, killing, and devouring their prey. Agonized suffering and violent death are ubiquitous and continuous."

"Suppose that we could arrange the gradual extinction of carnivorous species, replacing them with new herbivorous ones. Or suppose that we could intervene genetically, so that currently carnivorous species would gradually evolve into herbivorous ones, thereby fulfilling Isaiah's prophecy. If we could bring about the end of predation by one or the other of these means at little cost to ourselves, ought we to do it?"

"[I]f suffering is bad for animals when we cause it, it is also bad for them when other animals cause it. That suffering is bad for those who experience it is not a human prejudice; nor is an effort to prevent wild animals from suffering a moralistic attempt to police the behavior of other animals. Even if we are not morally required to prevent suffering among animals in the wild for which we are not responsible, we do have a moral reason to prevent it, just as we have a general moral reason to prevent suffering among human beings that is independent both of the cause of the suffering and of our relation to the victims. The main constraint on the permissibility of acting on our reason to prevent suffering is that our action should not cause bad effects that would be worse than those we could prevent."

"It would be good to prevent the vast suffering and countless violent deaths caused by predation. There is therefore one reason to think that it would be instrumentally good if predatory animal species were to become extinct and be replaced by new herbivorous species, provided that this could occur without ecological upheaval involving more harm than would be prevented by the end of predation. The claim that existing animal species are sacred or irreplaceable is subverted by the moral irrelevance of the criteria for individuating animal species. I am therefore inclined to embrace the heretical conclusion that we have reason to desire the extinction of all carnivorous species."

"It seems, moreover, that my argument has some relevance to choices we must make even now. There are some species of large predatory animals, such as the Siberian tiger, that are currently on the verge of extinction. If we do nothing to preserve it, the Siberian tiger as a species may soon become extinct. The number of extant Siberian tigers has been low for a considerable period. Any ecological disruption occasioned by their dwindling numbers has largely already occurred or is already occurring. If their number in the wild declines from several hundred to zero, the impact of their disappearance on the ecology of the region will be almost negligible. Suppose, however, that we could repopulate their former wide-ranging habitat with as many Siberian tigers as there were during the period in which they flourished in their greatest numbers, and that that population could be sustained indefinitely. That would mean that herbivorous animals in the extensive repopulated area would again, and for the indefinite future, live in fear and that an incalculable number would die in terror and agony while being devoured by a tiger. In a case such as this, we may actually face the kind of dilemma I called attention to in my article, in which there is a conflict between the value of preserving existing species and the value of preventing suffering and early death for an enormously large number of animals."

"The suffering that animals undergo while being caught and eaten may be intense and the process by which they are killed may last for a quarter of an hour or more. Because the number of predators worldwide is enormous, and because, like us, many of them must eat with considerable frequency, the aggregate amount of suffering in the world at any time that is caused by predation is unimaginably vast."

"[I]f animal suffering matters and that is the basis of our reason not to cause animal suffering, then it seems that animal suffering that is caused not by us but by other conditions is also bad and there must, therefore, also be a reason why it should be prevented if at all possible. It just seems to me a quite clear inference."

"[T]here are problems with using any of these definitions of biodiversity as a proxy for animal welfare. Biodiversity is essentially a measure of variety, even if different definitions of biodiversity involve different types of variety. Variety is not the same thing as flourishing. Among humans, this is very clearly true: I can work in a very diverse department (in terms of nationality, gender, philosophical style, etc.) where everyone is miserable. We see the same thing among nonhumans. A region with high biodiversity is full of lots of different kinds of individuals. They might be suffering; their lives might be barely worth living. But if they are alive, they count positively toward biodiversity. The only time welfare will affect biodiversity at all is when it affects either reproduction or mortality to such an extent that the relevant kind of variability in the population is diminished—for example, when a species goes extinct. However, significant effects on welfare happen to species members long before their species goes extinct. To care about biodiversity, then, is to care about the existence or presence of the kinds, not about the welfare of the individuals belonging to those kinds."

"Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure. Consider also the devilish brilliance and beauty of many of its most remorseless tribes, as the dainty embellished shape of many species of sharks. Consider, once more, the universal cannibalism of the sea; all whose creatures prey upon each other, carrying on eternal war since the world began."

"[E]ven if all 7.3 billion human beings on this planet were turned into vegan Buddhas, the problem of wild animal suffering would remain—we would still be surrounded by an ocean of self-conscious creatures that probably even a superintelligence could not liberate."

"In sober truth, nearly all the things which men are hanged or imprisoned for doing to one another, are nature's every day performances. ... The phrases which ascribe perfection to the course of nature can only be considered as the exaggerations of poetic or devotional feeling, not intended to stand the test of a sober examination. No one, either religious or irreligious, believes that the hurtful agencies of nature, considered as a whole, promote good purposes, in any other way than by inciting human rational creatures to rise up and struggle against them."

"If there are any marks at all of special design in creation, one of the things most evidently designed is that a large proportion of all animals should pass their existence in tormenting and devouring other animals. They have been lavishly fitted out with the instruments necessary for that purpose; their strongest instincts impel them to it, and many of them seem to have been constructed incapable of supporting themselves by any other food. If a tenth part of the pains which have been expended in finding benevolent adaptations in all nature, had been employed in collecting evidence: to blacken the character of the Creator, what scope for comment would not have been found in the entire existence of the lower animals, divided, with scarcely an exception, into devourers and devoured, and a prey to a thousand ills from which they are denied the faculties necessary for protecting themselves! If were not obliged to believe the animal creation to be the work of a demon, it is because we need not suppose it to have been made by a Being of infinite power. But if imitation of the Creator's will as revealed in nature, were applied as a rule of action in this case, the most atrocious enormities of the worst men would be more than justified by the apparent intention of Providence that throughout all animated nature the strong should prey upon the weak."

"Death introduc'd through fierce antipathie: Beast now with Beast gan war, & Fowle with Fowle, And Fish with Fish; to graze the Herb all leaving, Devourd each other"

"The suggestion that we should take wild animal suffering seriously as an ethical issue runs contrary to many of our most powerful biases. It concerns animals for which we, instinctively, feel very little sympathy, and whose suffering we humans did not cause and thus do not feel obliged to help alleviate. The suffering is also far removed from our daily lives and it exists on a scale of magnitude so large that it is hard for us to grasp it. Finally, wild animal suffering challenges a romantic view of nature, which is deeply held by many, and since all large-scale solutions lie far in the future, it is easy for us simply to disregard it."

"One way to increase the chances that the suffering of wild animals will be taken into account in research and development is to challenge the biases and assumptions that make it so difficult for us to address it. Most important, perhaps, is the pre-Darwinian fiction that life in nature is harmonious, and that without human intervention, all is fine and good. The truth is quite the opposite. If we imagined that from now on, animals started emitting a red light every time they suffered, then from space, Earth would no longer be a blue planet, but a red and glowing one."

"All over the non-human world, with few exceptions, each being seeks the satisfaction of his own desires, if not with positive disregard for the happiness and misery of the rest of the universe, at least with sincere unconcern. There is no courtesy, sympathy, or amenity there—a cold, heartless, implacable world of strangers."

"The chief activities of beings, both human and non-human, are put forth, directly or indirectly, for the purpose of procuring food. The suppression, entire or partial, of one being by another for nutritive purposes is, therefore, the form of the most frequent and excessive egoism. The lowly forms of life—the worms, echinoderms, mollusks, and the like—are, for the most part, vegetarians. So, also, are prevalently the insects, birds, rodents, and ungulates. These creatures are not, as a rule, aggressively harmful to each other, chiefly indifferent. But upon these inoffensive races feed with remorseless maw the reptilia, the insectivora, and the carnivora. These being-eaters cause to the earth-world its bloodiest experiences. It is their nature (established organically by long selection, or, as in the case of man, acquired tentatively) to subsist, not on the kingdom of the plant, the natural and primal storehouse of animal energy, but on the skeletons and sensibilities of their neighbors and friends. The serpent dines on the sparrow and the sparrow ingulfs the gnat; the tiger slays the jungle-fowl and the coyote plunders the lamb; the seal subsists on fish and the ursus maritimus subsists on seal; the ant enslaves the aphidae and man eats and enslaves what can not get away from him. Life riots on life—tooth and talon, beak and paw. It is a sickening contemplation, but life everywhere, in its aspect of activity, is largely made up of the struggle by one being against another for existence—of the effort by one being to circumvent, subjugate, or destroy another, and of the counter effort to reciprocate or escape."

"Hardships have come. They have come from the inanimate universe in the form of floods, fires, frosts, accidents, diseases, droughts, storms, and the like; from other species, who were competitors or enemies; and from unbrotherly members of the same species. Some have survived, but the great majority have perished. Only a fraction, and generally an appallingly small fraction, of each generation of a species have lived to maturity."

"The preponderance of egoism in the natures of living beings is the most mournful and immense fact in the phenomena of conscious life. It has made the world the kind of world it would have been had the gods actually emptied their wrath vials upon it. Brotherhood is anomalous, and, even in its highest manifestations, is but the expression of a veiled and calculating egoism. Inhumanity is everywhere. The whole planet is steeped in it. Every creature faces an inhospitable universeful, and every life is a campaign. It has all come about as a result of the mindless and inhuman manner in which life has been developed on the earth. It has been said that an individual of unlimited faculties and infinite goodness and power made this world and endowed it with ways of acting, and that this individual, as the world's executive, continues to determine its phenomena by inspiring the order of its events. But one cannot help thinking sometimes, when, in his more daring and vivid moments, he comes to comprehend the real character and condition of the world, what a discrepancy exists between the reputation of this builder and his works, and cannot help wondering whether an ordinary human being with only common-sense and insight and an average concern for the welfare of the world would not make a great improvement in terrestrial affairs if he only had the opportunity for a while."

"There is, in fact, but one great crime in the universe, and most of the instances of terrestrial wrong-doing are instances of this crime. It is the crime of exploitation—the considering by some beings of themselves as ends, and of others as their means—the refusal to recognize the equal, or the approximately equal, rights of all to life and its legitimate rewards—the crime of acting toward others as one would that others would not act toward him. For millions of years, almost ever since life began, this crime has been committed, in every nook and quarter of the inhabited globe."

"Yes, do as you would be done by—and not to the dark man and the white woman alone, but to the sorrel horse and the gray squirrel as well; not to creatures of your own anatomy only, but to all creatures. You cannot go high enough nor low enough nor far enough to find those whose bowed and broken beings will not rise up at the coming of the kindly heart, or whose souls will not shrink and darken at the touch of inhumanity. Live and let live. Do more. Live and help live. Do to beings below you as you would be done by beings above you. Pity the tortoise, the katydid, the wild-bird, and the ox. Poor, undeveloped, untaught creatures! Into their dim and lowly lives strays of sunshine little enough, though the fell hand of man be never against them. They are our fellow-mortals. They came out of the same mysterious womb of the past, are passing through the same dream, and are destined to the same melancholy end, as we ourselves. Let us be kind and merciful to them."

"A failure to help that polar bear – or any individual animal in a comparable condition, regardless of our responsibility (direct or indirect) for that suffering – is callous and morally wrong. Nor can lack of action be defended by some alleged concern for the course of nature ('We must not interfere!') or the gene pool of the species ('Let the weak die!'). Consider someone who would use those same arguments to justify not intervening to help relieve the suffering of particular human beings during a famine or after a tsunami, or someone who would use such arguments to say that we should not give antibiotics to a child with pneumonia. Such an attitude, reminiscent of various Charles Dickens characters, would be rejected out of hand as immoral. If the only morally relevant factor is 'can they suffer?', there is no relevant moral difference when animals suffer pain that we can alleviate."

"At least one distinguished ecologist, Ivar Mysterud, and a friend of the reindeer, thinks that even if there were an ecologically very innocent way of heavily reducing the population of a certain parasite that causes extreme pain to the reindeer, or of altering its habits, it should nevertheless not be carried out. The reason: it might disturb a relevant ecosystem. We know too little (the docta ignorantia of a field ecologist!). I agree that there is a presumption against it, but I disagree with his conclusion. The very prolonged, cruel sufferings of the reindeer count more. I am for radically reducing the population of the parasite even if it may be wrong according to L. If an ecosystem is dominated by pain-producing parasites, perhaps we might say its "beauty" diminishes? I am somewhat uncertain about how to interpret the term, and also about the possibility that human beings could preserve or enhance beauty by interfering."

"Every day some animals become weak and ill and enter a process of dying that involves prolonged pain as far as we can judge from their behavior. When wild reindeer smell large carnivores like bears, wolves, or dogs, they run away quickly. Old and tired reindeer find it more and more exhausting to keep up with the others. The same holds of some of the young ones. If they are caught quickly by carnivores, they tend to get a rapid, merciful death and not a slow, "cruel" one. Some reindeer experience the latter. Having been badly attacked by a winged insect (Cephenomyia trompe), they may die very slowly from suffocation from the growing larvae in their noses."

"I hope no such planet exists, but consider one where slow, painful death from parasitism is universal. How would we talk about nature on such a planet? What kind of book would Thoreau have written there?"

"The parasitology of mammals tells us about parasites that kill or maim in ways that elicit intense alarm, disgust, and great negative feelings in us. Evolution specialists tell us that such parasites are not among the most successful and highly developed ones, which thrive without inflicting intense suffering or death on their hosts."

"This admission of the imperfection of some parasites does not console their victims, however. The situation is relevant in assessing the adequacy of unconditional positive, sometimes highly emotional utterances about nature. What do human beings do when witnessing animals in what they think is unnecessary and prolonged pain? Those who intensely identify with the victims try to rescue them, provided it is not too late and a practical way is seen. The rescue may involve merciful killing by human hands. Generalized, and made into a policy, rescue attempts would amount to an attempt to reform nature. Not everybody studying the consequences of such a policy will accept it as desirable. Because it is totally out of our reach completely to eliminate prolonged extreme suffering, it is of no practical value to discuss its ethical status, but its existence makes general glorification of nature strange to many of us."

"In Ecosophy T there is an ultimate norm "Self-realization!" and an ultimate hypothesis "The higher level of self-realization reached by a living being, the more further increase requires others to reach self-realization." In simple words, it is not a question of acceptance of any kind of life but of "live and let live!" Thanks to the capacities of the human brain, full realization of our potentialities—if there is any limit—cannot be anything like an ego trip but must be a joint venture with other beings, both human and nonhuman. The higher the level of realization, the more the realization is a joint venture, a Self-realization without loss of the individuality of each living being. We have sometimes the potentiality of relieving extreme suffering, human and nonhuman—and we make use of that privilege."

"A likely objection to my proposed long-term attempt to alleviate animal suffering is that it is very risky; the ecological system is too dangerous to tamper with. At our current levels of scientific and technological capabilities, I fully agree with this objection and do not advocate actions in the near future. However, this should not prevent us from aspiring to understanding more and hope to be able to help alleviate animal suffering in the future. Some people may believe that we should never think about tampering with the ecosystem, This may well suit the purpose of our lucky species which appears to enjoy positive welfare. But what if I am right that most other sentient species are suffering enormously? If and when we can confidently reduce their suffering enormously at a small cost and very small risk to ourselves, should we cautiously proceed to help them or should we postpone indefinitely? Analogously, if people in poor countries are suffering enormously from their poverty, and if people in the rich countries can help them develop out of their poverty at a very small risk of aggravating the global environment, should the help be extended? What if you were one of the suffering poor? What if we were one of the suffering species? Let us at least agree that more resources be put into the study of welfare biology."

"The death of a gazelle after painful torture is just as bad for the gazelle when torture is inflicted by a tiger as when it is done by a human being. That does not mean that death by tiger is as blameworthy; obviously it is not. But it does suggest that we have similar reasons to prevent it, if we can do so without doing greater harms. The capabilities approach is entitlement-based and outcome-oriented. One way of preventing gruesome deaths of animals at the hands of other animals is to put all vulnerable animals (or, alternatively, all predators) in protective detention, so to speak."

"It seems plausible that we have less responsibility to protect gazelles than we do to protect domestic dogs and cats, since we are the guardians of the latter and they have evolved in symbiosis with us. But where we can protect gazelles without the type of massive intervention that would be harm-producing, perhaps we should do so. The problem is that the needs of the predatory animal must also be considered, and we do not have the option of giving the tiger in the wild a nice ball on a string to play with."

"Whatever we say about [wild animal suffering], it shows us once again that the positive/negative distinction cannot be maintained in anything like its classical form. Humans are intervening in animals' lives all the time, and the question can only be what form this intervention should take. An intelligently respectful paternalism is vastly superior to neglect."

"Taking a past “equilibrium” as reference and ideal for all action is literally reactionary, which wouldn't be a problem if this past state of affairs was a paradise; however, nature has never been a paradise, it hasn't been hell either, but it has been largely the realm of claws and teeth."

"I oppose the ecologists because for them, the fox that eats the hare is good, as long as it "preserves the natural balance", while I see the suffering of the hare. You have to have a fairly closed mind to what it represents in reality to find it "good". Environmentalists see in nature only species; without human intervention, these species vary little, at least not visibly; the resulting impression of stability gives a vague feeling of rest and security; and they speak then of the harmony of nature."

"Torture is permanent in Latin America; is it harmonious? Environmentalists find it good that the fox kills the hare, because that preserves an order. Torture also preserves order."

"It is easy to have an ethics that, instead of questioning things that are difficult to change, decides to call them "good". My ethics, I want to consider it built on real things; happiness and suffering are for me real things, like water or stones, even if current physics does not know them. I cannot then, by convention, baptize anything "good". And also, this implies living in uncertainty, in ethical insecurity. Is it good to kill a snake, to save a large number of frogs? While these eat so many insects? They eat each other or harm plants. I don't know if they suffer, the plants, if they hurt when they choke on each other, poison themselves, get sick shade each other. In many cases, I do not know what is right. Or, what is right is too hard to assume: with each step I risk crushing ants. Maybe I should delete myself, to save ants? I will not do it."

"Faced with the massive destruction of the environment by humans, environmentalists cling to the myth of Mother Nature to be preserved. I am revolted by the extermination of the foxes; this may seem contradictory to my revolt against what hare foxes do. I have a problem there that I cannot solve. And I have others, even more difficult. Why should I, in order to call a problem a problem, be able to suggest a solution, if possible within an hour? No one knows how to beat AIDS, but that does not prevent us from being aware that AIDS is a problem. And above all to seek solutions."

"This discussion may seem purely abstract; neither the lions' vegan diet nor the fight against their predation is still on the agenda. It is undoubtedly preferable, strategically, to concentrate our efforts on the predation committed by the humans, i.e. on their consumption of meat. However, the way we see predation and the solutions we allow ourselves to imagine are not without consequences. There is a strong symbolic value, it seems to me, to affirm that it would be right to prevent predation, even at the cost of the life of the predator. It can also help us to feel more comfortable with the limited interventions that we can now practice in the wild, for example to protect a mouse from an owl. We may feel uncomfortable asking ourselves in Kant's way if we can want the maxim of our act to be a universal law, which would imply that the owl is starving. Accepting that indeed we may want to universalize this maxim can allow us to act more serenely."

"[F]rom an antispeciesist view, which takes the interests of all sentient animals into account, whether they are human or not, what matters most is how their well-being is affected by our actions and omissions. It follows from this view that we have decisive reasons against performing negative interventions in nature (those with an expected net negative value for nonhuman animals). Similarly, it implies that, whenever it is in our power to do so, and if the intervention is expected to bring about more benefits than harms, we have decisive reasons to intervene in nature with the aim of helping the animals that live there."

"These properties of animals, wherever they are found, must, I think, be referred to design; because there is, in all cases of the first, and in most cases of the second, an express and distinct organization provided for the producing of them ... the fangs of vipers, the stings of wasps and scorpions, are as clearly intended for their purpose, as any animal structure is for any purpose the most incontestably beneficial. And the same thing must ... be acknowledged of the talons and beaks of birds, of the tusks, teeth, and claws of beasts of prey, of the shark's mouth, of the spider's web, and of numberless weapons of offence belonging to different tribes of voracious insects. We cannot, therefore, avoid the difficulty by saying, that the effect was not intended. The only question open to us is, whether it be ultimately evil. From the confessed and felt imperfection of our knowledge, we ought to presume, that there may be consequences of this economy which are hidden from us: from the benevolence which pervades the general designs of nature, we ought also to presume, that these consequences, if they could enter into our calculation, would turn the balance on the favorable side."

"These are the natures appropriated to the situation. Let [the wild beasts] enjoy their existence; let them have their country. Surface enough will be left to man, though his numbers were increased a hundred fold, and left to him, where he might live exempt from these annoyances."

"Now, according to the established order of Nature, (which we must suppose to prevail, or we cannot reason at all upon the subject,) the three methods by which life is usually put an end to, are, acute diseases, decay, and violence. The simple and natural life of brutes is not often visited by acute distempers; nor could it be deemed an improvement of their lot, if it were. Lot it be considered, therefore, in what a condition of suffering and misery a brute animal is placed, which is left to perish by decay. In human sickness or infirmity, there is the assistance of man's rational fellow-creatures; if not to alleviate his pains, at least to minister to his necessities; and to supply thee of his own activity. A brute, in his wild and natural state, does every thing for himself. When his strength, therefore, or his speed, or his limbs, or his senses fail him, he is delivered over, either to absolute famine, or to the protracted wretchedness of a life slowly wasted, by the scarcity of food. Is it, then, to see the world filled with drooping, superannuated, half-starved, helpless, and unhelped animals, that you would alter the present system of pursuit and prey?"

"But then this superfecundity, though of great occasional use and importance, exceeds the ordinary capacity of nature to receive or support its progeny. All superabundance supposes destruction, or must destroy itself. Perhaps there is no species of terrestrial animals whatever, which would not overrun the earth, if it were permitted to multiply in perfect safety; or offish, which would not fill the ocean: at least, if any single species were left to their natural increase without disturbance or restraint, the food of other species would be exhausted by their maintenance. It is necessary, therefore, that the effects of such prolific faculties be curtailed. In conjunction with other checks and limits, all subservient to the same purpose, are the thinnings which take place among animals, by their action upon one another."

"[T]he system of destruction amongst animals holds an express relation to the system of fecundity; that they are parts indeed of one compensatory scheme; is, that in each species the fecundity bears a proportion to the smallness of the animal, to the weakness, to the shortness of its natural term of life, and to the danger and enemies by which it is surrounded. An elephant produces but one calf: a butterfly lays six hundred eggs. Birds of prey seldom produce more than two eggs: the sparrow tribe, and the duck tribe, frequently sit upon a dozen. In the rivers, we meet with a thousand minnows for one pike; in the sea, a million of herrings for a single shark. Compensation obtains throughout. Defencelessness and devastation are repaired by fecundity."

"[T]he subject ... of animals devouring one another, forms the chief, if not the only instance, in the works of the Deity, of an economy, stamped by marks of design, in which the character of utility can be called in question."

"It is easy to romanticise, say, tigers or lions and cats. We admire their magnificent beauty, strength and agility. But we would regard their notional human counterparts as wanton psychopaths of the worst kind."

"Much more seriously, in those traditional eco-systems that we chose to retain, millions of non-human animals will continue periodically to starve, die horribly of thirst and disease, or even get eaten alive. This is commonly viewed as "natural" and hence basically OK."

"If we already lived in a cruelty-free world, the notion of re-introducing suffering, exploitation and creatures eating each other would seem not so much frightful as unimaginable – no more seriously conceivable than reverting to surgery without anaesthesia today."

"Humans already massively intervene in Nature, whether through habitat destruction, captive breeding programs for big cats, "rewilding", etc. So the question is not whether humans should "interfere", but rather what ethical principles should govern our interventions."

"The irrationality of the "appeal to Nature" is illustrated by a simple thought-experiment. Imagine, fancifully, if starvation, disease, parasitism, disembowelling, asphyxiation and being eaten alive were not endemic to the living world — or such miseries have already been abolished and replaced by an earthly paradise. Would anyone propose there is ethical case for (re)introducing them? Even proposing such a thought-experiment can sound faintly ridiculous."

"More controversially, technology can accelerate the transition from harming to helping free-living sentient beings: mankind's fitfully expanding "circle of compassion". The civilising process needn't be species-specific but instead extend to free-living dwellers in tomorrow's wildlife parks. Every cubic metre of the biosphere will soon be computationally accessible to surveillance, micro-management and control. Fertility regulation via immunocontraception can replace Darwinian ecosystems governed by starvation and predation. Any species of obligate carnivore we choose to preserve can be genetically and behaviourally tweaked into harmlessness. Asphyxiation, disembowelling, and agonies of being eaten alive can pass into the dustbin of history."

"Sound good? Nice parrots. However, they are merely postponing the point at which the red teeth and claws come into the picture. These parrot parents produce more than two offspring. What do you think happens to most of them? They go off and found happy egalitarian parrot families of their own? Maybe for a little while. But a species can't expand indefinitely. Most of these new parrots will get eaten or starve to death. The lucky few will go on to put dozens of new parrots into the world, for natural selection to claw apart and eat alive. r is evil, but K is not so great either."

"The moralistic fallacy is that what is good is found in nature. It lies behind the bad science in nature-documentary voiceovers: lions are mercy-killers of the weak and sick, mice feel no pain when cats eat them, dung beetles recycle dung to benefit the ecosystem and so on."

"On top of all the miseries inflicted by predators and parasites, the members of a species show no pity to their own kind. Infanticide, siblicide, and rape can be observed in many kinds of animals; infidelity is common even in so-called pair-bonded species; cannibalism can be expected in all species that are not strict vegetarians; death from fighting is more common in most animal species than it is in the most violent American cities ... Perhaps biology would have been able to mature more rapidly in a culture not dominated by Judeo-Christian theology and the Romantic tradition. It might have been well served by the First Holy Truth from [Buddha's] Sermon at Benares: "Birth is painful, old age is painful, sickness is painful, death is painful..." As soon as we recognize that there is nothing morally commendable about the products of evolution, we can describe human psychology honestly, without the fear that identifying a "natural" trait is the same as condoning it. As Katharine Hepburn says to Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen, "Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put in this world to rise above.""

"It's no mystery why organisms sometimes harm one another. Evolution has no conscience, and if one creature hurts another to benefit itself, such as by eating, parasitizing, intimidating, or cuckolding it, its descendants will come to predominate, complete with those nasty habits. All this is familiar from the vernacular sense of "Darwinian" as a synonym for "ruthless" and from Tennyson's depiction of nature as red in tooth and claw."

"I was walking along the bank of a stream when I saw a mother otter with her cubs, a very endearing sight, I'm sure you'll agree. And even as I watched, the mother otter dived into the water and came up with a plump salmon, which she subdued and dragged onto a half submerged log. As she ate it, while of course it was still alive, the body split and I remember to this day the sweet pinkness of its roes as they spilled out, much to the delight of the baby otters, who scrambled over themselves to feed on the delicacy. One of nature's wonders, gentlemen. Mother and children dining upon mother and children. And that is when I first learned about evil. It is built into the very nature of the universe. Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior."

"Nature, it is urged, is cruel, and careless of the happiness of her millions of subjects. The woods where the poet found refreshment are a battlefield and a slaughter-house for other creatures. [That] pain and fear and bloodshed are a part of the law of life."

"The suffering and death I saw seemed to me in some meaningful respect lamentable—that is, unfortunate, regrettable, worthy of sadness, the kind of thing it would be better if the world did not involve. What can be said for such a response, and what against it? Can my lamentation be rationally defended as appropriate, or must it be viewed as nothing more than mawkish sentimentalism? How should we view the fact that some animals need to kill other animals in order to live? Can a world in which animals did not kill each other, and indeed did not need to do so in order to live, plausibly be called a better one?"

"The great outer oceans teem with fish, reptiles, turtles, shellfish, worms and other creatures, as numerous as the grains of malt in the bottom of a beer-barrel. There are serpents and monsters so big that their bodies can wind many times around Mount Meru. Other creatures are as small as particles of dust or the tip of a needle. They all undergo immense sufferings. The bigger ones swallow up the smaller ones. The small ones burrow into the big ones and eat them alive in their turn. The big animals all have many tiny ones living inside them, feeding on their flesh. Some of these creatures are born between the continents, where the sun does not shine and where they cannot even see whether their limbs are bent in or stretched out. Stupid and ignorant, they have no comprehension of what to do and what not to do. They are reborn in places where suffering knows no bounds."

"The wild animals that share our human world, in particular, live in constant fear. They cannot eat a single mouthful of food without being on their guard. They have many mortal enemies, for all animals prey on each other and there are always hunters, beasts of prey and other threats to life. Hawks kill small birds, small birds kill insects, and so on, continually amassing evil actions in an endless round of killing and being killed."

"In our guardianship of the rights of animals, must we not protect the weak among them against the strong? Must we not put to death blackbirds and thrushes because they feed on worms, or (if capital punishment offends our humanitarianism) starve them slowly by permanent captivity and vegetarian diet? What becomes of the 'return to nature' if we must prevent the cat's nocturnal wanderings, lest she should wickedly slay a mouse? Are we not to vindicate the rights of the persecuted prey of the stronger? Or is our declaration of the rights of every creeping thing to remain a mere hypocritical formula to gratify pug-loving sentimentalists."

"When we try to use psychologically based ethics to protect the flora or even the insentient fauna, to protect endangered species or ecosystems, we can only stammer. Wild nature is prolific, but not very compassionate, and what does it mean to respect life at the same time that we value natural processes? A bison fell through the ice into a river in Yellowstone Park; the environmental ethics there, letting nature take its course, forbade would-be rescuers from either saving or mercy killing the suffering animal. When the bighorn sheep of Yellowstone caught pinkeye, were blinded, injured, and starving as a result, 300 bighorns perished, over half the herd. Wildlife veterinarians wanted to treat the disease, but the Yellowstone ethicists left them to suffer, seemingly not respecting their life. Had they no mercy? No respect for life?"

"A drowning human would have been saved at once, a child with pinkeye given medical treatment. A simple ethics by extension seems too nondiscriminating; we cannot separate an ethics for humans from an ethics for wildlife."

"The Yellowstone ethicists let the bison drown, callous to its suffering; they let the blinded bighorns die. But in the spring of 1984 a sow grizzly and her three cubs walked across the ice of Yellowstone Lake to Frank Island, two miles from shore. They stayed several days to feast on two elk carcasses, when the ice bridge melted. Soon afterward, they were starving on an island too small to support them. This time the Yellowstone ethicists promptly rescued the grizzlies and released them on the mainland, in order to protect an endangered species. They were not rescuing individual bears so much as saving the species."

"Letting nature take its ecosystemic course is why the Yellowstone ethic forbade rescuing the drowning bison, but rescued the sow grizzly with her cubs, the latter to insure that the big predators remain. After the bison drowned, coyotes and magpies, foxes and ravens fed on the carcass. Later, even a grizzly bear fed on it. All this is a good thing because the system cycles on, and the great bear, like the wolves, is a sparkling gem in the network. On that account rescuing the whales trapped in the winter ice seems less of a good thing, when we note that rescuers had to drive away polar bears that attempted to eat the dying whales."

"The national park ethic has concluded that a simple extension of compassion from human, and Christian, ethics to wildlife does not appreciate their wildness. Perhaps we are beginning to see the trouble with rescuing those whales. Or maybe we are carrying this let-nature take-its-course ethic to extremes. We are beginning to worship nature. Has ethics here somehow gone wild in the bad sense, blinded by a philosophy of false respect for cruel nature? Can this indifference be the right ethics for wild animals? Can it be godly to say, "Let them suffer!"?"

"The rescue of individual animals—a couple of whales, a bison, a few deer—is humane enough and does not seem to have any detrimental effects, but that may not be the end of moral considerations, which ought to act on principles that can be universalized. Perhaps it brings these duties into clearer focus to consider populations, herds with hundreds of animals."

"What we ought to do depends on what is. The is of nature differs significantly from the is of culture, even when similar suffering is present. A human being in a frozen river would be rescued at once; a human attacked by a wolverine would be flown by helicopter to the hospital. Bison and deer are not humans and we cannot give them identical treatment; still, if suffering is a bad thing for humans, who seek to eliminate it, why is suffering not also a bad thing for bison? We cannot give medical treatment to all wild animals; we should not interrupt a predator killing its prey. But when we happen upon an opportunity to rescue an animal with the pull of a rope, or mercy-kill it lest it suffer, why not? If we can treat a herd of blinded sheep, why not? If we can feed the deer, starving in the winter, why not? That seems to be what human nature urges, and why not let human nature take its course? That seems to be what Jesus urges, doing to others as you would have them do to you, and why not follow the golden rule?"

"[W]hether we look to animal pleasures or to animal pains, the result is alike just what we should expect to find on the supposition of these pleasures and pains having been due to necessary and physical, as distinguished from intelligent and moral, antecedents; for how different is that which is from that which might have been! Not only might beneficent selection have eliminated the countless species of parasites which now destroy the health and happiness of all the higher organisms; not only might survival of the fittest, in a moral sense, have determined that rapacious and carnivorous animals should yield their places in the world to harmless and gentle ones; not only might life have been without sickness and death without pain;—but how might the exigences and the welfare of species have been consulted by the structures and the habits of one another! But no! Amid all the millions of mechanisms and habits in organic nature, all of which are so beautifully adapted to the needs of the species presenting them, there is no single instance of any mechanism or habit occurring in one species for the exclusive benefit of another species—although, as we should expect on the non-theistic theory, there are some comparatively few cases of a mechanism or a habit which is of benefit to its possessor being also utilised by other species. Yet, on the beneficent-design theory, it is impossible to understand why, when all mechanisms and habits in the same species are invariably correlated for the benefit of that species, there should never be any such correlation between mechanisms and habits of different species. For how magnificent, how sublime a display of supreme beneficence would nature have afforded if all her sentient animals had been so inter-related as to minister to each other's happiness! Organic species might then have been likened to a countless multitude of voices, all singing to their Creator in one harmonious psalm of praise. But, as it is, we see no vestige of such correlation; every species is for itself, and for itself alone—an outcome of the always and everywhere fiercely raging struggle for life."

"[S]upposing the Deity to be ... omnipotent—and there can be no inference more transparent than that such wholesale suffering, for whatever ends designed, exhibits an incalculably greater deficiency of beneficence in the divine character than that which we know in any, the very worst, of human characters. For let us pause for one moment to think of what suffering in nature means. Some hundreds of millions of years ago some millions of millions of animals must be supposed to have been sentient. Since that time till the present, there must have been millions and millions of generations of millions of millions of individuals. And throughout all this period of incalculable duration, this inconceivable host of sentient organisms have been in a state of unceasing battle, dread, ravin, pain. Looking to the outcome, we find that more than half of the species which have survived the ceaseless struggle are parasitic in their habits, lower and insentient forms of life feasting on higher and sentient forms; we find teeth and talons whetted for slaughter, hooks and suckers moulded for torment—everywhere a reign of terror, hunger, and sickness, with oozing blood and quivering limbs, with gasping breath and eyes of innocence that dimly close in deaths of brutal torture! Is it said that there are compensating enjoyments? I care not to strike the balance; the enjoyments I plainly perceive to be as physically necessary as the pains, and this whether or not evolution is due to design."

"Suppose in some distant forest lightning strikes a dead tree, resulting in a forest fire. In the fire a fawn is trapped, horribly burned, and lies in terrible agony for several days before death relieves its suffering. So far as we can see, the fawn's intense suffering is pointless. For there does not appear to be any greater good such that the prevention of the fawn's suffering would require either the loss of that good or the occurrence of an evil equally bad or worse. Nor does there seem to be any equally bad or worse evil so connected to the fawn's suffering that it would have had to occur had the fawn's suffering been prevented. Could an omnipotent, omniscient being have prevented the fawn's apparently pointless suffering?"

"The ways in which creatures in nature die are typically violent: predation, starvation, disease, parasitism, cold. The dying animal in the wild does not understand the vast ocean of misery into which it and billions of other animals are born only to drown. If the wild animal understood the conditions into which it is born, what would it think? It might reasonably prefer to be raised on a farm, where the chances of survival for a year or more would be good, and to escape from the wild, where they are negligible. Either way, the animal will be eaten: few die of old age. The path from birth to slaughter, however, is often longer and less painful in the barnyard than in the woods. Comparisons, sad as they are, must be made to recognize where a great opportunity lies to prevent or mitigate suffering. The misery of animals in nature—which humans can do much to relieve—makes every other form of suffering pale in comparison. Mother Nature is so cruel to her children she makes Frank Perdue look like a saint."

"The principle of natural selection is not obviously a humanitarian principle; the predator-prey relation does not depend on moral empathy. Nature ruthlessly limits animal populations by doing violence to virtually every individual before it reaches maturity; these conditions respect animal equality only in the darkest sense."

"When our interests or the interests of those we care for will be hurt, we do not recognize a moral obligation to "let nature take its course," but when we do not want to be bothered with an obligation, "that's just the way the world works" provides a handy excuse."

"Where we can prevent predation without occasioning as much or more suffering than we would prevent, we are obligated to do so by the principle that we are obligated to alleviate avoidable animal suffering. Where we cannot prevent or cannot do so without occasioning as much or more suffering than we would prevent, that principle does not obligate us to attempt to prevent predation."

"On the the other hand, refusing to accept and affirm, avoidable suffering, unfair distributions of goods, uninhibited aggression, and and so forth, are refusals which have long been and continue to be part of everyday morality. As such, they are a well-established part of life as it is. Animal liberation extends such concerns, which have traditionally been focused on the human world and on human life, to include equal consideration consideration for animals. In this way, animal liberation is simply carrying on the business of everyday moral practice. Therefore, it does not loathe or deny life as it is. Rather, unlike Callicott's proposed retreat to the wilderness, animal liberation is participating in life and, hopefully, in its continuing moral evolution."

"Baldner contends that is "arrogant" and "paternalistic" morally to condemn something as definitive of the natural order as predation. However, it is in the nature of morality to devise ideals of a better world and to work toward realizing them. This entails judging this world to be less than ideal and working to change it. One could restrict moral evaluations to the products of human activity, but that would be arbitrary: what makes suffering (prima facie) morally bad is not that it is the result of human activity but that it is suffering. Our commitment to making the world a morally better place impels us to make moral evaluations of the natural order. There need be nothing either arrogant or paternalistic in making and acting on such evaluations, provided we recognize the very limited nature of our understanding and our power to make improvements."

"It is of the utmost importance to emphasize the fact that, whatever the legal fiction may have been, or may still be, the rights of animals are not morally dependent on the so-called rights of property; it is not to owned animals merely that we must extend our sympathy and protection. ... To take advantage of the sufferings of animals, whether wild or tame, for the gratification of sport, or gluttony, or fashion, is quite incompatible with any possible assertion of animals' rights."

"Something rustled in front of them, close to the ground. The fern fronds and wood-lettuce concealed something that advanced in violent motion. A threadlike, little cry shrilled out piteously; then all was still. Only the leaves and the blades of grass shivered back into place. A ferret had caught a mouse. He came slinking by, slid sideways, and prepared to enjoy his meal."

"Winter dragged on. Sometimes it was warmer, but then the snow would fall again and lie deeper and deeper, so that it became impossible to scrape it away. It was worst when the thaws came and the melted snow water froze again in the night. Then there was a thin slippery film of ice. Often it broke in pieces and the sharp splinters cut the deer's tender fetlocks till they bled."

"It was silent in the woods, but something horrible happened every day. Once the crows fell upon Friend Hare's small son who was lying sick, and killed him in a cruel way. He could be heard moaning pitifully for a long while. Friend Hare was not at home, and when he heard the sad news he was beside himself with grief."

"Another time the squirrel raced about with a great wound in his neck where the ferret had caught him. By a miracle the squirrel had escaped. He could not talk because of the pain, but he ran up and down the branches. Everyone could see him. He ran like mad. From time to time he stopped, sat down, raised his forepaws desperately and clutched his head in terror and agony while the red blood oozed on his white chest. He ran about for an hour, then suddenly crumpled up, fell across a branch, and dropped dead in the snow. A couple of magpies flew down at once to begin their meal."

"Another day a fox tore to pieces the strong and handsome pheasant who had enjoyed such general respect and popularity. His death aroused the sympathies of a wide circle who tried to comfort his disconsolate widow. The fox had dragged the pheasant out of the snow, where he was buried, thinking himself well hidden. No one could have felt safer than the pheasant for it all happened in broad daylight. The terrible hardship that seemed to have no end spread bitterness and brutality. It destroyed all their memories of the past, their faith in each other, and ruined every good custom they had. There was no longer either peace or mercy in the forest."

"The future really didn't look very bright for Gobo. He was weak. He had always been much more delicate than Bambi or Faline and remained smaller than either of them. He was growing worse from day to day. He could not eat even the little food there was. It made his stomach ache. And he was quite exhausted by the cold, and by the horrors around him. He shivered more and more and could hardly stand up. Everyone looked at him sympathetically."

"Did you see him?" the midges asked each other. "That's the old may-beetle," some of them hummed. Others said, "All of his offspring are dead. Only one is still alive. Only one." "How long will he live?" a number of midges asked. The others answered, "We don't know. Some of his offspring live a long time. They live forever almost... They see the sun thirty or forty times, we don't know exactly how many. Our lives are long enough, but we see the daylight only once or twice."

"[A]nimals are not just subject to suffering like man, but subject to much more suffering; their existence is considered to be extremely unhappy, not only because they are exploited and tortured by man but also in nature itself, where the weaker one is threatened and devoured by the stronger, and, moreover, because at least many of them live on disgusting food or in uncomfortable places."

"The pleasure in this world, it has been said, outweighs the pain; or, at any rate, there is an even balance between the two. If the reader wishes to see shortly whether this statement is true, let him compare the respective feelings of two animals, one of which is engaged in eating the other."

"[T]he life of most insects is nothing but ceaseless labour to prepare food and an abode for the future brood which will arise from their eggs, and which then, after they have consumed the food and passed through the chrysalis state, enter upon life merely to begin again from the beginning the same labour; then also how, like this, the life of the birds is for the most part taken up with their distant and laborious migrations, then with the building of their nests and the collecting of food for the brood, which itself has to play the same rôle the following year; and so all work constantly for the future, which afterwards makes bankrupt;—then we cannot avoid looking round for the reward of all this skill and trouble, for the end which these animals have before their eyes, which strive so ceaselessly—in short, we are driven to ask: What is the result? what is attained by the animal existence which demands such infinite preparation? And there is nothing to point to but the satisfaction of hunger and the sexual instinct, or in any case a little momentary comfort, as it falls to the lot of each animal individual, now and then in the intervals of its endless need and struggle. If we place the two together, the indescribable ingenuity of the preparations, the enormous abundance of the means, and the insufficiency of what is thereby aimed at and attained, the insight presses itself upon us that life is a business, the proceeds of which are very far from covering the cost of it. This becomes most evident in some animals of a specially simple manner of life."

"Take, for example, the mole, that unwearied worker. To dig with all its might with its enormous shovel claws is the occupation of its whole life; constant night surrounds it; its embryo eyes only make it avoid the light. It alone is truly an animal nocturnum; not cats, owls, and bats, who see by night. But what, now, does it attain by this life, full of trouble and devoid of pleasure? Food and the begetting of its kind; thus only the means of carrying on and beginning anew the same doleful course in new individuals. In such examples it becomes clear that there is no proportion between the cares and troubles of life and the results or gain of it. The consciousness of the world of perception gives a certain appearance of objective worth of existence to the life of those animals which can see, although in their case this consciousness is entirely subjective and limited to the influence of motives upon them. But the blind mole, with its perfect organisation and ceaseless activity, limited to the alternation of insect larvæ and hunger, makes the disproportion of the means to the end apparent. In this respect the consideration of the animal world left to itself in lands uninhabited by men is also specially instructive."

"[I]n the simple and easily surveyed life of the brutes the emptiness and vanity of the struggle of the whole phenomenon is more easily grasped. The variety of the organisations, the ingenuity of the means, whereby each is adapted to its element and its prey contrasts here distinctly with the want of any lasting final aim; instead of which there presents itself only momentary comfort, fleeting pleasure conditioned by wants, much and long suffering, constant strife, bellum omnium [all war], each one both a hunter and hunted, pressure, want, need, and anxiety, shrieking and howling; and this goes on in secula seculorum [for eternity], or till once again the crust of the planet breaks."

"[H]e saw in Java a plain far as the eye could reach entirely covered with skeletons, and took it for a battlefield; they were, however, merely the skeletons of large turtles, five feet long and three feet broad, and the same height, which come this way out of the sea in order to lay their eggs, and are then attacked by wild dogs, who with their united strength lay them on their backs, strip off their lower armour, that is, the small shell of the stomach, and so devour them alive. But often then a tiger pounces upon the dogs. Now all this misery repeats itself thousands and thousands of times, year out, year in. For this, then, these turtles are born. For whose guilt must they suffer this torment? Wherefore the whole scene of horror? To this the only answer is: it is thus that the will to live objectifies itself."

"Certainly we know no higher game of chance than that for death and life. Every decision about this we watch with the utmost excitement, interest, and fear; for in our eyes all in all is at stake. On the other hand, nature, which never lies, but is always straightforward and open, speaks quite differently upon this theme, speaks like Krishna in the Bhagavadgita. What it says is: The death or the life of the individual is of no significance. It expresses this by the fact that it exposes the life of every brute, and even of man, to the most insignificant accidents without coming to the rescue. Consider the insect on your path; a slight, unconscious turning of your step is decisive as to its life or death. Look at the wood-snail, without any means of flight, of defence, of deception, of concealment, a ready prey for all. Look at the fish carelessly playing in the still open net; the frog restrained by its laziness from the flight which might save it; the bird that does not know of the falcon that soars above it; the sheep which the wolf eyes and examines from the thicket. All these, provided with little foresight, go about guilelessly among the dangers that threaten their existence every moment. Since now nature exposes its organisms, constructed with such inimitable skill, not only to the predatory instincts of the stronger, but also to the blindest chance, to the humour of every fool, the mischievousness of every child without reserve, it declares that the annihilation of these individuals is indifferent to it, does it no harm, has no significance, and that in these cases the effect is of no more importance than the cause. It says this very distinctly, and it does not lie; only it makes no comments on its utterances, but rather expresses them in the laconic style of an oracle. If now the all-mother sends forth her children without protection to a thousand threatening dangers, this can only be because she knows that if they fall they fall back into her womb, where they are safe; therefore their fall is a mere jest. Nature does not act otherwise with man than with the brutes. Therefore its declaration extends also to man: the life and death of the individual are indifferent to it. Accordingly, in a certain sense, they ought also to be indifferent to us, for we ourselves are indeed nature. Certainly, if only we saw deep enough, we would agree with nature, and regard life and death as indifferently as it does. Meanwhile, by means of reflection, we must attribute that carelessness and indifference of nature towards the life of the individuals to the fact that the destruction of such a phenomenon does not in the least affect its true and proper nature."

"Nature itself contradicts itself directly, according as it speaks from the individual or the universal, from within or from without, from the centre or the periphery. It has its centre in every individual; for each individual is the whole will to live. Therefore, even if this individual is only an insect or a worm, nature itself speaks out of it thus: "I alone am all in all: in my maintenance everything is involved; the rest may perish, it is really nothing." So speaks nature from the particular standpoint, thus from the point of view of self-consciousness, and upon this depends the egoism of every living thing. On the other hand, from the universal point of view,—which is that of the consciousness of other things, that of objective knowledge, which for the moment looks away from the individual with whom the knowledge is connected,—from without then, from the periphery nature speaks thus: "The individual is nothing, and less than nothing. I destroy millions of individuals every day, for sport and pastime: I abandon their fate to the most capricious and wilful of my children, chance, who harasses them at pleasure. I produce millions of new individuals every day, without any diminution of my productive power; just as little as the power of a mirror is exhausted by the number of reflections of the sun, which it casts on the wall one after another. The individual is nothing.""

"This world is the battle-ground of tormented and agonized beings who continue to exist only by each devouring the other. Therefore, every beast of prey in it is the living grave of thousands of others, and its self-maintenance is a chain of torturing deaths. Then in this world the capacity to feel pain increases with knowledge, and therefore reaches its highest degree in man, a degree that is the higher, the more intelligent the man. To this world the attempt has been made to adapt the system of optimism, and to demonstrate to us that it is the best of all possible worlds. The absurdity is glaring. However, an optimist tells me to open my eyes and look at the world and see how beautiful it is in the sunshine, with its mountains, valleys, rivers, plants, animals, and so on. But is the world, then, a peep-show? These things are certainly beautiful to behold, but to be them is something quite different."

"Predation itself, the intrinsic evil in nature's design of creatures devouring and absorbing one another to survive, is among the hardest of all things to fathom. One falls back in the end on the idea that it was not God's design at all."

"After Singer's talk, I began thinking through the consequences of his morality. A question occurred to me: "Should we also stop animals from eating each other?" I was sure others had made such arguments as reductio ad absurdums of vegetarianism, but I thought I might be the first to be genuinely interested in it from a moral perspective. "Of course not," said my friend. "It's not our fault if the animals kill each other." "You mean," I said, "that you think it's perfectly moral to let that guy" — I pointed at a random guy nearby — "go around killing people?" "Well, OK," he said. "But it's different with animals, because they don't know any better." "You mean it would be OK to let him go around killing people if he was mentally ill and didn't realize he was doing it?" "You should go ask Singer," he said. So I did — he was signing books outside the lecture hall and as the line ended I asked him my question. His answer was even better than I imagined: "We would if we knew how to do so without making things worse and disturbing the ecosystems and so on." "Thanks!" I said, impressed."

"I cannot help but feel the suffering all around me, not only of humanity but of the whole of creation. I have never tried to withdraw myself from this community of suffering. It seemed to me a matter of course that we should all take our share of the burden of pain which lies upon the world."

"The fact that in nature one creature may cause pain to another, and even deal with it instinctively in the most cruel way, is a harsh mystery that weighs upon us as long as we live. One who has reached the point where he does not suffer ever again because of this has ceased to be a man."

"Nature is often perceived as an idyllic, beautiful and peaceful place, where wild animals live in freedom. This romanticized view conceals the fact that wild animals suffer in horrible ways. Far from being idyllic and peaceful, nature is actually "red in tooth and claw": at its heart it's all about competition. Animals are frequently eaten by predators – a horrific, extremely painful death. Food scarcity often leads to starvation, and wild animals endure injury and painful diseases without relief. Nature's cruelty knows no boundaries: For example, gulls peck out the eyes of baby seals, leaving them to die so they can later eat their remains. Some animals use venom to paralyze their prey and eat them piece by piece. Wild animals certainly also experience moments of happiness, but gruesome fates as described above are by no means exceptional. On the contrary, they are rather commonplace in nature, and even if a wild animal manages to avoid them, his or her life is for a large part a constant struggle for survival in a harsh and relentless environment."

"For whatever praise you may hear, whatever love you may profess for the sea and mountains, the desert or marshes, plants and animals, nature doesn’t behave as a friend to humans or even as their symbiont. By means of waves, fire, typhoons, poisoning or devouring, it kills as calmly as bodies fall and eagles eat lambs. It doesn’t pardon any mistake."

"A beastly ambition, which the gods grant thee t' attain to! If thou wert the lion, the fox would beguile thee; if thou wert the lamb, the fox would eat three: if thou wert the fox, the lion would suspect thee, when peradventure thou wert accused by the ass: if thou wert the ass, thy dulness would torment thee, and still thou livedst but as a breakfast to the wolf: if thou wert the wolf, thy greediness would afflict thee, and oft thou shouldst hazard thy life for thy dinner: wert thou the unicorn, pride and wrath would confound thee and make thine own self the conquest of thy fury: wert thou a bear, thou wouldst be killed by the horse: wert thou a horse, thou wouldst be seized by the leopard: wert thou a leopard, thou wert german to the lion and the spots of thy kindred were jurors on thy life: all thy safety were remotion and thy defence absence. What beast couldst thou be, that were not subject to a beast? and what a beast art thou already, that seest not thy loss in transformation."

"In the wild, plagues of excess population are a rarity. The seas are not crowded with sunfish; the ponds are not brimming with toads; elephants do not stand shoulder to shoulder over the land. With few exceptions, animal populations are remarkably stable. On average, of each pair's offspring, only sufficient survive to replace the parents when they die. Surplus young die, and birth rates are balanced by death rates. In the case of spawners and egg layers, some young are killed before hatching. Almost half of all blackbird eggs are taken by jays, but even so, each pair usually manages to fledge about four young. By the end of summer, however, an average of under two are still alive. Since one parent will probably die or be killed during the winter, only one of the young will survive to breed the following summer. The high mortality rate among young animals is an inevitable consequence of high fecundity. Of the millions of fry produced by a pair of sunfish, only one or two escape starvation, disease or predators. Half the young of house mice living on the Welsh island of Skokholm are lost before weaning. Even in large mammals, the lives of the young can be pathetically brief and the killing wholesale. During the calving season, many young wildebeeste, still wet, feeble and bewildered, are seized and torn apart by jackals, hyenas and lions within minutes of emerging from their mothers' bellies. Three out of every four die violently within six months."

"[F]or practical purposes I am fairly sure, judging from man's past record of attempts to mold nature to his own aims, that we would be more likely to increase the net amount of animal suffering if we interfered with wildlife, than to decrease it. Lions play a role in the ecology of their habitat, and we cannot be sure what the long-term consequences would be if we were to prevent them from killing gazelles. ... So, in practice, I would definitely say that wildlife should be left alone ... The remaining question is purely hypothetical, and perhaps it would be politic to refuse to answer it. Nevertheless, philosophers are supposed to answer hypothetical questions, so I will risk it. If, in some way, we could be reasonably certain that interfering with wildlife in a particular way would, in the long run, greatly reduce the amount of killing and suffering in the animal world, it would, I think, be right to interfere."

"It must be admitted that the existence of carnivorous animals does pose one problem for the ethics of Animal Liberation, and that is whether we should do anything about it. Assuming that humans could eliminate carnivorous species from the earth, and that the total amount of suffering among animals in the world were thereby reduced, should we do it?"

"After long pondering, I believe that I can define good and evil in terms to which even a biologist of the mechanical school can hardly take exception. At least, I fancy that I can do so for evil. The great evil of life is parasitism."

"I have come to view vegetarianism as a standing protest against predation, which is life's greatest evil. If there were no other argument in its favor, that would be sufficient."

"[Predation is] a great evil that a wise or benevolent creator would have avoided."

"Earth has no more distressing spectacle than that of a predator suddenly striking down some defenseless creature innocently singing or attending its young, no sight more pitifully repulsive than the hideously mangled remains of what, a few hours before, was a beautiful animal enjoying its life."

"The evolutionary impulsion to increase fecundity, technically known as fitness, at whatever cost is responsible for most of the ugliness, strife, and suffering that afflict the living community on the fairest planet illuminated by the Sun."

"[If evolution had been guided, the Earth would have become] the abode of a vast diversity of creatures dwelling in concord (instead of) a place of mixed character, where beauty and ugliness, peace and fear, happiness and horror, mingle together in the most perplexing contrasts."

"That evolution has accomplished much that is splendid and admirable, it would be ungrateful to deny. That the means it has employed have often been ruthlessly harsh is a proposition to which every compassionate person will attest."

"The wild life of nature, regarded simply as woodland glades, murmuring brooks, fragrant flowers and songful birds, or the tranquil emptiness of a seascape in calm weather, is restful and refreshing after the clangor and turmoil of human existence, especially in the crowded centers of population. Its myriad shapes and colors divert the fevered mind from its too-absorbing problems. But viewed with a more penetrating and philosophic eye, what spectacle could be more hideously revolting than that of countless animals, each busily stuffing itself with as many other living things as its maw can hold? Were this all that we could detect beneath the seemingly tran-quil face of nature, some who now turn to it for spiritual comfort and refreshment might shrink away in horror."

"Sometimes, especially in inclement weather, incubating birds continue to cover their eggs while hungry, and even when they would appear to be suffering acutely from a long-continued fast. Many marine birds, especially of the penguin and petrel families, remain on their nests for days or even weeks without eating; and some Emperor Penguins, who incubate single eggs on the ice in the frigid gloom of midwinter at the edge of the Antarctic continent, pass about two months in an absolute fast. Must not birds at times experience gnawing pangs of hunger, while they slowly become emaciated from lack of nourishment?"

"Animals more obviously violate the concept of goodness, for none can live without tearing and devouring other organized beings, whether vegetables or other animals, or else sapping their strength as noxious parasites. The larger ambulatory animals can hardly move without crushing the herbage and multitudes of small creeping things; and all compete with each other for space and nourishment in the same manner as plants, but often far more violently. Moreover, they struggle for mates in a fashion wholly unknown among vegetables, even the milder herbivores sometimes exhibiting in their quarrels with rivals a fury that astounds us. Thus none is wholly good; yet those which devour only vegetation seem to be endowed by nature with a capacity for goodness lacking in those which kill and tear for food creatures more akin to themselves; while the fiercest kinds, which destroy living things that they do not require to sustain their own lives, fall most conspicuously short of goodness."

"Beyond the limits of the most comprehensive actual society are living creatures whom our moral impulse bids us to include within our system of organized, reciprocal relations, although up to the present we have found this impossible to achieve. Nevertheless, we can at least reach out to help them when in distress, as by rescuing them from the pools and pits into which they sometimes fall, feeding them when hungry as far as our means allow, perhaps at times curing their wounds. Such charity is the truest sort, because we can never expect any extrinsic recompense nor even an indirect economic advantage from it. When we contemplate the vast amount of mutilation, suffering, and death which hourly occurs among the living creatures on this planet, and the complex relations among them which make it impossible for us to help one of them without perhaps indirectly injuring another, we sometimes suspect that our most devoted effort on behalf of nonhuman creatures is scarcely more than a gesture. Yet it is a gesture which symbolizes the comprehensive society that we aspire to create."

"Not long ago I was sleeping in a cabin in the woods and was awoken in the middle of the night by the sounds of a struggle between two animals. Cries of terror and extreme agony rent the night, intermingled with the sounds of jaws snapping bones and flesh being torn from limbs. One animal was being savagely attacked, killed and then devoured by another. [I]t seems to me that the horror I experienced on that dark night in the woods was a veridical insight. What I experienced was a brief and terrifying glimpse into the ultimately evil dimension of a godless world."

"Although disease and suffering in animals are unpleasant and, perhaps, regrettable, biologists recognize that conservation is engaged in the protection of the integrity and continuity of natural processes, not the welfare of individuals. At the population level, the important processes are ultimately genetic and evolutionary because these maintain the potential for continued existence. Evolution, as it occurs in nature, could not proceed without the suffering inseparable from hunger, disease, and predation. For this reason, biologists often overcome their emotional identification with individual victims. For example, the biologist sees the abandoned fledgling or the wounded rabbit as part of the process of natural selection and is not deceived that "rescuing" sick, abandoned, or maimed individuals is serving the species or the cause of conservation. (Salvaging a debilitated individual from a very small population would be an exception, assuming it might eventually contribute to the gene pool.) Therefore, the ethical imperative to conserve species diversity is distinct from any societal norms about the value or the welfare of individual animals or plants. This does not in any way detract from ethical systems that provide behavioral guidance for humans on appropriate relationships with individuals from other species, especially when the callous behavior of humans causes animals to suffer unnecessarily. Conservation and animal welfare, however, are conceptually distinct, and they should remain politically separate."

"[C]onsider the sea-hare Tethys, a shell-less, flabby sea-slug, actually a marine snail, which may be seen crawling about in tidal estuaries, somewhat resembling a rabbit crouched over. A California biologist estimated the number of eggs produced by a single animal during a single breeding season to be more than 478 million. And the adults sometimes occur by the hundred! Obviously all these eggs cannot mature, all this potential cannot, must not, become reality, else the ocean would soon be occupied exclusively by sea-hares. There would be no kindness in that, even for the sea-hares themselves, for in a few generations they would overflow the earth; there would be nothing for the rest of us to eat, and nothing for them unless they turned cannibal. On the average, probably no more than the biblical one or two attain full maturity. Somewhere along the way all the rest will have been eaten by predators whose life cycle is postulated upon the presence of abundant larvae of sea-hares and other forms as food—as all life itself is based on such a postulate."

"Is there not a teaching of nature very apt to suggest horror and despair rather than a complacent brooding over soothing thoughts?"

"Hobbes clearly proves that ev'ry Creature Lives in a State of War by Nature. The Greater for the Smallest watch, But meddle seldom with their Match. A Whale of moderate Size will draw A Shole of Herrings down his Maw. A Fox with Geese his Belly crams; A Wolf destroys a thousand Lambs."

"So, Nat'ralists observe, a Flea Hath smaller Fleas that on him prey, And these have smaller Fleas to bite 'em, And so proceed ad infinitum"

"Who trusted God was love indeed And love Creation's final law — Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw With ravine, shriek'd against his creed —"

"For nature is one with rapine, a harm no preacher can heal; The Mayfly is torn by the swallow, the sparrow spear'd by the shrike, And the whole little wood where I sit is a world of plunder and prey."

"The Gods! but they, the shadows of ourselves, Have past for ever. It is Nature kills, And not for her sport either. She knows nothing. Man only knows, the worse for him! for why Cannot he take his pastime like the flies? And if my pleasure breed another’s pain, Well—is not that the course of Nature too, From the dim dawn of Being—her main law Whereby she grows in beauty—that her flies Must massacre each other? this poor Nature!"

"What happens in wildlife is indeed of moral concern, according to utilitarianism. When there is famine among the antelopes, the utilitarian sees a problem. It is as bad when wild animals suffer from natural causes, as it is when they are treated badly in the food industry. To the moral rights theorist ... it is not a moral problem when the wolf kills the lamb. It is a problem from the point of view of utilitarianism, however. If there is anything one can do about it, one should not hesitate to do it."

"Is there anything we can do about animal suffering in wildlife? There was a time when many said that nothing should be done to obviate human suffering, since attempts to establish a welfare state would either be in vain, jeopardise what kind of welfare there happens to exist, or produce perverse (even worse) results. We rarely meet with that reaction any more. However, many seem to be ready to argue that wildlife constitutes such a complex system of ecological balances that any attempt to interfere must produce no good results, put into jeopardy whatever ecological 'balances' there happen to exist, or perversely make the situation even worse. This is not the place to settle whether they are right or not, but, certainly, there must exist some measures we could take, if we bothered to do so, rendering wildlife at least slightly less terrible. If this were so, we should do so, according to utilitarianism."

"If we humans could 'civilize' wildlife, and provide better living and dying conditions to non-human animals, then we ought to do so. We ought to side with the lamb against the wolf."

"Why did I feed these animals against all advice? Because we live in the same place, because they were individuals, because they had relatives, experience, a past, and desires, because they were cold and hungry, because they hadn't found enough to eat in the fall, because each had just one life."

"The ignorant creature knows nothing of the wise doctrines of Malthus, but spawns forth as many children of all sorts as ever she can, without the least prudential restraint. She has consequently far more than she can properly feed and rear; so that a large part perishes in infancy (and we are told that none of these except the human sucklings will rise to another life; poor bereaved monkey and donkey mothers, for instance, being altogether without the precious consolations of immortality); a considerable part is eaten up by mankind and other hungry animals, and the remainder can seldom get food enough."

"Just within the edge of the wood there, I see a small painted turtle on its back, with its head stretched out as if to turn over. Surprised by the sight, I stooped to investigate the cause. It drew in its head at once, but I noticed that its shell was partially empty. I could see through it from side to side as it lay, its entrails having been extracted through large openings just before the hind legs ... Such is Nature, who gave one creature a taste or yearning for another's entrails as its favorite tidbit!!"

"[N]ature appears with many animals to have been rather a cruel stepmother than a mother, and with others not a stepmother, but a most tender mother"

"Man and animals are really the passage and the conduit of food, the sepulchre of animals and resting place of the dead, one causing the death of the other, making themselves the covering for the corruption of other dead [bodies]."

"[O mighty and once living instrument of formative nature. Incapable of availing thyself of thy vast strength thou hast to abandon a life of stillness and to obey the law which God and time gave to procreative nature.] Ah! how many a time the shoals of terrified dolphins and the huge tunny-fish were seen to flee before thy cruel fury, to escape; whilst thy fulminations raised in the sea a sudden tempest with buffeting and submersion of ships in the great waves; and filling the uncovered shores with the terrified and desperate fishes which fled from thee, and left by the sea, remained in spots where they became the abundant prey of the people in the neighbourhood."

"Why did nature not ordain that one animal should not live by the death of another? Nature, being inconstant and taking pleasure in creating and making constantly new lives and forms, because she knows that her terrestrial materials become thereby augmented, is more ready and more swift in her creating, than time in his destruction; and so she has ordained that many animals shall be food for others. Nay, this not satisfying her desire, to the same end she frequently sends forth certain poisonous and pestilential vapours upon the vast increase and congregation of animals; and most of all upon men, who increase vastly because other animals do not feed upon them; and, the causes being removed, the effects would not follow. This earth therefore seeks to lose its life, desiring only continual reproduction; and as, by the argument you bring forward and demonstrate, like effects always follow like causes, animals are the image of the world."

"... this is, I believe, the great blindspot of most vegans: the absence of a perpetrator leads them to neglect the suffering of the majority of the beings they claim to care about."

"... wild animals suffer from a wide range of harms regardless of their reproductive strategies, including hunger, disease, parasitism, and natural disasters. These harms often cause intense suffering, and we should not disregard this suffering merely because the sufferers happen to live in the wild, or because they happen to have non-human bodies. We rightly acknowledge a moral duty to relieve intense suffering experienced by humans, including when it is due to natural causes, and there is no justification for restricting this moral duty to humans only ... ."

"There is, to be sure, a risk that interventions to help wild animals will end up making things worse, which highlights the importance of a well-informed and cautious approach to compassionate intervention. Yet this is very different from a stance of moral defeatism that simply dismisses the issue out of hand."

"I am a puny part of the great whole. Yes; but all animals condemned to live, All sentient things, born by the same stern law, Suffer like me, and like me also die."

"The vulture fastens on his timid prey, And stabs with bloody beak the quivering limbs: All's well, it seems, for it. But in a while An eagle tears the vulture into shreds; [...] Thus the whole world in every member groans: All born for torment and for mutual death."

"Elements, animals, humans, everything is at war."

"There is, perhaps, no way in which one can obtain a more vivid idea of the intensity of the struggle for existence among organic beings than by the study of the inhabitants of a freshwater pond of long standing. Every inch of space in such a situation is teeming with life, both animal and vegetable, and the chief delight of most of the animals present is to wage a ceaseless warfare upon their weaker fellows."

"It seems the insect kinds were at least one degree above the inhabitants of the waters. Almost all these too devour one another, and every other creature which they can conquer. Indeed, such is the miserably disordered state of the world at present, that innumerable creatures can not otherwise preserve their own lives than by destroying others. But in the beginning it was not so. The paradisiacal earth afforded a sufficiency of food for all its inhabitants; so that none of them had any need or temptation to prey upon the other. The spider was then as harmless as the fly, and did not then lie in wait for blood. The weakest of them crept securely over the earth, or spread their gilded wings in the air, that wavered in the breeze, and glittered in the sun, without any to make them afraid."

"[T]here were no birds or beasts of prey; none that destroyed or molested another."

"When it comes to wild animals, though, only the last [expression of normal behaviour] is guaranteed. They have to struggle to survive on a daily basis, from finding food and water to another individual to mate with. They don't have the right to comfort, stability, or good health. ... By the standards our governments have set, the life of a wild animal is cruelty."

"The simple facts are that both predation and starvation are painful prospects for deer, and that the lion's lot is no more enviable."

"Once Darwin fathomed natural selection, he surely saw how deeply his ethics were at odds with the values it implies. The insidious lethality of a parasitic wasp, the cruelty of a cat playing with a mouse — these are, after all, just the tip of the iceberg. To ponder natural selection is to be staggered by the amount of suffering and death that can be the price for a single, slight advance in organic design. And it is to realize, moreover, that the purpose of this "advance" — longer, sharper canine teeth in male chimpanzees, say — is often to make other animals suffer or die more surely. Organic design thrives on pain, and pain thrives on organic design."

"I wonder if a sillier and more ignorant catachresis than "Mother Nature" was ever perpetrated? It is because Nature is ruthless, hideous, and cruel beyond belief that it was necessary to invent civilisation. One thinks of wild animals as savage, but the fiercest of them begins to look almost domesticated when one considers the viciousness required of a survivor in the sea; as for the insects, their lives are sustained only by intricate processes of fantastic horror. There is no conception more fallacious than the sense of cosiness implied by 'Mother Nature.' Each species must strive to survive, and that will do, by every means in its power, however foul—unless the instinct to survive is weakened by conflict with another instinct."

"Why is so much of Nature at war with other parts of Nature? Because there isn't one Evolution directing the whole process. There's as many different "evolutions" as reproducing populations. Rabbit genes are becoming more or less frequent in rabbit populations. Fox genes are becoming more or less frequent in fox populations. Fox genes which construct foxes that catch rabbits, insert more copies of themselves in the next generation. Rabbit genes which construct rabbits that evade foxes are naturally more common in the next generation of rabbits. Hence the phrase "natural selection"."

"Why is Nature cruel? You, a human, can look at an Ichneumon wasp, and decide that it's cruel to eat your prey alive. You can decide that if you're going to eat your prey alive, you can at least have the decency to stop it from hurting. It would scarcely cost the wasp anything to anesthetize its prey as well as paralyze it. Or what about old elephants, who die of starvation when their last set of teeth fall out? These elephants aren't going to reproduce anyway. What would it cost evolution—the evolution of elephants, rather—to ensure that the elephant dies right away, instead of slowly and in agony? What would it cost evolution to anesthetize the elephant, or give it pleasant dreams before it dies? Nothing; that elephant won't reproduce more or less either way."

"In a way, Darwin discovered God—a God that failed to match the preconceptions of theology, and so passed unheralded. If Darwin had discovered that life was created by an intelligent agent—a bodiless mind that loves us, and will smite us with lightning if we dare say otherwise—people would have said "My gosh! That's God!" But instead Darwin discovered a strange alien God—not comfortably "ineffable", but really genuinely different from us. Evolution is not a God, but if it were, it wouldn't be Jehovah. It would be H. P. Lovecraft's Azathoth, the blind idiot God burbling chaotically at the center of everything, surrounded by the thin monotonous piping of flutes. Which you might have predicted, if you had really looked at Nature."

"The earth is not dying, it is being killed, and those who are killing it have names and addresses."

"We are jeopardizing our future by not reining in our intense but geographically and demographically uneven material consumption and by not perceiving continued rapid population growth as a primary driver behind many ecological and even societal threats. By failing to adequately limit population growth, reassess the role of an economy rooted in growth, reduce greenhouse gases, incentivize renewable energy, protect habitat, restore ecosystems, curb pollution, halt defaunation, and constrain invasive alien species, humanity is not taking the urgent steps needed to safeguard our imperilled biosphere."

"Plastic pollution free world is not a choice but a commitment to life - a commitment to the next generation."

"Waste-water from the houses collected in the gutters running alongside the curbs and emitted a truly fearsome smell. There were no public toilets in the streets or squares. Visitors, especially women, often became desperate when nature called. In the public buildings the sanitary facilities were unbelievably primitive....As a metropolis, Berlin did not emerge from a state of barbarism into civilization until after 1870."

"Worldwide, pharmaceutical use has been on the increase for the past century and will continue to increase into the future with the development of new medicines to cure recently discovered diseases as well as previously untreatable conditions. Following use by the patient, active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and their metabolites are excreted to the sewerage system. They are then typically transported to a wastewater treatment works, where, depending on their molecular structure and physicochemical properties, they can be either degraded by biological treatment processes or released to the environment in effluents or sorb to sludge. The soil environment will therefore be exposed to APIs and their metabolites when sludge from treatment processes is applied to land as an agricultural fertilizer or when soil is irrigated with reclaimed wastewater effluent. While only a few studies have explored the occurrence of APIs in the soil environment, available data indicate that a range of API classes, including nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, antidepressants, anticonvulsants, and antibacterial agents do occur in soils in concentrations up to the low mg/kg level. Because of detection of pharmaceuticals in soils, concerns have been raised over the potential for these substances to be taken up into human food items and to pose a risk to human health. A number of studies have demonstrated the uptake of pharmaceuticals used in human and veterinary medicine into plants. Studies have explored the uptake and translocation of a variety of APIs with a particular focus on the antidepressant drug fluoxetine and antibacterial chemicals including sulfamethazine, sulfamethoxazole, and trimethoprim into numerous plant species including root and shoot crops such as soybean, lettuce, and carrot."

"By examining conditions in China and experimenting in a lab, the scientists suggest that a combination of weather patterns and chemistry could have caused London fog to turn into a haze of concentrated sulfuric acid."

"Mr. President, I find it encouraging that you are proposing an initiative for reducing air pollution. Accepting the urgency, it seems clear to me also that climate change is a problem which can no longer be left to a future generation."

"Pollution is nothing but resources we're not harvesting. We allow them to disperse because we've been ignorant of their value. But if we got onto a planning planning basis, the government could trap pollutants in the stacks and spillages and get back more money than this would cost out of the stockpiled chemistries they'd be collecting."

"Plastic pollution in the form of small particles (diameter less than 5 mm)—termed "microplastic"—has been observed in many parts of the world ocean. They are known to interact with biota on the individual level, e.g. through ingestion, but their population-level impacts are largely unknown. One potential mechanism for microplastic-induced alteration of pelagic ecosystems is through the introduction of hard-substrate habitat to ecosystems where it is naturally rare. Here, we show that microplastic concentrations in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre (NPSG) have increased by two orders of magnitude in the past four decades, and that this increase has released the pelagic insect Halobates sericeus from substrate limitation for oviposition. High concentrations of microplastic in the NPSG resulted in a positive correlation between H. sericeus and microplastic, and an overall increase in H. sericeus egg densities. Predation on H. sericeus eggs and recent hatchlings may facilitate the transfer of energy between pelagic- and substrate-associated assemblages. The dynamics of hard-substrate-associated organisms may be important to understanding the ecological impacts of oceanic microplastic pollution."

"The fact that both human sperm count and insect biomass are estimated to be declining at about 2 percent per year may be just a numerical coincidence. Nevertheless, it’s a number that should grab our attention. [...] Unless the chemical load on the environment is radically reduced, and soon, the stakes may be existential. If sexually reproducing animals, including humans, lose the ability to yield offspring, then in the future the biosphere may host a radically reduced roster of higher life forms. Meanwhile, the public should be warned more explicitly and urgently about the perils of chemical exposure, and provided with information about the products most likely implicated. With regard to climate change one often hears the refrain, “We don’t need to ‘save the planet’; the Earth will be fine, it’s just humans that will suffer.” In reality, some environmental trends now in motion, including the widespread release of endocrine-disrupting chemicals, are imperiling all of nature. Are rubber duckies and other plastic crap, overly manicured lawns, throw-away packaging material, and cheap cookware really worth that level of risk?"

"Continued unrestricted testing by the nuclear powers, joined in time by other nations which may be less adept in limiting pollution, will increasingly contaminate the air that all of us must breathe. Even then, the number of children and grandchildren with cancer in their bones, with leukemia in their blood, or with poison in their lungs might seem statistically small to some, in comparison with natural health hazards. But this is not a natural health hazard -- and it is not a statistical issue. The loss of even one human life, or the malformation of even one baby -- who may be born long after we are gone -- should be of concern to us all. Our children and grandchildren are not merely statistics toward which we can be indifferent."

"Wildfires, heat domes, hurricanes, and extreme weather events are hard to ignore; yet, much to the consternation of environmental activists, a significant segment of the population continues to deny anthropogenic global warming. Even among environmental advocates, there is often a tendency to view the rise in diseases such as cancer, Parkinson’s disease, and heart, liver, and kidney diseases—along with neurological disorders—as merely bad luck or the result of poor genetics. The difficulty in definitively linking these disorders to the increasing presence of chemical toxins and microplastics allows agrochemical, petrochemical, and pharmaceutical companies to continue their practices without accountability. The industrial use of glyphosate and other pesticides, PFAS, heavy metals, dioxins, phthalates, and VOCs continues to accumulate in our environment, creating an ever more toxic planet. Bioaccumulation may be the most dangerous term that people either don’t understand or don’t know. Every person and organism has physiological thresholds for warding off viruses, bacteria, and chemical toxins, which, when exceeded, can lead to illness, disease, or even death. Much to the delight of chemical companies, the greatest threats to our biosphere—chemical toxins and waste—often go unnoticed."

"The lower spheres are so polluted that one could say without exaggeration that meteoric dust is being oxidized because of the chemical reactions of psychic energy, which first of all act upon metals… Of course, the pollution of the spheres closest to our planet is disastrous. The lower subtle bodies loiter about like swindlers at a bazaar and thereby prevent the successful formation of a spiral of constructive effort. One has to harbor a special aspiration in order to penetrate beyond the bounds of these dreadful deposits. So we should not believe that there might be thoughts without consequences; even the largest cup can be overfilled! This especially applies to rotation, when gravity holds back many particles of lighter weight. So when We speak about the vital need to purify psychic energy through refinement of thought, We have in mind the purification of the lower spheres. To borrow the language of the Church, it is necessary to conquer the infernal hordes."

"If we some day choke on the pollution of our own air, there will be little consolation in leaving behind a dying continent ringed with steel."

"In 1991, Landsat captured the devastating environmental consequences of war. As Iraqi forces withdrew from Kuwait, they set fire to over 650 oil wells and damaged almost 75 more, which then spewed crude oil across the desert and into the Persian Gulf. Fires burned for ten months. According to a 2009 study published in Disaster Prevention and Management, firefighting crews from ten countries, part of a response team that comprised approximately 11,450 workers from 38 countries, used familiar and also never-before-tested technologies to put out the fires. When the last one was extinguished in November, about 300 lakes of oil remained, as well as a layer of soot and oil that fell out of the sky and mixed with sand and gravel to form 'tarcrete' across 5 percent of Kuwait's landscape. An estimated one to 1.5 billion barrels of oil were released into the environment. After most burned, 25 to 40 million barrels ended up spread across the desert and 11 million barrels in the Persian Gulf, according to a 2012 paper published in Remote Sensing of Environment. For comparison, the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill into the Gulf of Mexico is estimated to have released nearly 5 million barrels of oil. Kuwait's landscape has recovered somewhat. Clean up efforts have removed 21 million barrels of oil from the desert, but an estimated 1 million barrels still remain."

"“There really have been no studies that have associated the [pharmaceutical] residues in our water with human health problems,” says Ilene Ruhoy, a pediatric neurologist and environmental toxicologist who has studied the issue. That could be a sign that they pose no threat, but like Wilson, Ruhoy stresses how difficult it is to do these types of studies. “You’re talking about exposure to parts per million, parts per billion. And it’s a combination of drugs. It’s not just one drug in the water, it’s multitudes of. It’s exposure to these very, very minute amounts of these drugs, but many drugs over decades—ten, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 years.”"

"Net-based surveys are less subjective than direct observations but are limited regarding the area that can be sampled (net apertures 1–2 m and ships typically have to slow down to deploy nets, requiring dedicated ship's time). The plastic debris sampled is determined by net mesh size, with similar mesh sizes required to make meaningful comparisons among studies. Floating debris typically is sampled with a neuston or manta trawl net lined with 0.33 mm mesh. Given the very high level of spatial clumping in marine litter, large numbers of net tows are required to adequately characterize the average abundance of litter at sea. Long-term changes in plastic meso-litter have been reported using surface net tows: in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre in 1999, plastic abundance was 335 000 items/km2 and 5.1 kg/km2, roughly an order of magnitude greater than samples collected in the 1980s. Similar dramatic increases in plastic debris have been reported off Japan. However, caution is needed in interpreting such findings, because of the problems of extreme spatial heterogeneity, and the need to compare samples from equivalent water masses, which is to say that, if an examination of the same parcel of water a week apart is conducted, an order of magnitude change in plastic concentration could be observed."

"“There’s been a fair amount of work done in both the U.S. and Canada as well as Europe that documents [pharmaceuticals] in wastewater and in water,” says Joanna Wilson, a biologist at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada. She studies how drugs in the water affect zebrafish, a tiny freshwater fish in the minnow family. More recent data shows that the same types of compounds are in drinking water. One study found several pharmaceuticals in treated tap water, including atenolol (a beta-blocker), carbamazepine (an anticonvulsant), gemfibrozil (an antilipidemic), meprobamate (an antianxiety medication), and phenytoin (an anticonvulsant). The concentrations of these compounds were very low, usually less than 10 nanograms per liter, which is parts per trillion. For reference, one part per trillion is equivalent to about one second in 64 years. “We have an aging demographic, and we have an increased reliance, in North America and Europe in particular, with the treatment of health concerns with pharmaceuticals.” This translates to more medicines making their way into the water system, and we need to determine how to deal with it, she says. “Long-term exposures [to pharmaceuticals] are quite a bit different than short term exposures, and we need to really start testing and figuring out if chronic exposures of low doses are relevant for the health of an individual or population of animals.”"

"I know that stepping on a crack won't break my parents' bones. However, there is a chance that bugs can suffer, and that their suffering is of immense proportion. We live in either World 1 or World 2. In the coming years, decades, and centuries, we will discover which of these worlds we inhabit. Let's make sure that if (or when) we realize we live in World 2, we are satisfied that we have a plan in place and are able to do all we can to improve the lives of bugs."

"To let go from my hand a flea that I have caught is a kinder act than to bestow a dirhem on a man in need. There is no difference between the black earless creature which I release and the Black Prince of Kinda who bound the tiara (on his head). Both of them take precaution (against death); and life is dear to it (the flea), and it passionately desires the means of living."

"Among insects, most of the pieces of the evidence required to say that insects feel pain appear in some groups to some extent. However, they do not appear in all groups to the extent which would result in a definitive answer. It would not surprise me to learn that some insects, particularly some of the social insects, would posses [sic] all the pieces of evidence."

"During the rest of that day there was no other adventure to mar the peace of their journey. Once, indeed, the Tin Woodman stepped upon a beetle that was crawling along the road, and killed the poor little thing. This made the Tin Woodman very unhappy, for he was always careful not to hurt any living creature; and as he walked along he wept several tears of sorrow and regret. These tears ran slowly down his face and over the hinges of his jaw, and there they rusted. When Dorothy presently asked him a question the Tin Woodman could not open his mouth, for his jaws were tightly rusted together. He became greatly frightened at this and made many motions to Dorothy to relieve him, but she could not understand. The Lion was also puzzled to know what was wrong. But the Scarecrow seized the oil-can from Dorothy's basket and oiled the Woodman's jaws, so that after a few moments he could talk as well as before."This will serve me a lesson," said he, "to look where I step. For if I should kill another bug or beetle I should surely cry again, and crying rusts my jaws so that I cannot speak."Thereafter he walked very carefully, with his eyes on the road, and when he saw a tiny ant toiling by he would step over it, so as not to harm it. The Tin Woodman knew very well he had no heart, and therefore he took great care never to be cruel or unkind to anything."

"[W]e propose that at least one invertebrate clade, the insects, has a capacity for the most basic aspect of consciousness: subjective experience. In vertebrates the capacity for subjective experience is supported by integrated structures in the midbrain that create a neural simulation of the state of the mobile animal in space. This integrated and egocentric representation of the world from the animal's perspective is sufficient for subjective experience. Structures in the insect brain perform analogous functions. Therefore, we argue the insect brain also supports a capacity for subjective experience. In both vertebrates and insects this form of behavioral control system evolved as an efficient solution to basic problems of sensory reafference and true navigation. The brain structures that support subjective experience in vertebrates and insects are very different from each other, but in both cases they are basal to each clade."

"Life is life's greatest gift. Guard the life of another creature as you would your own because it is your own. On life's scale of values, the smallest is no less precious to the creature who owns it than the largest."

"A worm or mollusc that is injured, and perhaps writhing, may be feeling pain but could be showing an automatic response. The change in scientific thinking is that the weight of evidence for some of these animals now indicates that they may be feeling pain [...] Some aspects of the pain system exist in leeches, insects, snails, and swimming sea-slugs. However, we cannot be sure that these animals feel pain, or that they do not feel pain [...] There is a case for some degree of protection for spiders, gastropods and insects."

"Even if the probability of arthropods being sentient is considered much lower (e.g. less than 10%), the precautionary principle should be applied, because there are huge numbers of arthropods. At this moment, there are about 1018 terrestrial arthropods (mostly ants) and 1020 marine arthropods (mostly very small copepods as zooplankton). This can be compared with about 1010 humans. So if arthropods happen to be sentient and we erroneously believe they are not, we are neglecting huge amounts of welfare and suffering. When a lot is at stake, the precautionary principle is reasonable."

"[A] lot of insects are parasites or predators that kill other insects. So if we (accidentally, intentionally or indirectly) kill some insects, especially predators, we might save the lives of many other insects. Or stated differently: saving one ladybird might mean killing hundreds of aphids. Second, insects in the wild can have net-negative lives, i.e. short lives with more negative than positive experiences. These are lives not worth living. This is due to their reproductive strategy: a fertile adult insect can lay thousands of eggs. If the insect population does not explode at an extreme exponential rate, it is logically required that almost all of the newborn insects will have to die prematurely. The ways of dying are often extremely negative experiences: coldness, starvation, predation, parasitism,…. If an insect is killed, it prevents the birth of many insects with net-negative lives. So, if most insects face very short lives anyway and die horrible deaths anyway, it is far from clear whether killing insects increases overall future insect suffering. We need much more scientific research to estimate the overall effect of killing insects on global welfare."

"In the story of the life of the Buddha, in the early days of the saṃgha the monks had no fixed abode but wandered throughout the year. Eventually, the Buddha instructed monks to cease their peregrinations during the torrential monsoon period in order to prevent the killing of insects and worms while walking on muddy roads."

"Whenever taking a step, always watch for ants and insects. Prohibit the building of fires outside (lest insects be killed) and do not set mountain woods or forests ablaze."

"Thanks that I can say I have never killed a bird. I would not crush the meanest insect which crawls upon the ground. They have the same right to life that I have, they received it from the same Father, and I will not mar the works of God by wanton cruelty."

"Bees also display optimistic and pessimistic emotional states. In such tests, bees first learned that one stimulus (such as the colour blue) is linked to a sugar reward, while another (such as green) is not. They were then faced with an intermediate stimulus (in this case, turquoise). Intriguingly, they responded to this ambiguous stimulus in a 'glass half full', optimistic manner, if they had encountered a surprise reward (a tiny droplet of sucrose solution) on the way to the experiment. But if they had to suffer through an unexpected, adverse stimulus, they responded in a 'glass half empty' (pessimistic) manner."

"E'en 'plaining flies to thee have spoke, Poor trifles as they be; And oft the spider's web thou'st broke, To set the captive free."

"There is much debate as to whether invertebrates can feel pain, although most species show responses to adverse stimuli."

"I would not enter on my list of friends (Though graced with polish'd manners and fine sense, Yet wanting sensibility) the man Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm. An inadvertent step may crush the snail That crawls at evening in the public path; But he that has humanity, forewarned, Will tread aside, and let the reptile live."

"Feeling implies the presence of a mind and a mental experience, [or] consciousness. I have every reason to believe that invertebrates not only have emotions but also the possibility of feeling those emotions."

"Many insects stridulate by rubbing together specially modified parts of their hard integuments. This stridulation generally serves as a sexual charm or call; but it is likewise used to express different emotions [...] anger, terror, jealousy, and love."

"When a worm is suddenly illuminated and dashes like a rabbit into its burrow—to use the expression employed by a friend—we are at first led to look at the action as a reflex one. The irritation of the cerebral ganglia appears to cause certain muscles to contract in an inevitable manner, independently of the will or consciousness of the animal, as if it were an automaton. But the different effect which a light produced on different occasions, and especially the fact that a worm when in any way employed and in the intervals of such employment, whatever set of muscles and ganglia may then have been brought into play, is often regardless of light, are opposed to the view of the sudden withdrawal being a simple reflex action. With the higher animals, when close attention to some object leads to the disregard of the impressions which other objects must be producing on them, we attribute this to their attention being then absorbed; and attention implies the presence of a mind. Every sportsman knows that he can approach animals whilst they are grazing, fighting or courting, much more easily than at other times. The state, also, of the nervous system of the higher animals differs much at different times, for instance, a horse is much more readily startled at one time than at another. The comparison here implied between the actions of one of the higher animals and of one so low in the scale as an earth-worm, may appear farfetched; for we thus attribute to the worm attention and some mental power, nevertheless I can see no reason to doubt the justice of the comparison."

"Mental Qualities.—There is little to be said on this head. We have seen that worms are timid. It may be doubted whether they suffer as much pain when injured, as they seem to express by their contortions. Judging by their eagerness for certain kinds of food, they must enjoy the pleasure of eating. Their sexual passion is strong enough to overcome for a time their dread of light. They perhaps have a trace of social feeling, for they are not disturbed by crawling over each other's bodies, and they sometimes lie in contact. According to Hoffmeister they pass the winter either singly or rolled up with others into a ball at the bottom of their burrows.* Although worms are so remarkably deficient in the several sense-organs, this does not necessarily preclude intelligence, as we know from such cases as those of Laura Bridgman; and we have seen that when their attention is engaged, they neglect impressions to which they would otherwise have attended; and attention indicates the presence of a mind of some kind. They are also much more easily excited at certain times than at others."

"The wing'd Ichneumon for her embryon young Gores with sharp horn the caterpillar throng. The cruel larva mines its silky course, And tears the vitals of its fostering nurse. While fierce Libellula with jaws of steel Ingulfs an insect-province at a meal; Contending bee-swarms rise on rustling wings And slay their thousands with envenom'd stings."

"Once, indeed, Harry was caught twirling a cockchafer round, which he had fastened by a crooked pin to a long piece of thread, but then this was through ignorance and want of thought: for as soon as his father told him the poor helpless insect felt as much, or more than he would do, were a knife thrust through his hand, he burst into tears, and took the poor animal home, where he fed him during a fortnight on fresh leaves; and when he was perfectly recovered, turned him out to enjoy liberty and fresh air. Ever since that time, Harry was so careful and considerate, that he would step out of the way for fear of hurting a worm, and employed himself in doing kind offices to all the animals in the neighbourhood."

"[I]f all sentient beings have equal moral status and insects are sentient, it would seem that we would be obliged to take insects quite seriously indeed. This is highly counterintuitive. Moreover, if all who have moral status have it equally, then we should right now be very invested in the question of whether insects are sentient. If they are, then we are routinely harming trillions of beings with full, equal moral status—a very serious matter. The commonsense reaction that we need not be so concerned with the question of whether insects are sentient suggests that, if they are, their moral status is less than ours, implying that not all who have moral status have it equally."

"Do insects experience pain? Yes. Well actually, this concept has been disputed, but I think recent evidence suggests that they do experience what is defined as pain."

"In any case, abundant evidence indicates that all invertebrates with a brain can experience pain. Like vertebrates, numerous invertebrates produce natural opiates and substance P. These animals include crustaceans (e.g., crabs, lobsters, and shrimps), insects (e.g., fruit flies, locusts, and cockroaches), and mollusks (e.g., octopuses, squids, and snails) [...] Also, crustaceans, insects, and mollusks show less reaction to a noxious stimulus when they receive morphine. For example, morphine reduces the reaction of mantis shrimps to electric shock, praying mantises to electric shock, and land snails to a hot surface."

"The implications of the foregoing discussion, for insects and other invertebrates, need to be considered with caution. Clearly, it is not possible to provide a conclusive answer to the problem of pain in lower animals, as any subjective experience of an organism cannot be directly experienced by another and a means of communicating with lower organisms is not available to us."

"Bee-eating Wasps [...] feed their larvae on Hive-bees, whom they catch on the flowers while gathering pollen and honey. If the Wasp who has made a capture feels that her Bee is swollen with honey, she never fails, before stinging her, to squeeze her crop, either on the way or at the entrance of the dwelling, so as to make her disgorge the delicious syrup, which she drinks by licking the tongue which her unfortunate victim, in her death-agony, sticks out of her mouth at full length [...] At the moment of some such horrible banquet, I have seen the Wasp, with her prey, seized by the Mantis: the bandit was rifled by another bandit. And here is an awful detail: while the Mantis held her transfixed under the points of the double saw and was already munching her belly, the Wasp continued to lick the honey of her Bee."

"[H]aving worked out the markers that identify both aspects of consciousness in the vertebrates, we apply these same criteria to the invertebrates, and find that the arthropods (including insects and crabs) and cephalopods (like the octopus) meet many of the criteria for exteroceptive and affective consciousness. This would mean that consciousness evolved simultaneously but independently in the first arthropods and first vertebrates over half a billion years ago."

"I found a dimpled spider, fat and white, On a white heal-all, holding up a moth Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth— Assorted characters of death and blight Mixed ready to begin the morning right, Like the ingredients of a witches' broth A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth, And dead wings carried like a paper kite. What had that flower to do with being white, The wayside blue and innocent heal-all? What brought the kindred spider to that height, Then steered the white moth thither in the night? What but design of darkness to appall?— If design govern in a thing so small."

"Y: What are your opinions concerning the propriety of using silk? Z: I disapprove of the act of depriving the living grubs of their silk. I however understand, that numbers of them generally die naturally while enclosed in their silk; also that the silk of these is the most esteemed; and this of course may be used. Though I am averse to the act of depriving the living ones of their natural clothing, and substituting bran in its stead; but I severely censure the usual mode of baking them to death in an oven."

"One cool autumnal night, while lying by his camp-fire in the woods, he observed that the mosquitoes flew in the blaze and were burned. , who wore on his head a tin utensil which answered both as a cap and a mush pot, filled it with water and quenched the fire, and afterwards remarked, "God forbid that I should build a fire for my comfort, that should be the means of destroying any of His creatures.""

"Several scientists and philosophers argue that because invertebrates such as insects, spiders, worms and snails may very well be able to feel pain or suffering, our moral concern should be extended to such beings. Different kinds of evidence have been used to infer whether they can feel pain, including facts about their nervous systems, observations of behavior that indicate learning to avoid harm, and evolutionary arguments about whether feelings of pain would give a fitness advantage. Despite a growing number of studies on invertebrate pain, the evidence is not conclusive, which raises the political and ethical question of what to do under this uncertainty. The uncertainty supports that we should care about the potential suffering of invertebrates such as insects, and take and avoid at least some actions to reduce their potential suffering in case they can suffer. Potential invertebrate suffering is worth paying attention to, even if it is unlikely that they can suffer, primarily because of the large number of individuals involved and the severity of the harms that they endure. For instance, thousands of insects can be killed by boiling to produce one piece of silk clothing. This means that if such invertebrates can suffer substantially, their suffering would be a large-scale ethical disaster. In addition, the fact that invertebrates are so neglected should appeal to effective altruists and others looking to have an outsized impact."

"If I died and was offered to be born again as an insect or cease to exist, I would definitely choose not to exist [...] There is enormous inequality among the fates of insects. Some die very young, either as larvae, pupae, or just after having emerged from the pupa stage as adults, and it is difficult to see how most such lives can be good on balance. Death often seems very painful so, because their lives are so short, they do not include enough positive wellbeing to compensate their suffering."

"We have literally no idea at what level of brain complexity consciousness stops. Most people say, "For heaven's sake, a bug isn't conscious." But how do we know? We're not sure anymore. I don't kill bugs needlessly anymore. [...] Probably what consciousness requires is a sufficiently complicated system with massive feedback. Insects have that."

"[B]ees and other members of the vast class of insects are all capable of sophisticated, learnt, non-stereotyped behaviours that we associate with consciousness if carried out by people."

"So, given that we can't be sure whether insects experience pain, how should we treat these creatures? When I was teaching insect anatomy and physiology I insisted that the students anesthetized insects before conducting experiments that we would expect to inflict pain on a mouse. [...] It seems ethically obligatory to guard against the possibility that insects feel pain. If we use anesthetic and it turns out that insects don't experience pain, the material cost of our mistake is very low [...] However, if we don't use anesthetic and it turns out that the insects were in agony, then the moral cost of our mistake is quite high."

"Considerable empirical evidence supports the assertion that insects feel pain and are conscious of their sensations. In so far as their pain matters to them, they have an interest in not being pained and their lives are worsened by pain. Furthermore, as conscious beings, insects have future (even if immediate) plans with regard to their own lives, and the death of insects frustrates these plans. In that sentience appears to be an ethically sound, scientifically viable basis for granting moral status and in consideration of previous arguments which establish a reasonable expectation of consciousness and pain in insects, I propose the following, minimum ethic: We ought to refrain from actions which may be reasonably expected to kill or cause nontrivial pain in insects when avoiding these actions has no, or only trivial, costs to our own welfare."

"Jumping spiders (Portia spp.) plan routes towards their prey; and hermit crabs (Pagurus berhnardus) show evidence of motivational trade-offs during shell choice. Furthermore, if their brains are implanted with electrodes, garden snails (Helix aspersa) will learn to displace a lever, an action new to their behavioural repertoire, to stimulate those neural regions involved in sexual behaviour. None of these represent concrete evidence of conscious emotion, but they at least suggest that if cephalopods are to now be protected across Europe, then arachnids, decapod crustaceans and gastropods should be too."

"The ant is the most pugnacious of all animals, and the most muscular compared with its size. It will boldly attack the biggest creature that walks if this creature invades its home. It will fasten its mandibles into an enemy, and allow itself to be torn to pieces without relaxing its hold. Among some savage tribes, certain species of ants are said to be used as surgeons. Infuriated ants are allowed to fasten their mandibles on the opposite edges of a gash, and in this way the wound is closed. The ants are decapitated, and their bodiless heads with their relentless jaws serve as stitches to the wound."

"Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em, And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum. And the great fleas themselves, in turn, have greater fleas to go on; While these again have greater still, and greater still, and so on."

"This could potentially reduce consumption of vertebrate meat, moving farming away from intensive agriculture towards higher welfare organic systems. Yet entomophagy can only make a significant difference if insects are mass-produced [...] What if these trillions of insects also suffer? If we neglect this possibility, it is feasible that we will move from one intensive poor-welfare system to another, where conscious organisms are inhumanely farmed in greater numbers than anything we have seen before."

"Ultimately, we don't know for sure that invertebrates suffer in a comparative way to other animals, but given that at any moment the earth contains a billion billion insects, it seems prudent to take the precautionary principle. The potential for these insects to consciously experience some kind of suffering must have an impact on how we interact with them, and our crop fields are a very good place to start."

"In conclusion, recent results from neurophysiological, neuroanatomical and behavioral sciences prompt caution when denying consciousness, and therefore the likelihood of presence of pain and suffering or something closely related to it, to insects. This strongly underlines earlier statements that while awaiting results of further research one should consider the possibility that at least some insect species might suffer pain and, as a precaution, always ensure humane handling of these animals, including the application of anesthesia and analgesia for painful procedures and humane killing techniques."

"Hurt no living thing: Ladybird nor butterfly, Nor moth with dusty wing, Nor cricket cheering cheerily, Nor grasshopper so light of leap, Nor dancing gnat, nor beetle fat, Nor harmless worms that creep."

""Crush not yonder [ant] as it draggeth along its grain; for it too liveth, and its life is sweet to it." A shadow must there be, and a stone upon that heart, that could wish to sorrow the heart even of an [ant]! Strike not with the hand of violence the head of the feeble; for one day, like the ant, thou mayest fall under the foot thyself! Pity the poor moth in the flame of the taper; see how it is scorched in the face of the assembly!"

"The fundamental commandment of ethics, then, is that we cause no suffering to any living creature, not even the lowest, unless it is to effect some necessary protection for ourselves, and that we be ready to undertake, whenever we can, positive action for the benefit of other creatures."

"If I save an insect from a puddle, life has devoted itself to life, and the division of life against itself is ended."

"I too am subject to division of my will-to-life against itself. In a thousand ways my existence stands in conflict with that of others. The necessity to destroy and to injure life IS imposed upon me. If I walk along an unfrequented path, my foot brings destruction and pain upon the tiny creatures which populate it. In order to preserve my own existence, I must defend myself against the existence which injures it. I become a persecutor of the little mouse which inhabits my house, a murderer of the insect which want to have its nest there, a mass-murderer of the bacteria which may endanger my life. I get my food by destroying plants and animals. My happiness is built upon injury done to my fellow-men."

"And the poor beetle, that we tread upon, In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great As when a giant dies."

"That does not mean that we should launch a campaign for insect rights. We still do not know enough about insect subjective experiences to do that; and, in any case, the world is far from being ready to take such a campaign seriously. We need first to complete the extension of serious consideration to the interests of vertebrate animals, about whose capacity for suffering there is much less doubt."

"The question of pain in invertebrates will be extremely difficult to resolve—if, indeed, it is resolvable. In the meantime, perhaps it can be agreed that it is most appropriate to concentrate efforts on maintaining and improving the general well-being of invertebrates used in research, that is, to ensure that these animals are kept in the best and most appropriate conditions during their lives in the laboratory; given the benefit of the doubt in procedures which have the potential to cause pain and distress; and, when the time comes, killed in the most humane manner possible."

"It is a sin against that God who created both them and you, to inflict unnecessary suffering upon any of his creatures. Ask yourselves, too, how you would like such treatment, from one stronger than yourself. If you meet a beetle or a caterpillar, step aside, and do not wantonly crush it. And should you see a poor earth-worm, lying in the dusty path, parched with the sun, and too much exhausted to regain his home, extend a kind hand to help him, and place him on the nearest cool and moist ground. He is a harmless little creature, though not pleasing to the eye or agreeable, but he is God’s workmanship: and while you are thankful for being endowed with reason, and with an immortal soul, let the inferior creatures enjoy their little lives while they may."

"[W]ith our present knowledge, it is usually concluded that insects cannot feel pain. Still, doubts have been raised. Among invertebrates, social insects represent a high level of cognition, and their welfare should be considered during handling."

"I'll not hurt thee, says my uncle Toby, rising from his chair, and going across the room, with the fly in his hand,—I'll not hurt a hair of thy head:—Go, says he, lifting up the sash, and opening his hand as he spoke, to let it escape;—go, poor devil, get thee gone, why should I hurt thee?—This world surely is wide enough to hold both thee and me."

"I saw that, though he was assiduously gnawing at the near foreleg of his enemy, having severed his remaining feeler, his own breast was all torn away, exposing what vitals he had there to the jaws of the black warrior, whose breast-plate was apparently too thick for him to pierce; and the dark carbuncles of the sufferer's eyes shone with ferocity such as war only could excite [...] I felt for the rest of that day as if I had had my feelings excited and harrowed by witnessing the struggle, the ferocity and carnage, of a human battle before my door."

"Insects are far more numerous than NPCs right now, and they're also far more sophisticated. Many insects have at least 100,000 neurons and exhibit not only reactive and goal-directed behavior like NPCs but also reinforcement learning, selective attention, memory, sleep-like states, cognitive generalization, social behavior, and so on. There are an estimated 1019 insects on Earth, compared with around 1010 humans or around 1011 to 1012 birds. Even if you count just raw number of neurons, insects outweigh humans by a few orders of magnitude. While humans may matter a lot more for instrumental reasons related to the trajectory of the far future, in terms of pure morally relevant amount of sentience, insects may dominate on Earth at the moment."

"My personal conclusion is that we should give some weight to the possibility of bug suffering, especially until more evidence is available. Thus, considering the 1018 insects that exist at any given time, there is a huge amount of (potential) suffering in nature due to insects alone. We may also want to consider the ways in which humans impact insects, such as through insecticide use, although insecticides could potentially prevent more suffering than they cause if they avert vast numbers of future offspring that would have mostly died, possibly painfully, soon after being born."

"There's a reasonable possibility that insects have some degree of consciousness and can experience suffering. Given how many insects each of us harms or helps by our choices, consideration of insect suffering should play a significant role in our actions. For instance, we should generally avoid buying silk and shellac, reduce driving especially when roads are wet, and minimize walking on grass or in the woods. Most insect suffering results from natural causes such as predation, parasitism, physical injury, and dehydration. We should encourage concern for wild-insect suffering and research ways in which human environmental policies can reduce it. Our descendants should also think twice before spreading insects and insect-like creatures to new realms, which could multiply suffering manyfold."

"In debates regarding whether insects and other invertebrates can feel pain, conflicting evidence can be raised on either side. For example, it seems clear from many studies that invertebrates can learn to avoid electric shock, heat, certain chemicals, and so on. Meanwhile, there are examples of invertebrates apparently unconcerned by physical injury. In my opinion, this collection of evidence suggests that invertebrates plausibly suffer in response to some stimuli but maybe not others. If so, it seems useful to further explore which particular stimuli are unpleasant to invertebrates to what degrees, in order to inform ethical treatment of invertebrates."

"Entomophagy (eating insects for food) is sometimes proposed as an alternative to factory farming because it has lower environmental impact. But entomophagy is not necessarily more humane than factory farming of livestock all things considered, and along some dimensions it's actually worse, because it involves killing vastly more animals per unit of protein. Rather than promoting insect consumption, let's focus on plant-based meat substitutes."

"The spider was so contrived that she would not eat grass, but must catch flies, and such things, and inflict a slow and horrible death upon them, unaware that her turn would come next. The wasp was so contrived that he also would decline grass and stab the spider, not conferring upon her a swift and merciful death, but merely half paralysing her, then ramming her down into the wasp den, there to live and suffer for days, while the wasp babies should chew her legs off at their leisure. In turn, there was a murderer provided for the wasp, and another murderer for the wasp’s murderer, and so on throughout the whole scheme of living creatures in the earth. There isn’t one of them that was not designed and appointed to inflict misery and murder on some fellow creature and suffer the same, in turn, from some other murderous fellow creature. In flying into the web the fly is merely guilty of an indiscretion—not a breach of any law—yet the fly’s punishment is ten-thousandfold out of proportion to that little indiscretion."

"The bias against small beings seems closely related to another bias we have, namely the bias to believe what is most convenient. For it would no doubt be much more convenient if small beings such as insects are not sentient. If they are, and if they can feel pain, the world suddenly becomes very complex and messy, and not least full of suffering beyond what we have imagined thus far. Therefore, it seems reasonable to suspect that our reasoning is somewhat motivated to jump to the conclusion that insects are not sentient."

"[P]erhaps the most significant result of the 'Molecular Biology' of the past 25 years is the bond it has established between ourselves and the 'lower animals'. They have become so close to us. Indeed, nowadays one has the same feeling of unease in speaking of the 'lower animals' as one would in referring to the 'lower classes' [...] I am sure that insects can feel pain if the right stimulus is given. High temperature seems the clearest example, and perhaps electric shocks. For practical purposes why not assume that that is so? Most operations on insects are actually facilitated if the insect is narcotized."

"Do you know the meaning of the word Goodness? I see you are unwilling to answer. I will tell you. It is, first, to avoid hurting any thing; and then, to contrive to give as much pleasure as you can. If any insects are to be destroyed, to preserve my garden from desolation, I have it done in the quickest way."

"We have shown that the emotional responses of bees to an aversive event are more similar to those of humans than previously thought [...] Bees stressed by a simulated predator attack exhibit pessimism mirroring that seen in depressed and anxious people."

"Be kind and compassionate to all creatures that the Holy One, blessed be He, created in this world. Never beat nor inflict pain on any animal, beast bird or insect. Do not throw stones at a dog or a cat, nor kill flies or wasps."

"Lo, the bright air alive with dragonflies, With brittle wings aquiver, and great eyes Piloting crimson bodies, slender and gay. I aimed at one, and struck it, and it lay Broken and lifeless, with fast-fading dyes. Then my soul sickened with a sudden pain And horror, at my own careless cruelty. That where all things are cruel I had slain A creature whose sweet life it is to fly: Like beasts that prey with bloody ciaw: Nay, they Must slay to live, but what excuse had I?"

"If you want to contribute to the fight against global warming, live in a city in a high-rise apartment—where radiant heat seeps through walls into other people’s units, lowering heating costs—and commute by subway."

"Climate change and biodiversity loss . . . pose an even greater existential threat [than the COVID-19 pandemic], to the extent that we have to put ourselves on what might be called a war-like footing. . . . Putting a value on carbon . . . [is] absolutely critical. . . . [W]e need a vast military style campaign to marshall the strength of the global private sector[, which has] trillions at its disposal . . . . [E]ach sector needs a clear strategy to speed up the process of getting innovations to market [and we] need to align private investment behind these industry strategies. . . . If we can develop a pipeline of many more sustainable and "bankable" projects, at a sufficient scale, it will attract greater investment. . . . CEOs and institutional investors have told me that alongside the promises countries have made, their nationally determined contributions, they need clear market signals, agreed globally, so that they have the confidence to invest without the goal posts suddenly moving. . . . [[wikipedia:Charles III#Natural_environment|[W]e are working]] to drive trillions of dollars in support of transition across ten of the most emitting and polluting industries [including] energy, agriculture, transportation, health systems and fashion. . . . I can only urge you, as the world’s decision-makers, to find practical ways of overcoming differences so we can all . . . rescue this precious planet and save the threatened future of our young people."

"The Green New Deal is modeled after FDRʼs New Deal, which is always celebrated as progressive action that lifted the US out of economic depression through infrastructure development projects like dams and extractive industries that put people to work. Whatʼs far less acknowledged, however, is how much environmental and cultural death and destruction all that development wreaked on Indian country. We see a similar pattern occurring globally in the realm of “sustainable” development, which has given rise to a modern global land rush that impacts Indigenous communities the most. Ultimately, unchecked capitalism is the problem and we need to heed the research that connects cultural diversity with biodiversity if we are to avoid the worst impacts of climate change."

"It is too late for sustainable development."

"When I use the term sustainable development – which I consider to be an oxymoron actually – I am trying to capture the meaning that most people seem to have. In so far as I can tell, people who use the term mean, essentially, that this would be a phase of development where they get to keep what they have but all the poor people can catch up. Or, they get to keep doing what they’ve been doing, but through the magic of technology they are going to cause less damage to the environment and use fewer resources. Either way you use the term, it is just a fantasy. Neither of those is possible – anymore."

"The main challenges of our times are the rise in inequality and global warming. We must therefore implement international treaties enabling us to respond to these challenges and to promote a model for fair and sustainable development."

"There was a strange aftertaste to many of the calls for grand social reform in 2020. As the coronavirus crisis overtook us, the left wing on both sides of the Atlantic, at least that part that had been fired up Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders, was going down to defeat. The promise of a radicalized and reenergized left, organized around the idea of the Green New Deal, seemed to dissipate amidst the pandemic. It fell to governments mainly of the center and the right to meet the crisis. They were a strange assortment. Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and Donald Trump in the United States experimented with denial. For them climate skepticism and virus skepticism went hand in hand. In Mexico, the notionally left-wing government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador also pursued a maverick path, refusing to take drastic action. Nationalist strongmen like Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, Narendra Modi in India, Vladimir Putin in Russia, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey did not deny the virus, but relied on their patriotic appeal and bullying tactics to see them through. It was the managerial centrist types who were under most pressure. Figures like Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer in the United States, or Sebastián Piñera in Chile, or Cyril Ramaphosa in South Africa, Emmanuel Macron, Angela Merkel, Ursula von der Leyen, and their ilk in Europe. They accepted the science. Denial was not an option. They were desperate to demonstrate that they were better than the 'populists.' To meet the crisis, very middle-of-the-road politicians ended up doing very radical things. Most of it was improvisation and compromise, but insofar as they managed to put a programmatic gloss on their responses—whether in the form of the EU's Next Generation program or Biden's Build Back Better program in 2020—it came from the repertoire of green modernization, sustainable development, and the Green New Deal."

"Decoupling growth from is the number one challenge facing governments in a world of rising numbers of people, rising incomes, rising consumption demands and the persistent challenge of poverty alleviation."

"The modern economy is structurally reliant on economic growth for its stability. [...] But question it we must. [...] No subsystem of a finite system can grow indefinitely – at least in physical terms. Economists have to be able to answer the question of how a continually growing economic system can fit within a finite ecological system. The only answer available is that growth in dollars must be 'decoupled' from growth in physical throughputs and environmental impacts. But [...] this hasn't so far achieved what's needed. There are no prospects for it doing so in the immediate future. And the sheer scale of decoupling required to meet the limits set out here (and stay within them in perpetuity while the economy keeps on growing) staggers the imagination. In short, we have no alternative but to question growth. The myth of growth has failed us."

"It is about the most awful thing you can imagine in terms of a non-fatal ailment. It's a parasitic disease and you know you've got it when at some point you develop a blister on your skin on your leg or your arm, and it's a burning blister and soon what emerges is a worm, and it's a worm that eventually, as it comes out, could be three-feet-long. It looks like a long strand of angel hair pasta and it's excruciatingly painful as it comes out. And the way it's transmitted is through drinking water. The worm, when it comes out, you've got that burning blister, your instinct is to want to immerse the skin in water. Well, when you do that, the worm puts out thousands and thousands of larvae that infects the drinking water. If anyone drinks the water, it gets into their system and a year later they develop a blister and out comes another worm."

"All infections, of whatever type, with no exceptions, are products of parasitic beings; that is, by living organisms that enter in other living organisms, in which they find nourishment, that is, food that suits them, here they hatch, grow and reproduce themselves."

"[The parasite that causes malaria] edges through the cells of the stomach wall of the mosquito and forms a cyst which grows and eventually bursts to release hundreds of "sporozoites" into the body cavity of the mosquito [...] As far as we can tell, the parasite does not harm the mosquito [...] It has always seemed to me, though, that these growing cysts [...] must at least give the mosquito something corresponding to a stomach-ache."

"[A] major difficulty in the parasite's life is the return to water. It is, therefore, of particular interest that the parasite appears to affect the behaviour of its hosts, and 'encourages' it to return to water. The mechanism by which this is achieved is obscure, but there are sufficient isolated reports to certify that the parasite does influence its hosts, and often suicidally for the host [...] One of the more dramatic reports describes an infected bee flying over a pool and, when about six feet over it, diving straight into the water. Immediately on impact the gordian worm burst out and swam into the water, the maimed bee being left to die."

"There is an extremely thin line of demarcation between the ferment and the parasite."

"I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidæ with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice."

"Fell Oestrus buries in her rapid course Her countless brood in stag, or bull, or horse; Whose hungry larva eats its living way, Hatch'd by the warmth, and issues into day."

"The wing'd Ichneumon for her embryon young Gores with sharp horn the caterpillar throng. The cruel larva mines its silky course, And tears the vitals of its fostering nurse."

"What keeps snails and flukes apart in evolution is their divergent future interests, and this is because they do not share reproductive propagules. What keeps host genes together with host genes — and parasite genes together with parasite genes - is that they do share future interests. Parasites, then, have led us to the solution to the paradox of the organism. The genes in an organism share desiderata lists. And this is simply because they submit to the same meiotic lottery and possess the same stochastic gametic destiny."

"Let me repeat that these parasitic insects comprise ten percent of all known animal species. How can this be understood? Certainly we give our infants the wrong idea about their fellow creatures in the world. Teddy bears should come with tiny stuffed bearlice; ten percent of all baby bibs and rattles sold should be adorned with colorful blowflies, maggots, and screw-worms. What kind of devil’s tithe do we pay? What percentage of the world’s species that are not insects are parasitic? Could it be, counting bacteria and viruses, that we live in a world in which half the creatures are running from—or limping from—the other half?"

"Whoever looks at the insect world, at flies, aphides, gnats and innumerable parasites, and even at the infant mammals, must have remarked the extreme content they take in suction, which constitutes the main business of their life. If we go into a library or newsroom, we see the same function on a higher plane, performed with like ardor, with equal impatience of interruption, indicating the sweetness of the act. In the highest civilization the book is still the highest delight."

"To choose a rough example, think of a thorn which has stuck in a finger and produces an inflammation and suppuration. Should the thorn be discharged with the pus, then the finger of another individual may be pricked with it, and the disease may be produced a second time. In this case it would not be the disease, not even its product, that would be transmitted by the thorn, but rather the stimulus which engendered it. Now supposing that the thorn is capable of multiplying in the sick body, or that every smallest part may again become a thorn, then one would be able to excite the same disease, inflammation and suppuration, in other individuals by transmitting any of its smallest parts. The disease is not the parasite but the thorn. Diseases resemble one another, because their causes resemble each other. The contagion in our sense is therefore not the germ or seed of the disease, but rather the cause of the disease. For example, the egg of a taenia is not the product of a worm disease even though the worm disease may have been the cause, which first gave rise to the taenia in the intestinal contents—nor of the individual afflicted with the worm disease, but rather of the parasitic body, which, no matter how it may have come into the world at first, now reproduces itself by means of eggs, and produces the symptoms of the worm disease, at least in part. It is not the seed of the disease; the latter multiplies in the sick organism, and is again excreted at the end of the disease."

"It is only within the present epoch, that physiology and chemistry have reached the point at which they could offer a scientific foundation to agriculture; and it is only within the present epoch, that zoology and physiology have yielded any very great aid to pathology and hygiene. But within that time, they have already rendered highly important services by the exploration of the phenomena of parasitism. Not only have the history of the animal parasites, such as the tapeworms and the trichina, which infest men and animals, with deadly results, been cleared up by means of experimental investigations [...] but the terrible agency of the parasitic fungi and of the infinitesimally minute microbes, which work far greater havoc among plants and animals, has been brought to light."

"In this strange and apparently cruel operation one circumstance is truly remarkable. The larva of the Ichneumon, though every day, perhaps for months, it gnaws the inside of the caterpillar, and though at last it has devoured almost every part of it except the skin and intestines, carefully all this time it avoids injuring the vital organs, as if aware that its own existence depends on that of the insect upon which it preys!"

"The facts obtained in this study may possibly be sufficient proof of the causal relationship, that only the most sceptical can raise the objection that the discovered microorganism is not the cause but only an accompaniment of the disease [...] It is necessary to obtain a perfect proof to satisfy oneself that the parasite and the disease are [...] actually causally related, and that the parasite is the [...] direct cause of the disease. This can only be done by completely separating the parasite from the diseased organism [and] introducing the isolated parasite into healthy organisms and induce the disease anew with all its characteristic symptoms and properties."

"Nowhere is it more true that "prevention is better than cure," than in the case of Parasitic Diseases."

"Nearly all birds build nests of some kind in which to cradle their eggs and young. The cow-bird and cuckoo (European), however, are exceptions. These birds have the rather human practice of turning their cares and labours over to somebody else. They are loafers and parasites. They lay their eggs secretly in the nests of other birds, where their eggs are hatched and their young cared for by an alien mother. I have seen a mother song-sparrow hustling about among the shrubs and grasses for an hour at a time almost, gathering food for a young cow-bird nearly twice as big as she was, while her foundling sat phlegmatically at the foot of a tree chirping and fluttering its wings, and acting as a thankless and apparently bottomless receptacle for the morsel after morsel laboriously harvested for it by its tireless little foster-mother."

"I hope no such planet exists, but consider one where slow, painful death from parasitism is universal. How would we talk about nature on such a planet? What kind of book would Thoreau have written there?"

"Some species of carpenter ants infected with metacercariae of the fluke Brachylecithutn mosquensis, are more obese than noninfected ants and, unlike the latter, they do not conceal themselves but crawl on exposed surfaces where they are easily found by birds that are the next hosts of the fluke. This behaviour seems to be a remarkable example of an animal that sacrifices its life for its parasites. The 'sacrifice', of course, is induced by the parasite."

"The belief is growing on me that the disease is communicated by the bite of the mosquito [...] She always injects a small quantity of fluid with her bite—what if the parasites get into the system in this manner."

"I have failed in finding parasites in mosquitoes fed on malaria patients, but perhaps I am not using the proper kind of mosquito."

"Lately, however, on abandoning the brindled and grey mosquitos and commencing similar work on a new, brown species, of which I have as yet obtained very few individuals, I succeeded in finding in two of them certain remarkable and suspicious cells containing pigment identical in appearance to that of the parasite of malaria. As these cells appear to me to be very worthy of attention [...] I think it would be advisable to place on record a brief description both of the cells and of the mosquitos."

"This day relenting God Hath placed within my hand A wondrous thing; and God Be praised. At His command, Seeking His secret deeds With tears and toiling breath, I find thy cunning seeds, O million-murdering Death. I know this little thing A myriad men will save. O Death, where is thy sting? Thy victory, O Grave? [Poem he wrote following the discovery that the malaria parasite was carried by the amopheline mosquito]"

"After long pondering, I believe that I can define good and evil in terms to which even a biologist of the mechanical school can hardly take exception. At least, I fancy that I can do so for evil. The great evil of life is parasitism."

"I can think of a few microorganisms, possibly the tubercle bacillus, the syphilis spirochete, the malarial parasite, and a few others, that have a selective advantage in their ability to infect human beings, but there is nothing to be gained, in an evolutionary sense, by the capacity to cause illness or death. Pathogenicity may be something of a disadvantage for most microbes."

"The insidious lethality of a parasitic wasp, the cruelty of a cat playing with a mouse – these are, after all, just the tip of the iceberg. To ponder natural selection is to be staggered by the amount of suffering and death that can be the price for a single, slight advance in organic design. And it is to realize, moreover, that the purpose of this "advance" – longer, sharper canine teeth in male chimpanzees, say – is often to make other animals suffer or die more surely. Organic design thrives on pain, and pain thrives on organic design."

"[[w: Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions|The BDS [Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions] movement]] was launched in 2005 by representatives of Palestinian civil society. They called upon “international civil society organizations and people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era …” This call for BDS specified that “these non-violent punitive measures” should last until Israel fully complies with international law..."

"Divestment campaigns urge banks, local councils, churches, pension funds and universities to withdraw investments from all Israeli companies and from international companies involved in violating Palestinian rights... BDS initiatives have been passed by more than 50 councils in Spain and by dozens of other councils in the U.K., Australia, Sweden, Norway and Ireland. U.S. churches, including the Presbyterian Church USA, the United Church of Christ and the United Methodist Church (UMC), and several Quaker bodies have voted to divest from Israeli and international companies targeted by the BDS movement. Academic associations in the U.S., Canada, Ireland, South Africa and the U.K. have voted to support BDS. More than 30 U.S. student associations and 11 Canadian student associations have voted to support divestment from Israeli apartheid... The E.U. has introduced rules prohibiting funding of Israeli companies and bodies based in illegal Israeli settlements and has warned businesses about the risks of doing business with illegal Israeli settlements."

"In recent budget negotiations, Senate Democrats agreed to a boost in military spending that exceeded the cap for fiscal 2018 by $70 billion, bringing the total request to an enormous $716 billion... more Pentagon contracts will be awarded to private corporations that use endless war to line their pockets... If neither major political party will stand up to this status quo, what can be done? One answer might be found in the recent push to divest from fossil fuel companies undertaken by, among others, Norway and New York City. By December of 2016, 688 institutions, representing over $5 trillion in assets, had divested from fossil fuels... Author Naomi Klein described the fossil fuel divestment effort as “a process of delegitimizing” the sector and of affirming that it yields “odious profits.” An analogous campaign to delegitimize beneficiaries of war is long overdue."

"In addition to pressuring our members of Congress to refuse campaign donations from weapons manufacturers and war profiteers, we must mount a divestment effort at the institutional and municipal level. Investment in war must come at the cost of public disgrace... Divestment offers an alternate means of addressing the blight of war profiteering in an era in which traditional political routes have been closed by our craven representatives. It also brings the message into smaller communities–communities that crumble while defense contractors live in luxury...A new coalition of about 70 groups... has formed to launch a Divest From the War Machine campaign"

"We will not invest in our annihilation. Now we can avoid it... Our world and everything we care about is threatened every moment of every day by nuclear weapons, either by intent, accident, miscalculation or cyber-attack. These weapons, though now illegal following the July 2017 U.N. “Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons”, adopted by 122 nations, continue to be modernized at an expected cost of $1.7 trillion over the next 30 years... Now is the time to stop the insanity and divest of nuclear weapons just as apartheid was ultimately stopped by divestment in South Africa. If we want to abolish nuclear weapons, we must stop investing in them. The just released “Don’t Bank On The Bomb“ report draws attention to the “Hall Of Shame” companies that are either financing or producing nuclear weapons and their components."

"Ultimately, nuclear weapons will be abolished. They will either be abolished through the means outlined in the “Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons” and by divesting from them or, through their use in nuclear war, the aftermath of which may end all of life on this planet. The choice is ours. Our children and the future of the planet demand abolition now."

"The Vatican urged Catholics on Thursday to disinvest from the armaments and fossil fuel industries and to closely monitor companies in sectors such as mining to check if they are damaging the environment. The calls were contained in a 225-page manual for church leaders and workers to mark the fifth anniversary of Pope Francis’ landmark encyclical “Laudato Si” (Praised Be) on the need to protect nature, life and defenseless people. The compendium suggests practical steps to achieve the goals of the encyclical, which strongly supported agreements to contain global warming and warned against the dangers of climate change. The manual’s section on finance said people “could favor positive changes ... by excluding from their investments companies that do not satisfy certain parameters.” It listed these as respect for human rights, bans on child labor and protection of the environment... Last month, more that 40 faith organizations from around the world, more than half of them Catholic, pledged to divest from fossil fuel companies. The document urges Catholics to defend the rights of local populations to have a say in whether their lands can be used for oil or mineral extraction and the right to take strong stands against companies that cause environmental disasters or over-exploit natural resources such as forests."

"Over 550 students and alumni are calling on the University to divest from the U.S. prison system and publicly disclose its endowment holdings. “We, the undersigned, call upon the Princeton University Investment Company (PRINCO) to immediately and unequivocally divest Princeton’s holdings from the Prison-Industrial Complex,” notes a petition by Students for Prison Education, Abolition, and Reform (SPEAR)... The campaign broadens the definition of the prison complex system to include public prisons at the local, state, and federal levels. It also includes companies, such as Aramark, a food services corporation...that profit from the prison system... As of 2013, prisoners held in privately owned prisons constitute 8.4 percent of the total U.S. prison population... Such a small percentage makes the University’s divestment from private prisons “low-hanging fruit,” said Masha Miura ’21... Given the University’s renewed commitment “to identify specific actions that can be taken in their areas of responsibility to confront racism” in June — SPEAR leaders expect substantive change. For Miura, private and public prisons alike are enmeshed in capitalism. Private companies serving the prison system also receive funding from the government and actively marginalize and abuse people of color..."

"The College’s endowment will no longer be directly invested in fossil fuels and the Dartmouth Investment Office intends to allow its remaining public holdings in the sector to expire, according to an Oct. 8 announcement. Although this release marks the College’s first formal announcement of its divestment plan, the DIO banned fossil fuel holdings in 2020. The College’s divestment approach results from two decisions made over a four-year span: a 2017 decision that barred the endowment from making any “new investments in private fossil fuel extraction, exploration and production funds” and a decision in early 2020 “for [the College’s] direct public portfolio to no longer hold investments in fossil fuel companies,” according to the announcement. The move comes after Harvard University announced a similar divestment strategy in September, after the 2021 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report outlined the disastrous effects of continued climate inaction, after the student body presidents of the eight Ivy League schools called on the League to divest in April and after years of activism from Divest Dartmouth... According to the statement, “evidence that correlates the production of fossil fuels with the warming of the atmosphere is convincing and widely accepted.”"

"Together, these bylaws prohibit any future fossil fuel investments from entering the endowment....As the terms of these partnerships approach their legally-contracted conclusions… the [investment] managers will move through the sale processes of those assets... In the past few years... the College has found that the investment in sustainable energy companies provides great returns and also allows the College to support new technology developments and make a huge difference.... Our investment team’s analysis indicated that there is a continued growing global shift in demand towards renewable and clean energy,... What we’ve noticed is that investments in energy transitions are now comparable or better than the investment opportunities in fossil fuel companies...Our investment team’s analysis indicated that there is a continued growing global shift in demand towards renewable and clean energy... What we’ve noticed is that investments in energy transitions are now comparable or better than the investment opportunities in fossil fuel companies."

"A movement to divest from fossil fuel is gaining support among foundations as activists push for funding to be shifted away from coal, oil and natural gas. The call from activists to the charitable world is simple: Ditch fossil fuels and direct your investments into climate-friendly companies and funds. The worldwide divestment campaign has sought commitments from universities, corporations and other entities. Now, two of the biggest names in philanthropy — the Ford and MacArthur foundations — are reorienting their investments away from fossil fuels, a move that leaders of the divestment movement hope will prove to be a tipping point for the charitable world.... “We’re calling on governments and corporations to act on climate aggressively and commensurate with the science,” said Ellen Dorsey, executive director of the Wallace Global Fund and a leader in Divest-Invest Philanthropy, which is pushing the philanthropic community to dump its fossil fuel investments.... The MacArthur Foundation, an $8 billion organization known for its “genius grants,” pledged two years ago to halt new investments in oil and gas. It went further in September, saying it would switch to U.S. index funds that exclude fossil fuel companies. And it's aiming to change its global index funds to do the same within a year."

"On October 27, University of Toronto (UofT) President Meric Gertler announced the university’s commitment to divest from fossil fuel companies within its endowment fund of $4 billion, citing findings from the United Nations and the World Health Organization on the impending climate crisis which “now demands bold actions that have both substantive and symbolic impact.” This divestment includes a pledge to divest from all direct investments in fossil fuel companies within the next 12 months... This decision follows those of many other universities across Canada and the United States in the past few years, including Concordia University in 2019 and Harvard University this past September....As of 2021, approximately 220 postsecondary institutions have divested from the fossil fuel industry. UofT’s decision was motivated by its perceived role as a leading academic institution to meet the “urgent challenge” of the climate crisis and its responsibility for the detrimental effects that will “disproportionately fall on students and generations of future students and children around the world.”"

"The city’s mayor signed a bill to eliminate the controversial investments by 2025. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu has signed into law an ordinance to divest the city from the fossil fuel, tobacco, and private prison industries by the end of 2025. The ordinance prohibits using public funds to invest in the stocks, securities, or other obligations of any company that derives more than 15% of its revenue from those industries. Under the new law, fossil fuel investments are defined as investments in any company that derives more than 15% of its revenue from the combustion, distribution, extraction, manufacture, or sale of fossil fuels, including coal, oil and gas, or fossil fuel products. It also includes electric distribution companies with corporate affiliates that derive revenue from fossil fuels."

"Boston is among an increasing number of municipalities, universities, and private foundations that have announced plans to divest from fossil fuels. In late October, ahead of the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, better known as COP26, Auckland, New Zealand; Copenhagen, Denmark; Glasgow, Scotland; Paris; Rio de Janeiro; and Seattle announced commitments to divest from fossil fuel companies and increase investments to make cities more sustainable. Also last month, Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott signed a bill that requires the city’s three pension funds to divest from the fossil fuel industry. Those are in addition to divestment commitments made last year by Berlin; Bristol, England; Cape Town, South Africa; Durban, South Africa; London; Los Angeles; Milan; New Orleans; New York City; Oslo; Norway; Pittsburgh; and Vancouver, Canada. “Cities are at the forefront of tackling the climate emergency and there is real momentum to move investments away from fossil fuels and toward climate solutions,” London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who is chair-elect of C40 Cities, a network of mayors working to confront climate change, said in a statement. “I will continue to encourage more cities to join the movement, and urge national governments and private finance institutions to mobilize more finance to invest directly in cities to support a green and fair recovery.”"

"Nature seems to have taken pleasure in embellishing and enriching the favoured country of Hindostan with every choicest gift. Under a pure sky and brilliant sun the soil produces the most exquisite fruits, and the most abundant harvests; the rocks are rich in gems, the mountains teem with gold, and the fleecy pod of the cotton furnishes in profusion the light garment fitted to the climate. In travelling in the interior, your eyes will often be enchanted with the most delicious landscapes. Amidst stupendous forests you will not unfrequently be charmed with a cultivated spot, where, if ever, you might realize the dreams of the poets, and indulge in that impassioned indolence which is the parent of poetry and of the fine arts."

"In the country of Hindustan there are four defences,... The second defence consists of woods and forests and trees, which, interweaving stem with stem and branch with branch, render it very difficult to penetrate into that country."

"My upbringing does not allow me to take a life... When we go against nature then everything becomes dangerous; human beings too become dangerous. On the other hand, if we co-operate with nature, then she also co-operates with us."

"We really are approaching the end of the era of expanding man. ...Man has always had somewhere to go... somewhere to beckon him as a virgin land of promise. ...The photographs of the earth by astronauts in lunar orbit symbolize the end of this era. ...[T]he earth is a beautiful little spaceship, all blue and green and white, with baroque cloud patterns... and its destination is unknown. It is getting pretty crowded and its resources rather limited. The problem of the present age is that of the transition from the Great Plains into the spaceship or what Barbara Ward and I have been calling spaceship earth. ...[W]e must develop a cyclical economy within which man can maintain an agreeable state. ...[T]he idea of the GNP simply falls apart. ...This is a fundamental change in human consciousness, and it will require an adjustment of our ethical, religious, and national systems which may be quite traumatic. ...If the whole world developed to American standards overnight, we would run out of everything in 100 years. Economic development... will result in final catastrophe unless we treat this interval in the history of man as an opportunity to make the transition to spaceship earth. ...We will have to aim for much lower levels of growth, because the cyclical process costs more than the throughput does. ...The idea that we are moving into a world of absolutely secure and effortless abundance is nonsense."

"The ethic of of the land is not yet part of the national consciousness. People are coming to it only gradually. They have yet to be convinced that we're on the Spaceship Earth, and it's all we have."

"The metaphor of ‘Spaceship Earth’ employed by a diverse array of scientists, economists and politicians during the 1960s and 1970s points to the Cold War origins of the first global environmentalist movement. With the advent of Spaceship Earth, nature itself became at once technological artifact and a vital object of Cold War gamesmanship. The evolution of this metaphor uncovers the connections between Cold War technologies such as nuclear weapons, space travel and cybernetics, and the birth of the first global environmentalist movement. Revisiting Spaceship Earth may help us to better understand the implicit assumptions that have both empowered and limited that movement."

"Young people are always asking what it's like to be on a spaceship... Well, what does it feel like? Because that's what you're on. The Earth is a very small spaceship hurtling through space. ...This spaceship is so superbly designed that we've had men on board here for about two million years reproducing themselves, thanks to the ecological balance ...all the vegetation is breathing up [out] all the gases needed by the mammals and all the mammals are giving off all the gases needed by the vegetation ..."

"It is a well-provisioned ship, this on which we sail through space. If the bread and beef above decks seem to grow scarce, we but open a hatch and there is a new supply, of which before we never dreamed. And very great command over the services of others comes to those who as the hatches are opened are permitted to say, "This is mine!""

"Until recently, economists have not been particularly carried away with concern over environmental problems caused by industrial development. ...[T]he few economists ...who have always sounded the alarm ...are somewhat out of the mainstream. These humanist concerns seem to have gone out of style after the age of classical economics. Even the conventional analytical models of contemporary economics seem to prefer to exclude these concepts by ignoring them entirely or by shunting them off into their own branch, called "economic externalities." ...In recent years concern over these ...externalities has grown. The environmentalists are beginning to be included in the mainstream. ...Attempts are even being made to extend the theoretical framework to include the changes in the environment caused by economic activity... The Materials Flow of the Economy... sees the human race living on a 'space ship earth' in which all the inputs and outputs, all the original resources and all the final wastes, must be accounted for. ...[W]hen the materials are returned in the form of smoke, sewage, garbage, junk, heat, noise, and a wide variety of noxious gases... the change is seldom for the better. ...[T]he less production that is needed to maintain an adequate level of affluence, the better. An efficient economy is one that gets big results with little effort. More industries, more mines, more businesses, more employment, and more consumer goods do not always mean more well-being... because all these also mean more destruction of our natural resources and despoilation of our surroundings."

"Spaceship Earth not only illustrated but also created a fundamental shift in the conception of life and living space on the earth that brought about new regimes and visions of efficiency. Spaceship Earth signified the threat to earth as a natural habitat, but it also created expectations for science and technology to provide a 'blueprint for survival', substituting the of the earth with possible surrogate spaces elsewhere. ...[T]he singular historical constellation around... 1970... may be characterized by the intersection of the aspirations of space flight, rising environmental concerns, Cold War conflicts, the consciousness of a new global interdependence, and... the hitherto unprecedented potential for intervention—and destruction—by scientific and technological means. ...New in the 1960s were not the environmental concerns but the optimistic ideas of being able to turn the dismal fate of the planet into a bright future planned by scientists and engineers. ...[U]p to the late 80s ...Spaceship Earth did not simply serve as a metaphor to express the fragility of the planet; rather... a range of aspects associated with the constraint and crowdedness of the earth. Spaceship Earth became the central part of a mythology to present the problems of planetary closure meaningfully and to propose strategies and solutions of escape."

"What is man? As Homo sapiens he experiences the ecological crisis with all the rest of Spaceship Earth: but as imago Dei he alone knows it, writes books and laws about it, and is able to pray for as well as prey on his fellow creatures. ...Co-author H. Paul Santmire devotes the second half of the volume to an impassioned plea for the reorientation in human values at this critical juncture in man's ecological life. The issue, he contends, is... the survival of humanity. ...Thinking ecologically ...calls for a restructuring of our entire way of life. ...Immediate remedies include the stabalization and reduction of population growth, a radical cut-back in the non-essentials of economic growth, massive programs for recycling and pollution control, the substitution of cooperation for competition as the prevailing ethos of community life, and a thoroughgoing redistribution of wealth. ...Chaplain Santmire calls for the acceptance of a universal good to serve as the valuational fuel for the moral inhabitants of Spaceship Earth."

"Bucky's phrase "Spaceship Earth" captured the imagination not only of those young graduates but also the imagination of the world. People use it commonly today. More importantly, our view of the earth, our planning and direction for the future, and our understanding of the universe have all been influenced significantly by this use of Bucky's concept."

"The lives of 3½ billion astronauts on board Spaceship Earth are just about as much in peril today as were the men aboard Apollo 13 in 1970. However, the pervasive irony of this analogy is that we... have nowhere else to go... We must begin to treat our spaceship within this context. ...Proper and moderate use of our mineral resources is necessary. Maintaining the correct atmospheric mixture of oxygen, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen is critical. Renewable resources such as minerals, gases, and water must be returned to their cycles in a reusable form. Solid wastes on board... must be efficiently disposed of... in a form that can be degraded by decomposer organisms so that such materials will not accumulate. ...In short, the environment of the spacecraft must be kept orderly, balanced, and efficient. ...[P]otentially, overpopulation is more dangerous than a malfunctioning of... life-support systems... We can restore the craft's environment only if we fully understand not only its processes, causes, and effects, but also all the ramifications of our attempts at restoration... [and] the physical inner-workings of the entire system. ...[T]he current environmental crisis can ultimately be alleviated only by a massive shift in our individual and corporate lifestyles. ...Drastic changes in our economic, sociological, political, moral, ecological, and religious practices and beliefs must occur ...to live in relative harmony... to change our style of living... to that of a spaceman... being, acting, thinking, living, and responding like an astronaut on board Spaceship Earth."

"The world is a raft sailing through space with, potentially, plenty of provisions for everybody; the idea that we must all cooperate and see to it that everyone does his fair share of the work and gets his fair share of the provisions seems so blatantly obvious that one would say that no one could possibly fail to accept it unless he had some corrupt motive for clinging to the present system."

"It was during one of the Apollo flights that... ... exclaimed, "the earth from here is a grand oasis in the great vastness of space." From these words and from pictures showing a tiny marbled sphere developed the popular metaphor—spaceship earth. Our tiny spaceship carries its own life support system: atmosphere for supporting respiration, vegetation for supporting life, and resources that can be transformed into goods and services. ...[W]e hope that studies of our past history (...as far as 5 billion years) as to the way... earth evolved... will help us in predicting our future course. ...We develop the broad concept of earth as an ecosphere (ecological system) and include... speculations pertaining to the long range future of earth as an inhabitable planet."

"We travel together, passengers on a spaceship, dependent on its vulnerable reserves of air and soil; all committed for our safety to its security and peace; preserved from annihilation only by the care, the work, and I will say the love we give our fragile craft. We cannot maintain it half fortunate, half miserable, half confident, half despairing, half slave to the ancient enemies of man, half free in liberation of resources undreamed of until this day. No craft, no crew can travel safely with such vast contradictions. On their resolution depends the survival of us all."

"[A]t long last the concept of Earth Day, of world patriotism and of the family of man, have come into being. May there only be peaceful and cheerful Earth Days to come for our beautiful space ship Earth as it continues to spin and circle in frigid space with its warm and fragile cargo of animate life."

"In the last few decades, mankind has been overcome by the most fateful change in its entire history. Modern science and technology have created so close a network of communication, transport, economic interdependence—and potential nuclear destruction—that planet earth, on its journey through infinity, has acquired the intimacy, the fellowship, and the vulnerability of a spaceship. In such a close community, there must be rules for survival. We have... a reasonable idea of... the rules... since we live by them inside our own domestic society. We abandon the "right" to settle... disputes by force and violence and hand them over to... impartial... courts of law. And... we expect... through the concept of "general welfare"—that misery, grievance, and injustice do not drive us to violence. ...These ...are what we have to seek in the world at large. ...The gaps in wealth [and] ideology ...make up the abyss into which mankind can fall to annihilation. It is on these disproportions that world policy has to concentrate... a reasonable balance of power... wealth... between the planet's developed... and underdeveloped... a reasonable balance of understanding and tolerance between... creeds. Then... there can be... hope of building the common institutions, policies, and beliefs which the crew of Spaceship Earth must acquire... to have... hope of survival."

"Hugh Downs: We have harnessed the power of the atom. We have reached the moon. And yet we do not seem to understand our place on earth and the natural laws that govern us. It is in the understanding of these laws, and action in concord with them, that our salvation lies: the salvation of the earth and our own salvation. There is still time. Raymond Burr: Hopeful times are beginning to appear on the international horizon. The recent agreements signed between the United States and the Soviet Union on mutual environmental problems is a large step forward. Only through international cooperation can we hope to correct the crisis facing all mankind. Hugh Downs: Man inhabits two worlds, the natural one that preceded us by billions of years, and the world we have built from our technology using our machines and science to create an environment obedient to our purpose and directions. And now, as we reach the last stages of the twentieth century, there is a spreading sense of awareness that something fundamental and irrevocable is happening to man's relations between both his worlds. Our new knowledge of planetary interdependence demands a reshaping of our individual loyalty. We must develop a sense of planetary community and commitment. We must make our earth a center of rational loyalty for all mankind. Nationalistic loyalties must become secondary to our allegiance to earth. We can only hope to survive in all our prized diversity by achieving an ultimate loyalty and devotion to our single, beautiful, vulnerable planet, the earth. Alone in its life-supporting systems, powered by inconceivable energies mediated for us through the most delicate adjustments. Is this not a precious home for all us earthlings? Is it not worthy of our love? Does it not deserve all the courage and care of which we are capable, to preserve it from degradation and destruction? Now for the first time in the history of man an international movement is underway. The people of the nations, and the nations of the world, have joined together to find the answers. ...[T]he world's representatives hold the solution. We have seen what we've done to bring about the destruction of our earth. Is it not the time now now to cure the disease that we ourselves have created? The answer is in our own hands. In your hands. Don't let this moment in time pass, or we may never have another, not in our lifetime, not in anyone's lifetime."

"Systems may be open or closed in respect to a number of inputs and outputs. Three important classes are matter, energy, and information. The present world economy is open to all three. We can think of the world economy or "econosphere" as a subset of the "world set," ...the set of all objects, people, organizations [etc.] This total stock of capital is... an open system... it has inputs... being production which adds to the capital stock, [and] outputs being consumption which subtracts from it. ...[W]e see objects passing from the noneconomic into the economic in... production, and... products passing out of the economic set as their [monetary] value becomes zero. Thus we see the econosphere as a material process involving the discovery and mining of fossil fuels, ores, etc., and at the other end... effluents... are passed out into noneconomic reservoirs—[e.g.,] the atmosphere and the oceans—which... do not enter into the exchange system."

"[T]he econosphere involves inputs of... energy... In advance societies this is supplemented very extensively by the use of fossil fuels, which represent... a capital stock of stored-up sunshine. ...This supplementary input ...is by its very nature exhaustible."

"We can think of the stock of knowledge, or as Teilhard de Chardin called it, the "noosphere," and consider this as an open system, losing knowledge through aging and death and gaining it through birth and education and the ordinary experience of life. ...A machine ...originated in the mind of man, and both its construction and... use involve information processes imposed... by man... The cumulation of knowledge... is the key to human development... especially economic development. ...[W]here the material capital has been destroyed by war, as in Japan and Germany... knowledge was not destroyed, and it did not take long... for most of the material capital to be reestablished..."

"One of the great puzzles... is why the take-off into science... an "acceleration," in the... growth in knowledge in European society in the sixteenth century, did not take place in China, which... was ahead of Europe... Perhaps the most significant factor... is the existence of "slack" in... culture, which permits a divergence from established patterns and activity... not merely devoted to reproducing the existing society but... to changing it."

"I am tempted to call the open economy the "cowboy economy," ...symbolic of the illimitable plains and... reckless, exploitative, romantic, and violent behavior... characteristic of open societies. The closed economy of the future might... be called the "spaceman" economy, in which the earth has become a single spaceship, without unlimited reservoirs of anything, either for extraction or for pollution, and in which, therefore, man must find his place in a cyclical ecological system..."

"In the cowboy economy, consumption is regarded as... good... and production likewise; and... success is measured by the amount of throughput... If there are infinite reservoirs from which material can be obtained and into which effluvia can be deposited... throughput is... a plausible measure of... success... The gross national product is a rough measure of... total throughput."

"It should be possible... to distinguish that part of the GNP... derived from exhaustible and that... derived from reproducible resources, as well as that part of consumption which represents effluvia and that which represents input into the productive system again. Nobody, as far as I know, has ever attempted to break down the GNP in this way..."

"[I]n the spaceman economy... any technological change which results in the maintenance of a given total stock with a lessened throughput ([i.e.,] less production and consumption) is... a gain. This idea that both production and consumption are bad... is very strange to economists..."

"It is always... hard to find a convincing answer to the man who says, "What has posterity ever done for me?" ...[A] society which loses its identity with posterity and ...its positive image of the future loses also its capacity to deal with the present problems, and soon falls apart."

"[T]omorrow is not only very close, but in many respects it is already here. The shadow of the future spaceship... is already falling over our spendthrift merriment. ...[T]he fouling of the nest which has been typical of man's activity... on a local scale now seems to be extending to the whole world society... [O]ne... cannot view with equanimity the present rate of pollution... atmosphere... lakes... oceans."

"We are all familiar... with the wastes... in planned obsolescence... competitive advertising... poor quality of consumer goods. ...[N]o serious attempt has been made to assess the impact ...of changes in durability ...[W]e have underestimated ...the gains from increased durability ...one of the places where the price system needs correction through government-sponsored research and development."

"The problems which spaceship earth is going to present... are not all in the future... Many of the immediate problems of pollution of the atmosphere or of bodies of water arise because of the failure of the price system, and many... could be solved by corrective taxation. If people had to pay the losses due to the nuisances they create, a good deal more resources would go into... prevention..."

"The law of torts... is inadequate to provide for correction of the price system... There needs, therefore, to be special legislation to cover these cases... If we were to adopt in principle a law for tax penalties for social damages, with an apparatus for making assessments... a very large portion of current pollution and deterioration of the environment would be prevented."

"[W]e are endowed with ...intuitive and intellectual capabilities as ...discovering the genes and the R.N.A and D.N.A. and other fundamental principles governing ...life systems as well as of nuclear energy and chemical structuring as part of the ...design of the Spaceship Earth ...It is ...paradoxical ...that ...we have been mis-using, abusing, and polluting this ...system for successfully regenerating all life aboard our planetary spaceship. ...We have not been seeing our Spaceship Earth as an integrally-designed machine which to be persistently successful must be comprehended and serviced in total."

"[W]e can make all of humanity successful through science's world-engulfing industrial evolution provided that we are not so foolish as to continue to exhaust in a split second of astronomical history the orderly energy savings of billions of years' energy conservation aboard our Spaceship Earth. These energy savings have been put into our Spaceship's life-regeneration-guaranteeing bank account for use only in self-starter functions. ...Thereafter , our "main engine," the life regenerating processes, must operate exclusively on our vast daily energy income from ...wind, tide, water, and direct Sun radiation energy. The fossil-fuel savings account... for the exclusive function of getting the new machinery built... to be sustained exclusively on our Sun's radiation's and Moon pull gravity's tidal, wind, and rainfall generated pulsating and therefore harnessable energies. The daily income energies are excessively adequate for the operation of our main industrial engines and their... productions. The energy expended in one minute of tropical hurricane equals the combined energy of all the U.S.A. and U.S.S.R. nuclear weapons."

"All our efforts to defeat poverty and pursue sustainable development will be in vain if environmental degradation and natural resource depletion continue unabated."

"Environmental and are at root social crises. They are caused by profound problems in the social world, by elites, and the hierarchical control of decision-making and allocation of resources in profit-driven, expansionistic, ecocidal capitalist societies. As social problems, environmental crises require social solutions, namely radical political change seeking to create just, democratic, and sustainable societies. What we today call “natural disasters,” are at [the] root [of] social disasters that must be addressed if we are to solve the global . We must not only transform our and speciesist identities, our arrogant and vainglorious forms of human supremacism and pathological alienation, we must also transform our growth-oriented, profit-driven, meat-based, fossil fuel addicted societies. For millennia, the western world above all has lived by the philosophy of humans first, even humans only. It is now time for a new philosophy of earth first whereby humanity begins the arduous process of -- radically reducing their population numbers and consumption levels, rewilding natural environments and reserving vast habitats for wildlife alone, and shifting from a growth-oriented to a steady-state sustainable economy."

"The growth and progress upon which we looked back with such pride had committed mankind to living on a scale that exceeds the sustainable carrying capacity of this finite planet, and the leaders of nations continued to devote far more effort toward attempting to prolong overshoot than toward undoing it. Reluctance to face facts was driving us to make bad matters worse. The faster the present generation draws down the fossil energy legacy upon which persistently exuberant lifestyles now depend, the less opportunity posterity will have to live in anything like the same way or the same numbers. Yet most contemporary political proposals for solving problems of economic stagnation or inequity amount to plans for speeding up the rate of drawdown of non-renewable resources."

"Our way of walking on the Earth has a great influence on animals and plants. We have killed so many animals and plants and destroyed their environments. Many are now extinct. In turn, our environment is now harming us. We are like sleepwalkers, not knowing what we are doing or where we are heading. Whether we can wake up or not depends on whether we can walk mindfully on our Mother Earth. The future of all life, including our own, depends on our mindful steps."

"Using science, technology, and cheap energy, we expanded farmlands, chain-sawed forests, exploited fisheries, mined minerals, pumped oil, and flattened mountains for their buried coal. And we did these things in a way that was not remotely sustainable. By harvesting renewable resources faster than they could regrow, by using non-renewable resources that could not be recycled, and by choking environments with industrial wastes, we were borrowing from future generations and from other species."

"In the last few decades entire new categories of waste have come to plague and menace the American scene…. Pollution is growing at a rapid rate…. Pollution destroys beauty and menaces health. It cuts down on efficiency, reduces property values and raises taxes…. Almost all these wastes and pollutions are the result of activities carried on for the benefit of man. A prime national goal must be an environment that is pleasing to the senses and healthy to live in. Our Government is already doing much in this field. We have made significant progress. But more must be done."

"Generations of Americans will pay the Republican campaign debt to the energy industry with global instability, depleted national coffers and increased vulnerability to price shocks in the oil market. They will also pay with reduced prosperity and quality of life at home. Pollution from power plants and traffic smog will continue to skyrocket. Carbon-dioxide emissions will aggravate global warming. Acid rain from Midwestern coal plants has already sterilized half the lakes in the Adirondacks and destroyed the forest cover in the high peaks of the Appalachian range up into Canada. The administration's attacks on science and the law have put something even greater at risk. Americans need to recognize that we are facing not just a threat to our environment but to our values, and to our democracy."

"We are deluged by information regarding our destruction of the world and hear almost nothing about how to nurture it. It is no surprise then that environmentalism becomes synonymous with dire predictions and powerless feelings. Our natural inclination to do right by the world is stifled, breeding despair when it should be inspiring action. The participatory role of people in the well-being of the land has been lost, our reciprocal relations reduced to a Keep Out sign. [...] People do know the consequences of our collective damage, they do know the wages of an extractive economy, but they don’t stop. They get very sad, they get very quiet. So quiet that protection of the environment that enables them to eat and breathe and imagine a future for their children doesn’t even make it onto a list of their top ten concerns. The Haunted Hayride of dumps, the melting glaciers, the litany of doomsday projections—they move anyone who is still listening only to despair. Despair is paralysis. It robs us of agency. It blinds us to our own power and the power of the earth."

"We are already experiencing huge cost externalities from population hypergrowth and profligate fossil fuel use in the form of environmental devastation. Of the earth’s estimated 10 million species, 300,000 have vanished in the past fifty years. Each year, 3,000 to 30,000 species become extinct, an all-time high for the last 65 million years. Within one hundred years, between one-third and two-thirds of all birds, animals, plants, and other species will be lost. Nearly 25 percent of the 4,630 known mammal species are now threatened with extinction, along with 34 percent of fish, 25 percent of amphibians, 20 percent of reptiles, and 11 percent of birds. Even more, species are having population declines. Environmental scientists speak of an “omega point” at which the vast interconnected networks of Earth’s ecologies are so weakened that human existence is no longer possible."

"The Industrial Revolution still cannot be considered an unqualified success, for all the comfort and convenience enjoyed by a minority of people in the world. Where we stand now is the brink of unprecedented damage to the ecology of the only habitable planet in the only universe we know of, and I refer not just to climate change—which may or may not be caused by human activity —but to all the other insults and injuries we’ve done to the biosphere. While industrialism led to the formation of a prosperous middle class, it also plunged millions of people into the grimmest kind of regimented quasislavery in conditions that were arguably no improvement over their grandparents’ lives as agricultural peasants (or their distant ancestors as hunter-gatherers)."

"The human predicament was exceptional in that, empowered by a planetary larder of fossil fuels, they developed a global complex society, grew exuberantly at the expense of surrounding life, and collapsed a planetary life-support system. The consumer society selected for a phantom of happiness/purpose that the consumer bots were conditioned to pursue by working to make ‘money’ they use to consume products produced by an economic system NOT REMOTELY CLOSE TO SUSTAINABLE. Our collective unintended Calhoun rat-like experiment on ourselves is having what should be expected outcomes as our empire-building socio-economic pathology makes for a world of pathologies (or what was merely a world of wounds as Aldo Leopold noted) filled by human pathogens."

"… our use of fire is at the core [of our predicament] and is the real creator and destroyer."

"Native birds and small mammals are already being negatively affected on multiple fronts by climate change, urban development, deforestation, toxic chemicals, invasive species, and the degradation of native grasslands. Domestic and feral cats are just one more factor making their survival increasingly tenuous. The effects on our environment from the loss of the multitude of small mammals and birds extend well beyond their direct killing by domestic cats. Birds are important for the pollination and seed dispersal of many plants. Small mammals are prey for bobcats, foxes, dingoes, weasels, caracals, ocelots, snakes, and birds of prey. Domestic cats have essentially replaced all those animals in urban and rural areas."

"Over timescales relevant to civilization (which began 10,000 years ago with agriculture and cities), plots of almost anything relating to human activity look like hockey sticks: population, agricultural output, industrial output, mined materials, deforestation, species extinctions, and so on. Many of these certainly correlate to population growth, but the per capita impacts also have shot up, compounding the human footprint to a frightening degree. At this point, humans and their livestock account for 96% of mammal mass on the planet, leaving a mere 4% for all wild animals (half of this from massive whales and other marine mammals). It’s not just a footprint any more: it’s a boot on the throat of the planet, leaving non-human life gasping and silently begging for even a little mercy."

"Our fossil fuel bonanza has left our ecosystem in a perilous state. We have destroyed vast forests and habitat, polluted water and soil, kicked off a rapid climate trend that natural systems may not adapt to quickly enough, and basically overrun the planet. […] 96% of mammal mass on the planet is now in the form of humans and our livestock, leaving a paltry 4% of wild mammals—land and sea. Roughly 70% of vertebrate numbers have vanished since 1970 (undoubtedly a higher fraction if the survey had started in 1700). Forests are also way down."

"Neglect in protecting our heritage of natural resources could prove extremely harmful for the human race and for all species that share common space on planet earth. Indeed, there are many lessons in human history which provide adequate warning about the chaos and destruction that could take place if we remain guilty of myopic indifference to the progressive erosion and decline of nature’s resources. Much has been written, for instance, about the Maya civilization, which flourished during 250–950 AD, but collapsed largely as a result of serious and prolonged drought. Even earlier, some 4000 years ago a number of well-known Bronze Age cultures also crumbled extending from the Mediterranean to the Indus Valley, including the civilizations, which had blossomed in Mesopotamia. More recent examples of societies that collapsed or faced chaos on account of depletion or degradation of natural resources include the Khmer Empire in South East Asia, Eastern Island, and several others. Changes in climate have historically determined periods of peace as well as conflict. The recent work of David Zhang has, in fact, highlighted the link between temperature fluctuations, reduced agricultural production, and the frequency of warfare in Eastern China over the last millennium. Further, in recent years several groups have studied the link between climate and security. These have raised the threat of dramatic population migration, conflict, and war over water and other resources as well as a realignment of power among nations. Some also highlight the possibility of rising tensions between rich and poor nations, health problems caused particularly by water shortages, and crop failures as well as concerns over nuclear proliferation."

"It’s usually the top income earners that reap the biggest reward and the average worker may barely notice that GDP increased and those in extreme poverty definitely wouldn’t. Lifting people out of poverty is one of the main reasons that is cited in favour of continued economic growth. In fact, in older data, whilst $2.20 might have ended up in the pockets of those under the then poverty line, in the 1980s, for every $100 added to the global economy, that shrunk to just 60 cents in the 1990s… [and] it is much worse now. All that extra growth required to lift people out of poverty is devastating for the environment."

"The advent of [man-made] chemicals … allowed us to begin poisoning ourselves and the entire planet."

"We do not face a choice between protecting our environment or protecting our economy. We face a choice between protecting our economy by protecting our environment — or allowing environmental havoc to create economic havoc."

"The rewilding of natural ecosystems that fascinates me is not an attempt to restore them to any prior state, but to permit ecological processes to resume."

"Rewilding, to me, is about resisting the urge to control nature and [instead] allowing it to find its own way. It involves reintroducing absent plants and animals (and in a few cases culling exotic species which cannot be contained by native wildlife), pulling down the fences, blocking the drainage ditches, but otherwise stepping back. At sea, it means excluding commercial fishing and other forms of exploitation. The ecosystems that result are best described not as wilderness, but as self-willed: governed not by human management but by their own processes."

"The straight-tusked elephant, related to the species that still lives in Asia today, persisted in Europe until around 40,000 years ago....If the evidence is as compelling as it seems, it suggests that this species dominated the temperate regions of Europe. Our ecosystems appear to be elephant-adapted."

"Originally defined as a conservation method based on 'cores, corridors and carnivores,' the term [of rewilding] is now broadly understood as the repair or refurbishment of an ecosystem's functionality through the (re)introduction of selected species."

"The concept of rewilding was originally framed as a call for large, connected wilderness areas to support wide-ranging keystone species such as apex predators."

"...when it comes to preserving ecosystems, large is better than small, connected is better than isolated, and whole is better than fragmented."

"Rewilding has also shown us that many of the areas that we consider pristine or well conserved (including many national parks) are actually deprived of many of their keystone species and therefore suffering varying levels of degradation."

"The dictionary defines wilderness as an impassable, undeveloped, unpopulated place. If we add unmanipulated, what we have is... nature!"

"One of the most sinister features of DDT and related chemicals is the way they are passed on from one organism to another through all the links of the s. For example, fields of are dusted with DDT; meal is later prepared from the alfalfa and fed to hens, the hens lay eggs which contain DDT. Or the hay, containing residues of 7 to 8 parts per million, may be fed to cows. The DDT will turn up in the milk in the amount of about 3 parts per million, but in butter made from this milk the concentration may run to 65 parts per million. Through such a process of transfer, what started out as a very small amount of DDT may end as a heavy concentration."

"In the late 1960s, two chemists began to argue head to head in newspapers, journals, and courtrooms about a pressing question inspired by Rachel Carson's Silent Spring: ... namely, should the pesticide dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) be banned in the U.S.? The protracted debate between Stony Brook University professor Charles Wurster and University of California at Berkeley professor initially concerned the pesticide's effects on nontarget wildlife, including robins, hawks, salmon, and crabs. As the debate gained momentum and visibility, however, it became clear that it concerned DDT's effects on another species as well: humans. Jukes argued that few technological breakthroughs had done as much as DDT to save human lives, by protecting millions from malaria, typhus, and starvation. Wurster, on the other hand, maintained that DDT threatened the lives of millions more by destroying the ecosystems on which humanity depended for its well-being. Wurster argued that DDT's effects on wildlife were a harbinger of what was to come for humankind. Significantly, he also denounced the chemical as a pervasive likely carcinogen."

"A mosquito was heard to complain That a chemist had poisoned her brain The cause of her sorrow Was para-dichloro- Diphenyltrichloroethane."

"As an information specialist, Carson was in daily contact with wildlife biologists in those Fish and Wildlife divisions concerned with predator and pest control. They, along with the biologists at in nearby , were alarmed by some of the the early test results of the new synthetic pesticide dichlorodiphenyl-tricholorethane, known as DDT. Carson was particularly well informed on the progress of this research because her government mentor, friend, and former supervisor Elmer Higgins was collaborating with noted biological Clarence Cottam on a series of research reports on the impact of DDT on fish and other wildlife. These reports came to Carson's desk for editing, and their conclusions were the subject of debate and discussion around the office."

"The robin was twitching, tremoring, convulsing uncontrollably, and peeping occasionally. The student handed the bird to me, and in a few minutes it was dead in my hands. It was April 23, 1963, and I was in my laboratory at in , when the student walked in with the bird. A week earlier the s of Hanover had been sprayed with the insecticide DDT to control the spread of by s."

"Humanity depends on healthy ecosystems: they support or improve our quality of life, and without them, the Earth would be uninhabitable. However, over the past 50 years, fast-growing demands for food, , water and other s have led to an unprecedented degradation of many ecosystem services so that their ability to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted. Therefore, reversing ecosystem degradation is one of the great challenges of sustainable development. This is by no means a trivial task as it requires action by all actors in society, including governments, industry and individuals. One of the difficulties is that, even if there was a universal commitment to sustainable development, it is still unclear what goods, services and activities are sustainable and how they could be identified."

"... what you can be sure of is that many organisms have declined to the point where they can never do the services for us we want — even if the service is the pleasure of seeing a rare bird."

"Nature underpins human well-being in critical ways, especially in health. Nature provides of nutritious crops, purification of drinking water, protection from floods, and climate security, among other well-studied health benefits. A crucial, yet challenging, research frontier is clarifying how nature promotes physical activity for its many mental and physical health benefits, particularly in densely populated cities with scarce and dwindling access to nature."

"Road-traffic noise significantly slows the development of crucial memory and attention skills in primary school children, research has found. The study of almost 2,700 children aged between seven and 10 in 38 schools in , Spain, is the first to assess the impact of traffic noise on child cognitive development over time and to determine the impact of peaks in noise. The children in the study are in a critical stage for the development of memory and attention skills, which are essential to learning. The research found that children exposed to about three times more traffic in the street than other pupils had memory development that was 23% slower and attention ability development 5% slower over a year."

"Noise pollution is expanding at an unprecedented rate and is increasingly associated with impaired reproduction and development across taxa. However, whether noise sound waves are intrinsically harmful for developing young—or merely disturb parents—and the fitness consequences of early exposure remain unknown. Here, by only manipulating the offspring, we show that sole exposure to noise in early life in es has fitness consequences and causes embryonic death during exposure. Exposure to pre- and postnatal traffic noise cumulatively impaired nestling growth and and aggravated shortening across life stages until adulthood. Consistent with a long-term somatic impact, early life noise exposure, especially prenatally, decreased individual offspring production throughout adulthood. Our findings suggest that the effects of noise pollution are more pervasive than previously realized."

"... Many bird species use acoustic communication to establish and maintain their territories and for intra-pair and adult–young communication. Noise pollution can impact negatively on breeding success and biorhythm if this communication is masked by noise and the individuals must adjust their singing activity. is a common bird species of agricultural landscapes whose population is declining due to agricultural intensification. It is found also in habitats near highways with forest steppe-like characteristics, where it is affected by the high levels of anthropogenic noise pollution. ... Our results showed that Yellowhammer’s singing activity changed in localities close to highways compared to agricultural landscape. With increasing long-term traffic intensity on highways, song duration of the Yellowhammer song was decreasing. The present traffic intensity led to later onset of dawn chorus and decreasing strophe length with increasing number of passing vehicles. Furthermore, in the agricultural landscape, Yellowhammer’s song duration increased with increasing distance from the nearest road."

"More than 45 million people live, work, or attend school within 300 feet of a major transportation facility in the United States alone ... These facilities include heavily traveled highways that can cause adverse noise effects. ... In addition to annoyance and speech interference, recent studies have reported on links between highway traffic noise and health effects. The (WHO) reported on environmental health effects, including heart disease, sleep disturbance, and cognitive impairment in children. WHO states, “... at least one million healthy life years are lost every year from traffic-related noise in the western part of Europe” (WHO, 2011). These human health issues as well as the effects of highway traffic noise on wildlife are a growing concern. To help minimize the effects of highway traffic noise, researchers and practitioners must understand the noise sources, how the sound propagates to nearby communities, and how to reduce noise levels at the source, during propagation, or at the receiver. Further challenges lie in establishing and implementing highway traffic noise policies."

"Outdoor is a major global public health issue (Cohen et al., 2017), leading to 4.14 million non-accidental premature deaths in both urban and rural areas worldwide in 2019 alone (Global Burden of Disease, 2019). In 2016, 54 % of the world's population lived in urban areas (United Nations, 2018), where ground-level (O3), particles with an aerodynamic diameter lower than 2.5 (), and (NO2) are the most harmful air pollutants for human health (Pascal et al., 2013; McDuffie et al., 2021; Anenberg et al., 2022). By 2050, 70 % of the world's population will reside urban areas (United Nations, 2018), and outdoor air pollution would lead to about 6.6 million premature deaths (Lelieveld et al., 2015). Air pollution also adversely affects biodiversity, ecosystems, and ecosystem services, such as (Agathokleous et al., 2020; Hu et al., 2022; Perring et al., 2022)."

"There are numerous ways to approach air pollution. s may think of how contaminants in the air affect living things. Within biology, the subdisciplines vary in their interests. s are often interested in how exposure to air pollutants affect biodiversity and overall ecosystem health. s are concerned about the diseases associated with various air contaminants. ... s are interested in how the exposure and effects of air pollutants differ in time and space. They may observe a and associate this with a source of air pollution. Or, they may observe a change in disease occurrence over time that tracks with changes in the type and amount of pollution released in an area."

"The global response to the has resulted in unprecedented reductions in . We find that, after accounting for meteorological variations, lockdown events have reduced the population-weighted concentration of and levels by about 60% and 31% in 34 countries, with mixed effects on . Reductions in transportation sector emissions are largely responsible for the NO2 anomalies."

") air pollution has recently been recognized as a risk factor for . ... Fine particulate matter may affect cognitive function via as a result of systemic inflammation or following lung irritation. ... It has also been proposed that the smallest particles, often coated with neurotoxic chemicals, ... can enter the brain through the or cross the . ... Unlike many other common risk factors for dementia (eg, hypertension, stroke, and ), exposures to air pollution can be modified at the population level, making it a prime target for large-scale prevention efforts."

"and other activities were responsible for pushing populations of animals to extinction long before the , which began about ten thousand years ago. Today, however, our collective assault on animals, plants, and s has reached such a horrendous level that any alarm we might sound will be too faint to match the tragedy that is unfolding. ... In the past century or so, both the and of Homo sapiens have increased spectacularly, and this is this is the root cause of the rapid acceleration in human-caused species extinctions, precipitating what is now called the ."

"Considerable interest in , , and s arose amongst European colonialists who witnessed some of the consequences of Western-style economic development in tropical lands (Grove, 1997). However, the extent of human influence on the environment was not explored in detail and on the basis of sound data until George Perkins Marsh ... published ' (1864), in which he dealt with human influence on the woods, the waters, and the sands."

"When we began and living more closely alongside them, we shared diseases with our new companions. And keeping animals with less than in the wild in crowded, stressful conditions also made them more susceptible to disease. Today, intensive has created highly pathogenic forms of that have infected herds of cattle and their farmers in the US. Then there’s . By and disturbing other habitats, we’ve caused animals stress and forced them to live more closely together. That may have contributed to the spread of from s to apes, monkeys and small forest antelopes known as s. contributes too, by forcing animals and plants to move to cooler regions, and mixing them up with other species. An encounter with a disease that your body hasn’t evolved immunity to is always dangerous."

"When most physicians are asked about the realm of biosecurity, they often are able to discuss the subject in broad strokes that include concepts such as bioterrorism, , and s. However, the restriction of knowledge of biosecurity solely to these components does not make the concept adequately concrete; consequently, biosecurity remains a floating abstraction with no firm tie to reality, constraining the ability of physicians to fully converse with government policy makers and the public on this vital national security matter. Biosecurity in the Global Age: Biological Weapons, Public Health, and the Rule of Law, by internationally renowned law professors and David Fidler, provides an opportunity to develop a robust understanding of biosecurity and its role in national and international policy."

"A leaflet drops through your letter box advising on ways to avoid contracting and spreading . Your bag is searched as you enter a country on the start of your holiday — and there's a fine of $200 for an undeclared apple. You drive across a disinfectant mat on a visit to a local farm. You call the council for advice on the spreading from your neighbour's garden. You switch to eating after reading about the role of industrial farming in the production of risk. You shudder as you remember the smell of . In many different ways you may have encountered events, practices, procedures, narratives and knowledges contained within the complex issue of ‘biosecurity’."

"The secure and continuous production of and are key to U.S. national security. The introduction of foreign-origin or emerging animal, plant, and human diseases by intentional acts of , terrorism, , or criminal activity can lead to severe consequences for domestic and international s, the economic security of the agricultural community, and food security, and the credibility of responsible state and federal agencies. Early public, animal, plant health, law enforcement, and intelligence assessments and investigations of suspected or confirmed intentional threats are critical additions to existing interagency prevention, response, and management protocols. Forensic microbiology, a multidisciplinary science, is essential to the nation's readiness for responding to a potentially criminal, intentional, or otherwise nefarious incident in the agricultural sector (plant or animal), and of eventual supporting attribution and the prosecution of the perpetrators."

"In a strict sense, biosecurity involves issues dealing directly with s and s, such as prevention of emergence, loss, accidents, theft, or use, and remediation after pathogenic damage. It addresses procedures and practices to help ensure that s and relevant sensitive information remain secure and out of the hands of terrorists. But we have to be practical. We inevitably pay a price for security."

"The comprises the most biodiverse region in the world, but, despite being highly threatened by human-induced s, little is known about how those changes influence the remaining forest’s extent and configuration in Brazil’s arc of . We analysed the spatial and temporal dynamics and the configuration of forest cover in Brazil’s state of over 34 years. We calculated seven landscape metrics based on freely available satellite imagery to understand the habitat transformations. Overall, natural vegetation cover declined from 90.9% to 62.7% between 1986 and 2020, and fragmentation greatly increased, generating 78,000 forest fragments and 100,000 fragments of ‘natural vegetation’, which also includes forest."

"Forests clean the air, filter water, control and support biodiversity (Acharya et al., 2019; Aznar-Sánchez et al., 2018). In addition, many forests are spiritual and cultural sites, enriching the lives of people in surrounding communities and offering opportunities for aesthetic enjoyment, relaxation and recreation (Brauman et al., 2020). Forests also play a significant role in influencing localised temperatures and rainfall (Leite-Filho et al., 2021; Schwaab et al., 2021). In 2020, total forest carbon stocks were estimated to be 662 million s, averaging 163 t per (, 2020). Between 1990 and 2020, global forest carbon stocks declined; however, forest carbon stocks per hectare increased owing to improved (FAO, 2020). Human activities, including deforestation and unsustainable practices, in particular, have greatly impacted forest ecosystems (Lambin and Meyfroidt, 2010). Between 1990 and 2020, 420 million hectares of forest were lost to other land uses. Despite a slowing deforestation rate, forests continued to decline at an annual rate of 0.25 % between 2015 and 2020 (FAO, 2020). Halting deforestation and forest degradation is crucial for addressing climate change, biodiversity loss, land degradation, desertification, and threats to human health (Rametsteiner et al., 2022). Forests also play a crucial role in achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), mitigating climate change, and enhancing human well-being and economic prosperity (Rametsteiner et al., 2022). Forest governance, therefore, includes the restoration of degraded forests, expanding forest cover, upgrading forest quality, increasing sustainable use and building green value chains to help meet future demands for materials and ecosystem services and to support greener, circular economies."

"In the 1920s about 60 percent of Haiti still had forest cover. In the 1980s it was estimated that between 1 and 4 percent of Haiti still had forest cover."