Chiras, Daniel D.

Writer, lecturer, visiting professor at the University of Washington in Seattle. Adjunct professor at University of Denver. Author of several college level environmental textbooks. Board of Directors of the Colorado Environmental Coalition. Cofounded Friends of Curbside Recycling in Colorado. Cofounder of the Sustainable Futures Society, and Friends of Curbside Recycling. He served two terms as president of the Colorado Environmental Coalition.

The secrets of success in nature are: conservation, recycling, renewable resources, and population control. Beyond the Fray: Reshaping America's Environmental Response, 1990.

 

If humanity is to persist, we must build a sustainable society - a society that perpetuates itself and yet lives harmoniously in the intricate web of life; not a society that seeks complete domination over all living things, but one that seeks a cooperative relationship. Ibid.

 

Maturity often involves a widening of the self, which comes from extending our identifications to include other living things and the earth. Ibid.

 

Self-righteousness hinders efforts to enlist broader (environmental) support. Ibid.

 

Educating children is the preventive medicine of environmentalism. Ibid.

 

Despite the growing realization of impending ecological disaster, most people - especially our business and political leaders - remain aligned with outdated frontier notions. Ibid.

 

H. G. Wells once wrote that "human History becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe." Lessons from Nature: Learning to Live Sustainably on the Earth, 1992.

 

Virtually every nation of the world has embraced the notion of sustainable development, as have the World Bank, the United Nations Development Programme, and the U. S. Agency for International Development, all of whose programs profoundly influence the future of the less developed nations of the world. Ibid.

 

Ultimately, living sustainably on the Earth is a biological challenge. It is the same challenge that faces every organism on Earth from the tiniest bacterium to the magnificent blue whale. That challenge is to live within the carrying capacity of the environment. Ibid.

 

The best definition of sustainable development comes from the World Commission on Environment and Development . . . In this seminal work, the authors defined it as "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs." Ibid.

 

Sustainable development is not simply an environmental strategy, and it is more than an economic strategy. Rather it is an attempt to meet social, economic, and environmental goals simultaneously. To be sustainable, a policy or action must make sense from all three perspectives. Ibid.

 

When it comes to the Earth, present generations seem to fully exercise their rights, benefiting from the Earth in millions of ways. But they almost universally live in nearly total disregard for their obligations. Economist Herman Daly summarized the situation best when he wrote that most nations are treating the Earth as if it were a corporation in liquidation. Ibid.

 

There is no waste in nature. Ibid.

 

The biological principles of sustainability constitute a blueprint for a sustainable future. Applied to human civilization&endash;to the very systems that support our lives&endash;they represent our greatest hope for refashioning our society. Ibid.