Slow Century

It felt like a busy week but I'm not sure what happened. I guess time slips by when you are busy.

I want to share some quotes that I found that loosely pertain to my topic. The signpost below is at the alley next to the Pacific Exchange.

All the new thinking is about loss.
In this it resembles all the old thinking. . . .
a word is elegy to what it signifies.
-Robert Hass





No nation was ever ruined by trade.
-Benjamin Franklin

"Every good cause is worth some inefficiency."
-Paul Samuelson, economist

"Civilization is in no immediate danger of running out of energy or even just out of oil. But we are running out of environment—that is, out of the capacity of the environment to absorb energy's impacts without risk of intolerable disruption—and our heavy dependence on oil in particular entails not only environmental but also economic and political liabilities."
-Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran

"First, there is the power of the Wind, constantly exerted over the globe.... Here is an almost incalculable power at our disposal, yet how trifling the use we make of it! It only serves to turn a few mills, blow a few vessels across the ocean, and a few trivial ends besides. What a poor compliment do we pay to our indefatigable and energetic servant!"
-Henry David Thoreau

"The United States has compensated for its production decline by importing oil. The planet does not have that option."
-Russell A. Brown, Argonne National Laboratory

Only when the last tree has been cut down,
Only when the last river has been poisoned,
Only when the last fish has been caught,
Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten.
-Cree Indian Prophecy