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"The big melt has begun." - Jennifer Morgan, director of the World Wildlife Fund’s global climate change campaign

(Taken from http://www.unep.org/cpi/briefs/Brief05Nov04.doc)

"It is a real problem. You can say that it isn't. You can say it over and over again. It is a real problem, and it is a problem that is getting worse because we failed to attend to it." - Senator Hillary Clinton

(Taken from http://www.edf.org/documents/3333_CSAdebate_102903.pdf)

Examples include a significant slowing of ocean circulation that transports warm water to the North Atlantic; large reductions in the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets; much faster warming than expected due to positive feedback effects; and releases of additional greenhouse gases from permafrost regions and coastal sediments.

While these types of changes are currently thought to be low-probability/high-consequence events with widespread and lasting effects, their probability of occurring increases with the magnitude, rate, and duration of global warming." - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

"Climate Change Is Real..." "...carbon dioxide levels have increased from 280 ppm to over 375 ppm today, higher than any previous levels that can be reliably measured (i.e. in the last 420,000 years). Increasing greenhouse gases are causing temperatures to rise..." - The World's National Academy of Sciences

"Our civilization is going through a most profound crisis that threatens to undermine the very foundations of the existence of humankind." - Mikhail Gorbachev - Former President of the Soviet Union

(Taken from http://gci.ch/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10&Itemid=1)

"I'd say the chances are about 50-50 that humanity will be extinct or nearly extinct within 50 years. Weapons of mass destruction, disease, I mean this global warming is scaring the living daylights out of me.” - Ted Turner

(Taken from http://gci.ch/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=11&Itemid=1#p18)

"And by unsustainable, I do not mean a phenomenon causing problems of adjustment. I mean a challenge so far-reaching in its impact and irreversible in its destructive power, that it alters radically human existence." - British Prime Minister Tony Blair

"...we predict, on the basis of mid-range climate-warming scenarios for 2050, that 15–37% of species in our sample of regions and taxa will be 'committed to extinction'" - Article in Nature Journal of Science

"Human activities is putting such strain on the natural functions of Earth that the ability of the planet's ecosystems to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted." - Dr. Ahmed Djoghlaf, Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, to the Citizens of the World

"It's the next annihilation of vast numbers of species. It is happening now, and we, the human race, are its cause," - Richard Leaky and Roger Lewin in "The Sixth Extinction: Patterns of life and the Future of Mankind"

"The future of humanity is inextricably tied to the fate of the natural world. In perpetuating this, the Earth's sixth mass extinction, we may ultimately compromise our own ability to survive." - Letter to U.S. Senate by E.O. Wilson and 10 other prominent scientists.

"The effects of human activities on biodiversity have increased so greatly that the rate of species extinctions is rising to hundreds or thousands of times the background level." - United Nations EarthWatch Biodiversity Assessment

"The world is currently undergoing a very rapid loss of biodiversity comparable with the great mass extinction events that have previously occurred only five or six times in the Earth's history." - World Wildlife Fund Living Planet Report 2004

"We are into the opening stages of a human-caused biotic holocaust--a wholesale elimination of species--that could leave the planet impoverished for at least five million years." - Norman Myers in PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences)

"... an unprecedented mass extinction of life on Earth is occurring....There have always been periods of extinction in the planet's history, but this episode of species extinction is greater than anything the world has experienced for the past 65 million years-the greatest rate of extinction since the vanishing of the dinosaurs." - United Nations Environment Programme "Key Facts on Biodiversity"

"Biological diversity is being lost at a rate unequalled since the appearance of modern ecosystems more than 40 million years ago. A quarter of all mammals are threatened with extinction and nearly 70% of the world’s fish stocks are fully exploited, overexploited or depleted." - The Royal Society (The UK's National Academy of Sciences) on Biodiversity and Conservation

"30% extermination of all species by the mid 21st century is not unrealistic" - National Academy of Sciences "The Current Biodiversity Extinction Event: Scenerios for Mitigation and Recovery."

"The Father of All Mass Extinctions. There is a good possibility that losses in diversity in the present will surpass anything in the geological past. Facing that specter could shake the very tenets of conservation" - Peter Ward

"This rate of consumption by a minority of the human species has caused unparalleled climatic change, ecosystem disintegration, and species extinction." - Islamic Faith Statement, ARC

“Conserve ecology or perish” - This is the message of the Bhagavad Gita

"Nowadays purusha, humanity, is interested not in protecting but in exploiting, so prakriti, nature, has to defend herself. This is why we see nature in her furious manifestation—in drought, floods, or hurricanes. If we rape the mother’s womb she has convulsions, and we blame her for devastating earthquakes. If we denude her of her lush hair and beautiful skin, she punishes us by withholding food and water." - Hindu Faith Statement, ARC

"...insatiable human desire will lead to the overexploitation of natural resources." - Daoist Faith Statement

"Material civilization, driven by the dogmas of consumerism and aggressive individualism and disoriented by the weakening of moral standards and spiritual values, has been carried to excess. " - Baha'i Faith Statement, ARC

"The loveless, beaten, battered self will let go the torment and the torture of its self-embracing ways, tire of that marriage to a special misery that it had chosen over loneliness, to nurture it through the long brutality of a life that doesn't care, surrender the murderous love affair with its own perplexed reflection, which had itself pretended to the throne of the Divine..." - Ken Wilber:  Sex, Ecology, Spirituality - The Spirit of Evolution

"The highest goal of spiritual progression is harmony with God, while remaining earth-conscious, so that the world itself may be transformed to a spiritual plane of existence." - Sikh Faith Statement, ARC

"One man sings the song of his own soul, for it is there that his satisfaction is complete.

Another sings the song of his people, transcending the bounds of his own individual soul. ... cleaving with tender love to the Jewish people, singing her songs with her. …

A third man’s soul expands beyond the Jewish people to sing the song of man, his spirit embraces all humanity, majestic reflection of God ...

And a fourth is transported still higher, uniting with the entire universe, with all creatures, and all worlds, with all of these does he sing ..." - Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak haKohen Kook

"When humanity develops consciousness of the presence of God and His continuous showering of blessings on the universe, it develops deep love for Him. To enjoy this nectar of love, God created people. Only people have a time-space conception. Therefore, only humanity can see God, pervading time-space, conserving the ecological balance which is the greatest boon bestowed on the universe by God. " - Hindu Faith Statement, ARC

"By virtue of their intelligence, humanity is the only creation of Allah to be entrusted with the overall responsibility of maintaining planet Earth in the overall balanced ecology that man found." - Islamic Faith Statement, ARC

"If anything runs counter to the harmony and balance of nature, even if it is of great immediate interest and profit, people should restrain themselves from doing it, so as to prevent nature’s punishment." - Daoist Faith Statement, ARC

"Love alone can unite living beings so as to complete and fulfill them... for it alone joins them by what is deepest in themselves.  All we need is to imagine our ability to love developing until it embraces the totality of men and the earth." - Pierre Telihard De Chardin

"The oneness of mankind ... implies an organic change in the structure of present-day society, a change such as the world has not yet experienced ... It calls for no less than the reconstruction and the demilitarization of the whole civilized world... It represents the consummation of human evolution ... and ... carries with it no more and no less than a solemn assertion that attainment to this final stage in this stupendous evolution is not only necessary but inevitable, that its realization is fast approaching, and that nothing short of a power that is born of God can succeed in establishing it." - Baha'i Faith Statement, ARC

"At this moment, nothing is more important for healing the world than to link all those who believe that we must set forth a new narrative and create a new world where hope, social justice, peace, and a sense of the sacredness of life prevail. For this, we need to form a critical mass of humanity that influences change at a global scale, to bring together the inner streams of sensitive human beings" - Deepak Chopra, Alliance for a New Humanity

"The reign of God proclaimed by Jesus is present and yet to come.  Signs of its presence are evident in people's efforts to restore God's creation and live in harmony with the Earth and all creatures,..." - Catholic Bishops of the Columbia River Watershed

"...the accelerated loss of biodiversity, the destruction of natural habitats, the pollution of and damage to eco-systems, and the general environmental erosion, damage and degradation, not to speak of the wide scale oppression suffered by many of the world’s inhabitants, are all from the manifest signs of corruption and villainy in the earth." - The Creation of an Environmental Conscience (part 4 of 4): God’s Green Earth

"The absolute destruction of any species of animals or plant by man cannot be justified; nor should any be harvested at a rate in excess of its natural regeneration." - Environmental Protection in Islam (part 5 of 7): The Conservation of Basic Natural Elements - Plants and Animals (1)

This attitued towards our environment leads to "... a distorted use of nature that disfigures it and endangers the equilibrium.  And it does not stop even with the threat of ecological disaster, ..." - His Holiness Pope John Paul II Vatican City (CWN)

Concerning mankind's attitude towards nature, "humanity has disappointed the divine expectation.  Above all in our time, man has unhesitatingly devastated wooded plains and valleys, polluted the waters, deformed the earth's habitat, made the air unbreathable, upset the hydrogeological and atmospheric systems, blighted green spaces, implemented uncontrolled forms of industrialization, humiliating the earth, that flower-bed that is our dwelling."

"The most profound and serious indication of the moral implications underlying the ecological problem is the lack of respect for life, ..." - His Holiness Pope John Paul II for the Celebration of the World Day of Peace

"On a number of occasions in the ecclesiastical year the Church prays that God will protect humanity from natural catastrophes: earthquakes, storms, famine and floods. But today we see the reverse. On 1st September the day devoted to God's handiwork, the Church implores the Creator to protect nature from calamities of human origin, calamities such as pollution, war, exploitation, waste and secularism." - Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I: Message on the Day of Prayer for Creation 1994

 "Uncontrolled exploitation of the natural environment not only menaces the survival of the human race, it also threatens the natural order in which mankind is meant to recieve and to hand on God's gift of life with dignity and freedom." - His Holiness Pope John Paul II to the Participants in the Symposium sponsored by "Nova Spes" International Foundation

"Courageous choices that can re-create a strong alliance between man and earth must be made before it is too late.” Pope Benedict XVI

"It is obvious that in the long run, the excessive use of nature will bring about disaster, even the extinction of humanity." - Daoist Faith Statement

"We know that the Earth will not be mocked.  Even now nature is lashing back at us and taking its revenge." - Catholic Bishops of the Philippines

"When man disobeys God and refuses to submit to his rule, nature rebels against him and no longer recognizes him as its 'master', for he has tarnished the divine image on himself." - His Holiness Pope John Paul II Solicitudo Rei Socialis (1988)

"Peace and the survival of life on earth as we know it are threatened by human activities which lack a commitment to humanitarian values. Destruction of nature and natural resources results from ignorance, greed and lack of respect for the earth's living things. " - The Dalai Lama

"The United Nations Environment Program warns, I'm told, that we are facing the most massive wave of extinction in 65 million years. This fact is profoundly frightening. It must open our minds to the immense proportions of the crisis we face." - The Dalai Lama

"... the stage has now been reached where she [Mother Earth] can no longer accept our behaviour in silence. The problems caused by environmental disasters can be seen as her response to our irresponsible behaviour. She is warning us that there are limits even to her tolerance." - The Dalai Lama

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"We all see that today man can destroy the foundation of his existence, his Earth... Our Earth is talking to us and we must listen to it and decipher its message if we want to survive," - Pope Benedict XVI in Lorenzago Di Cadore, Italy 2007

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