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Throughout history, human exploitation of the earth has produced this progression: colonize-destroy-move on.

Garrett Hardin

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Garrett Hardin
Age: 88 †
Born: 1915
Born: April 21
Died: 2003
Died: September 14
Biologist
Demographer
Ecologist
Statistician
University Teacher
Dallas
Texas
Garrett James Hardin
Garrett J. Hardin
Earth
Progression
Human
Exploitation
Humans
Produced
Throughout
Destroy
Move
Moving
History
Colonize

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In a finite world this means that the per capita share of the world's goods must steadily decrease.
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(Technology reliability) x (Human reliability) = (System reliability)
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A technical solution may be defined as one that requires a change only in the techniques of the natural sciences, demanding little or nothing in the way of change in human values or ideas of morality.
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Why are ecologists and environmentalists so feared and hated? This is because in part what they have to say is new to the general public, and the new is always alarming.
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Using the commons as a cesspool does not harm the general public under frontier conditions, because there is no public, the same behavior in a metropolis is unbearable.
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The social arrangements that produce responsibility are arrangements that create coercion, of some sort.
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No one should be able to enter a wilderness by mechanical means.
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We can't cure a shortage by increasing the supply.
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The greatest folly is to accept expert statements uncritically. At the very least, we should always seek another opinion.
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The Universal Declaration of Human Rights describes the family as the natural and fundamental unit of society. It follows that any choice and decision with regard to the size of the family must irrevocably rest with the family itself, and cannot be made by anyone else.
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People are the quintessential element in all technology... Once we recognize the inescapable human nexus of all technology our attitude toward the reliability problem is fundamentally changed.
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Every plausible policy must be followed by the question 'And then what?'
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Ecology is the overall science of which economics is a minor speciality.
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Value is a relative concept: the value of each action is determined by comparing it with other possible actions.
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Numeracy: 1. The art of putting numbers to things, that is, assigning amounts to variables in order that practical decisions may be reach. 2. That aspect of education (beyond mere literacy) which takes account of quantitative aspects of reality.
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A finite world can support only a finite population therefore, population growth must eventually equal zero.
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In a competitive world of limited resources, total freedom of individual action is intolerable
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The essence of dramatic tragedy is not unhappiness. It resides in the solemnity of the remorseless working of things.
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The population problem has no technical solution it requires a fundamental extension in morality.
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Of course, a positive growth rate might be taken as evidence that a population is below its optimum.
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