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James Watt patented his steam engine on the eve of the American Revolution, consummating a relationship between coal and the new Promethean spirit of the age, and humanity made its first tentative steps into an industrial way of life that would, over the next two centuries, forever change the world.

Jeremy Rifkin

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Jeremy Rifkin
Age: 79
Born: 1945
Born: January 26
Economist
Sociologist
University Teacher
Writer
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Colorado
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J Rifkin
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More quotes by Jeremy Rifkin

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The position I took at the time was that we hadn't really examined any of the potential environmental consequences of introducing genetically modified organisms.
Jeremy Rifkin
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We are entering a new phase in human history - one in which fewer and fewer workers will be needed to produce the goods and services for the global population.
Jeremy Rifkin
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The 10 largest antitrust law firms in the United States have gone into the federal courts charging Monsanto with creating a global conspiracy in violation of the antitrust laws, to control the global market in seeds.
Jeremy Rifkin
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When you're sharing the music, you're not buying the CD. When you're sharing that video, you're not buying the TV. But we thought, really, there'd be a firewall. While near-zero marginal cost would impact virtual goods, we never thought it would move over to the physical world.
Jeremy Rifkin
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They're now turning those seeds into intellectual property, so they have a virtual lock on the seeds upon which we all depend for our food and survival.
Jeremy Rifkin
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The American public is not aware that there might be potential allergenic and toxic reactions. With regular food, at least people know which foods they have an allergy to.
Jeremy Rifkin
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We were making the first step out of the age of chemistry and physics, and into the age of biology.
Jeremy Rifkin
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I wanted to make sure that this be the first scientific and technology revolution in history in which the public thoroughly discussed all the potential benefits and all the potential harms, in advance of the technology coming online and running its course.
Jeremy Rifkin
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When we seed millions of acres of land with these plants, what happens to foraging birds, to insects, to microbes, to the other animals, when they come in contact and digest plants that are producing materials ranging from plastics to vaccines to pharmaceutical products?
Jeremy Rifkin
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The world's environment can no longer handle beef.
Jeremy Rifkin
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Generations of human beings were transformed into machines in the relentless pursuit of material wealth: We lived to work.
Jeremy Rifkin
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Many of the genetically modified foods will be safe, I'm sure. Will most of them be safe? Nobody knows.
Jeremy Rifkin
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Can we reach biosphere consciousness and global empathy in time to avert planetary collapse?
Jeremy Rifkin
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We have come to discover what we suspect is a new political mindset emerging among a younger generation of political leaders socialized on Internet communications. Their politics are less about right versus left and more about centralized and authoritarian versus distributed and collaborative.
Jeremy Rifkin
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The public should know that the liability issues here have yet to be resolved, or even raised. If you're a farmer and you're growing a genetically engineering food crop, those genes are going to flow to the other farm.
Jeremy Rifkin
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We need a game plan to deploy it very quickly to both move the economy forward and create the new businesses and jobs, and address climate change. It's a pretty big task. Pretty challenging.
Jeremy Rifkin
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The electronic media introduced this idea to the larger audience very, very quickly. We spent years and years and years meeting with activists all over Europe to lay the groundwork for a political response, as we did here.
Jeremy Rifkin
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Many of the mainstream agricultural scientists, especially at the agricultural schools, but at all of our major universities, are tied into all sorts of contractual relationships and consulting relationships with the life science companies.
Jeremy Rifkin
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Europe will not accept genetically modified foods. It doesn't make any difference in the final analysis what Brussels does, what Washington does, or what the World Trade Organization does.
Jeremy Rifkin
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We're finally going to get the bill for the Industrial Age. If the projections are right, it's going to be a big one: the ecological collapse of the planet.
Jeremy Rifkin