By Patricia Houser
For Nature’s Sake
Patricia Houser
Ann Berman has set aside a placard to display at Milford’s Earth Day on the Green that features one of her favorite quotes: “When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.”
For Berman, an esteemed local leader with Milford’s Environmental Concerns Coalition, a good quote can highlight an essential truth. And the one she’s chosen for display, based on a statement by John Muir who helped found the Sierra Club in the late 1800s, is more relevant than ever.
Today, says Berman, “people think of climate change as sort of isolated – just one thing. It isn’t; it’s everything. No matter what it is you touch on the Earth, we’re connected to it one way or another.”
A survey of environmental leaders in our region suggests that those working for improved environmental protections can often recite at least one quotation that has served as a source of inspiration. In a time of unprecedented challenges to planetary health, it may be helpful to ponder these favorite sayings and even consider the power of quotations and slogans in environmental messaging.
Ken Elkins, director of the Connecticut Audubon’s Coastal Center at Milford Point, favors a quote from the early conservationist, John Burroughs: “I go to nature to be soothed, healed and have my senses put in order.”
The roots of that idea, observes Elkins, go back to early civilizations, including Hippocrates, who said, “Nature itself is the best physician.”
Elkins’ workplace is uniquely equipped to prove the point; anyone who spends time, for instance, in front of the wall of windows looking out at the several-hundred-acre Wheeler Marsh, taking in the movements of dabbling ducks or the slant of light across the marsh grass, may get some sense of nature’s literal, if subtle, healing potential.
Long Island Soundkeeper Bill Lucey is uniquely informed on the fate and status of animals and humans living in and adjacent to the Long Island Sound, spending part of his work schedule on a boat surrounded by the expansive waters of the sound and, on other days, lobbying officials to better protect it. His favorite quote, hanging over his office desk, is a reminder of time spent working in Hawaii. The message is “He aliʻi ka ʻāina, he kauwā ke kanaka,” which translates, says Lucey, to “The land is a chief, man is its servant.”
Laura Cahn, chairwoman of the New Haven Environment Advisory Council, studies issues with the council ranging from air, water and noise pollution to, more recently, pesticides on lawns and PFAS in astroturf. When she thinks of her favorite eco-quote, it comes down to a matter of personal responsibility: “I am a big fan of Chief Seattle’s saying, ‘Take only memories and leave only footprints.’”
It’s a carryover from her days preparing a Girl Scout troop for camping trips. But it still resonates.
“Especially in today’s throw-away world, we need reminders of how to be sustainable,” she says. “I passed so much litter on the street this morning on my one-mile walk home from the auto mechanic, I am going back with bags to pick up all the discarded glass and plastic bottles, cans, and other debris.”
Other quotes illuminate a key obstacle in any long-term struggle against pollution: the fact that some populations are bearing the costs and burden of pollution more than others. Sharon Lewis, executive director of the Connecticut Coalition for Environmental and Economic Justice, picked a message that nudges the reader to awareness of individual behavior. The source is Ben Franklin: “Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.”
Lewis says that it speaks to the idea that real change only happens when people who are not directly suffering choose to stand up and fight alongside those who are.
Lewis, who was recognized by the US Environmental Protection Agency in 2022 for her environmental leadership (see the column, “Eco-Heroes in our Midst,” Dec. 17, 2022), also cites a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that can be used to emphasize a truth today, though the clarity comes from a strategic correction of the quote.
King once said, “We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.”
“The truth is, we’re not all in the same boat,” Lewis says. “We have never been. Some are on luxury yachts, while others are clinging to rafts, fighting to survive. We won’t see real justice until we all row in the same direction – until everyone has an oar and the tools and resources to move forward together.”
In a recent online survey for local citizens, three environmental quotations were chosen as most worthy to memorize: “We don’t inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children,” from environmentalist David Brower; “Buy less, choose well, make it last,” by English fashion designer and businesswoman Vivienne Westwood; and “When the well is dry, we know the worth of water,” from founding father, scientist, and diplomat Benjamin Franklin.
Mulling over the relevance of such sayings, Laura Cahn suggests that it may be time to bring back environmental slogans and sayings as a strategy for awareness.
“We need to counter all the examples of people behaving badly in ads, movies, tv shows and other media from manufacturers of every ‘unsustainable practice,’” she says. “Maybe if we had more reminders – and more frequent reminders — of how to behave in a civil society, life would be better for everyone.”
Patricia Houser, PhD, AICP is a freelance writer and researcher focused on environment and sustainability.