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Alex Steffen Quotes
Alex Steffen Quotes
Alex Steffen
American
Writer
Born:
1968
Change
Energy
Internet
People
World
You
Related authors:
Dale Carnegie
Denis Waitley
Dr. Seuss
H. L. Mencken
Napoleon Hill
Ray Bradbury
W. E. B. Du Bois
William Arthur Ward
The planet's biggest problems have to do with sustainability, environmental decline, global poverty, disease, conflict and so forth. Really, they're all interconnected - it's one big problem, which is that the way we're doing things can't go on.
Alex Steffen
Environmental
Conflict
Problem
Problems
Poverty
Big
Way
Global
Doing
Go
Disease
Big Problem
Sustainability
Biggest
Interconnected
Which
Decline
Forth
Planet
Really
Things
We're not going to persuade people in the developing world to go without, but neither can we afford a planet on which everyone lives like an American. Billions more people living in suburbs and driving SUVs to shopping malls is a recipe for planetary suicide. We can't even afford to continue that way of life ourselves.
Alex Steffen
Life
People
Shopping
World
Living
Suicide
Recipe
Everyone
Way
Ourselves
Neither
More
More People
Driving
Developing
Developing World
Like
Without
Go
Continue
Malls
Afford
American
Going
Which
Suburbs
Planet
Persuade
Planetary
Billions
Even
Lives
Clean air and water, a diversity of animal and plant species, soil and mineral resources, and predictable weather are annuities that will pay dividends for as long as the human race survives - and may even extend our stay on Earth.
Alex Steffen
Animal
Water
Plant
Soil
Will
Weather
Long
Diversity
Pay
Our
Resources
Air
Earth
Mineral
Stay
Clean
Clean Air
Dividends
Survives
May
Human
Predictable
Race
Human Race
Even
Species
Extend
I think we're going to start to see a new model of civic advocacy where people get together once in a while to protest, but it's more about an ongoing, sustained engagement in issues, networks and communities about which people care.
Alex Steffen
Together
People
Care
Think
Once
Civic
See
About
Ongoing
More
Networks
New
Protest
Advocacy
Issues
Model
Get
Get Together
Going
Where
Sustained
Which
While
Engagement
Communities
Start
For most people, using the Internet broadens their sense of who 'we' is and actually ends up leaving us in a place of greater compassion and understanding. It leaves us more connected to a larger group of people and more at one with a lot more people in our community.
Alex Steffen
People
Compassion
Internet
Understanding
Sense
Community
Group
Our
Our Community
More
More People
Most
Greater
Leaves
Leaving
Lot
Up
Ends
Place
Us
Who
Connected
Using
Larger
Actually
You don't change the world by hiding in the woods, wearing a hair shirt, or buying indulgences in the form of 'Save the Earth' bumper stickers. You do it by articulating a vision for the future and pursuing it with all the ingenuity humanity can muster.
Alex Steffen
Future
You
Change
Humanity
World
Vision
Hair
Change The World
Earth
Hiding
Muster
Wearing
Pursuing
Bumper
Shirt
Articulating
Woods
Form
Ingenuity
Buying
Save
We don't need a War on Carbon. We need a new prosperity that can be shared by all while still respecting a multitude of real ecological limits - not just atmospheric gas concentrations, but topsoil depth, water supplies, toxic chemical concentrations, and the health of ecosystems, including the diversity of life they depend upon.
Alex Steffen
Life
War
Health
Water
Prosperity
Diversity
Depend
Respecting
Atmospheric
Ecological
Shared
Supplies
New
Ecosystems
Toxic
Chemical
Real
Limits
Still
Just
While
Depth
Including
Multitude
Carbon
Gas
Need
Copenhagen has done a remarkable job creating streets that are focused on bicycles and pedestrians.
Alex Steffen
Job
Pedestrian
Focused
Remarkable
Done
Creating
Copenhagen
Streets
Make no mistake: Tackling climate change is vital. But to see everything through the lens of short-term CO2 reductions, letting our obsession with carbon blind us to the bigger picture, is to court catastrophe.
Alex Steffen
Change
Mistake
Picture
Our
Everything
See
Vital
Tackling
Through
Catastrophe
Obsession
Blind
Make
Make No Mistake
Court
Climate
Climate Change
Reductions
Bigger
Bigger Picture
Short-Term
Lens
Us
CO2
Carbon
Letting
When the Internet really first started to hit, people felt this would be the death blow: after suburbs and long commutes and television and the death of the family dinner, this would be the last straw that would totally break society.
Alex Steffen
Death
Family
People
Internet
Dinner
Long
First
Society
Television
Would
Would-Be
Totally
Felt
Hit
Blow
After
Break
Suburbs
Really
Straw
Started
Last
We don't need more recycling, we need a completely different system of closed-loop manufacturing, and no matter how many cans I crush, my personal actions at the consumer level are of very little importance in getting us there.
Alex Steffen
Matter
Recycling
System
More
Consumer
Crush
Importance
How
Very
Personal
Getting
Different
Cans
Little
Us
Manufacturing
Many
Actions
Level
Need
What makes creative people tingle are interesting problems, the chance to impress their friends, and caffeine.
Alex Steffen
Creative
People
Problems
Impress
Caffeine
Makes
Friends
Tingle
Interesting
Creative People
Chance
At its very heart, Worldchanging is about using the best of people's new ideas, bringing them together and applying them to the massive problems that we all face.
Alex Steffen
Best
Together
Heart
People
Problems
Face
About
New
Ideas
Massive
New Ideas
Very
Them
Using
Bringing
Applying
I think there's a gigantic generation gap in terms of how people understand the Internet and how much they think technology is an important factor in social change.
Alex Steffen
Technology
Change
Generation
People
Internet
Important
Think
Gigantic
Factor
Generation Gap
Terms
Understand
How
How Much
Social
Social Change
Much
Gap
One of the most unfortunate side effects of the urban activism of the '60s and '70s is the belief that development is wrong and that fighting it makes you an environmentalist.
Alex Steffen
You
Fighting
Side
Wrong
Development
Environmentalist
Most
Makes
Effects
Unfortunate
Urban
Activism
Belief
The biggest thing growing cities need to do is minimize barriers to development so that as long as someone is doing good urbanism, they can get permitted quickly and get building quickly.
Alex Steffen
Good
Long
Building
Minimize
Cities
Someone
Development
Permitted
Doing
Doing Good
Quickly
Get
Biggest
Biggest Thing
Barriers
Growing
Thing
Need
If we're talking about transportation, the best thing a city can do is densify as quickly as it can. That needs to be said every time this issue comes up, because it's the only universal strategy that works.
Alex Steffen
Time
Best
Needs
Strategy
Every
Every Time
City
About
Only
Talking
Because
Said
Issue
Up
Quickly
Transportation
Works
Thing
Universal
Cities are responsible for the vast majority of the creation of the economy. They're also places into which we pour the vast majority of resources, the vast majority of energy and the places where a huge percentage of the decisions about how systems are built and how products designed, etc., happen.
Alex Steffen
Pour
Energy
Creation
Resources
Cities
Systems
Responsible
About
Percentage
Vast
Vast Majority
Economy
Also
Majority
Built
How
Huge
Where
Happen
Which
Etc
Decisions
Places
Products
Designed
Carbon zero simply means that the emissions you are releasing either are zero or balance out to zero.
Alex Steffen
You
Balance
Releasing
Out
Emissions
Simply
Either
Means
Carbon
Zero
For carbon-neutral cities, there are things worth talking about in how our consumption patterns can change - sharing goods, etc. - but those are a fraction of the impacts of transportation and building energy use. If we need to choose priority actions, the most important things are to densify, provide transit, and green the buildings.
Alex Steffen
Change
Worth
Important
Building
Important Things
Energy
Our
Those
Cities
Impacts
About
Consumption
Sharing
Goods
Most
Talking
Buildings
How
Priority
Provide
Green
The Most Important
Etc
Patterns
Transit
Use
Choose
Transportation
Actions
Things
Fraction
Need
We unfortunately already live on a planet where the climate has changed and will continue to change no matter what we do now. We're playing a game of making the problem less bad rather than preventing it.
Alex Steffen
Game
Change
Problem
Matter
Will
Live
Changed
Bad
Rather
Preventing
Making
Climate
Continue
Than
Where
Unfortunately
Planet
Less
Now
Playing
People - especially the geeks who created it - have tended to look at the Internet as something that's hermetically sealed: there's the Internet and the rest of the world. But that's not how people want to use the Internet. They want to use it as a way of better navigating the real world.
Alex Steffen
People
World
Better
Internet
Rest
Way
Geeks
Something
Look
How
Real
Want
The Real World
Real World
Created
Use
Sealed
Who
It is very possible to have lives that are just as prosperous, and nicer, that use 5 percent of the fossil fuels and virgin materials we do now. But if we're living anything like the average McMansion-ite, SUV-driving suburbanites, there's simply no way that can be powered in a climate-friendly way.
Alex Steffen
Living
Way
Possible
Percent
Simply
Powered
Like
Prosperous
Materials
Very
Just
Anything
Average
Fuels
Use
Fossil
Fossil Fuels
Nicer
Now
Lives
We already have many of the technologies and tools that we need to build a sustainable future. What we don't have is a new way of thinking, and that's really the hardest part.
Alex Steffen
Future
Build
Thinking
Tools
Way
Part
New
New Way
Sustainable
Really
Many
Hardest
Hardest Part
Technologies
Need
If people are given the opportunity to really make a difference in their own lives, their own communities, their own businesses and their own governments, then we can really transform the prospects of life on this planet. We can find ourselves living in a world that is more like the world that I think most of us want to be living in.
Alex Steffen
Life
People
World
Opportunity
Own
Living
Think
Ourselves
Find
Given
More
Prospects
Like
Most
Make
Make A Difference
Governments
Difference
Want
Transform
Then
Us
Planet
Really
Communities
Businesses
Lives
It's not that hard to imagine the natural world recovering it's health in our absence: it's more difficult, and more necessary, to imagine it recovering its health in our presence.
Alex Steffen
Health
Natural
World
Difficult
Our
More
Absence
Recovering
Natural World
Hard
Presence
Necessary
Imagine
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