“We must learn to live at one with nature. Nature does not bear grudges, but it must not be brought to the point where it can no longer sustain human society and the continuance of humankind on Earth. I believe that one of the most important things is the shaping of a new value system, because nature can live without us, but we cannot live without nature. Instead of a hedonistic approach, we should promote an approach that reasonably limits consumerism and which promotes the virtue of ‘enoughness.’ If we insist on consumerism as the new utopia, nature will reject such a system, as surely as cultural diversity rejected the totalitarian sys-tem. Our generation has to face a difficult challenge, but as recent history has proven, walls of difficulty, like the Berlin Wall, can fall."
- Mikhail Gorbachev, Nobel Peace Prize, in an Interview with Patricia Morales
“We live in an increasingly interdependent world. As a result, we must cooperate together across all boundaries of nation, culture, faith, and race, and at all levels-locally, nationally, regionally, and globally-if we are to achieve our basic environmental, economic, and social goals. Furthermore, if we are to make wise choices and to cooper ate together effectively, we urgently need a shared vision of fundamental ethical values to guide us. In other words, the development of global ethics is essential. Our very survival as a species is in doubt if we cannot clarify our ethics and develop common values around such basic issues as environmental protection, justice, human rights, cultural diversity, economic equity, eradication of poverty, and peace."
- Steven C. Rockefeller, Earth Charter Commissioner, in an Interview with Patricia Morales
“In the coming decades, the need for working together, across countries, is essential. We need to bring 3 billion poor into society and make it possible for them to lead healthy lives, to get the health interventions that we all take as something self-evident. It can be done. It is within reach. We need to invest in the future. We need to invest in the health of all people worldwide."
- Gro Harlem Brundtland, Director-General, WHO, in an Interview with Patricia Morales
“The focus on Science for all the reasons listed in your effective ‘mission statement’ for the EOLSS is not only appropriate, but it is imaginative and, to my knowledge, unique. Much of what we can write about science, about energy, about our far-ranging knowledge base, can indeed be found in major encyclopedias, but as I understand your vision, never as a central theme; the theme of humanity, embedded in nature and constrained to find ways of maintaining a relationship with nature based upon understanding and respect.."
- Leon M. Lederman, Nobel Prize in Physics
“Ecotechnology involving appropriate blends of traditional technologies and the ecological prudence of the past with frontier technologies such as biotechnology, information technology, space technology, new materials, renew- able energy technology and management technology, can help us to promote global sustainable development involving harmony between humankind and nature on the one hand and tolerance and love of diversity and pluralism in human societies on the other. We need shifts in technology and public policy,…. This is a challenging task to which the Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems should address itself."
- M. S. Swaminathan, First World Food Prize
“Pursuit of knowledge and truth supersedes present considerations of what nature, life or the world are or should be, for our own vision can only be a narrow one. Ethical evaluation and rules of justice have changed and will change over time and will have to adapt. Law is made for man, not man for law. If it does not fit any more, change it…. Some think that it is being arrogant to try to modify nature; arrogance is to claim that we are perfect as we are! With all the caution that must be exercised and despite the risks that will be encountered, carefully pondering each step, mankind must and will continue along its path, for we have no right to switch off the lights of the future….We have to walk the path from the tree of knowledge to the control of destiny."
- Jean-Marie Lehn, Nobel Prize in Chemistry
“EOLSS is concerned with the Life Support Systems------. Each of these systems is a very complex one. …. we have to think of all these "systems" as closely related "subsystems" of the Planet Earth System. The situation is extremely different in most of life support systems modeling…. There is not one model, but a hierarchy of models. Examples of these situations will be given throughout the Encyclopedia. . More delicate are the global problems, involving several goals, with possible conflicts of interest. Rational decisions will be more and more possible to envision if one will be able to couple the physical modeling to economic and financial models and to human factors . ..."
- J. L. Lions, Japan Prize in Applied Mathematics
“...The population of our planet and its development over the ages sets the scene for considering all global problems and it is reasonable to begin their discussion with population growth. …. Thus we are dealing with an interdisciplinary problem in an attempt to describe the total human experience, right from its very beginning. But with- out this perspective of time it is not possible to objectively assess what is happening today and provide an objective view of the present state of development, the challenge now facing humanity. …."
- S. P. Kapitza, UNESCO Kalinga Prize
