Alex Steffen quotes

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)
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. View quote
Alex Steffen
We get so little news about the developing world that we often forget that there are literally millions of people out there struggling to change things to be fairer, freer, more democratic, less corrupt. View quote
Alex Steffen
Deep walkability describes a city that is built in such a way that you can move from one area to another on foot, on bicycle, on transit and have an experience that remains a pleasant one, that you feel you are welcome not just in the neighborhood but moving between neighborhoods. View quote
Alex Steffen
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. View quote
Alex Steffen
Cities generate most of the global economy, and most of its energy use, resource demands and climate emissions. How we build cities over the next decades will largely determine whether we can deliver a bright green future. View quote
Alex Steffen
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. View quote
Alex Steffen
Carbon zero simply means that the emissions you are releasing either are zero or balance out to zero. View quote
Alex Steffen
The denser places get, the lower the amount of energy people use to get around it. View quote
Alex Steffen
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. View quote
Alex Steffen
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)
If mass media, social isolation in the suburbs, alienating workplaces and long car commutes create a bunker mentality, the Internet does the opposite. View quote
Alex Steffen
By fundamentally changing how we design the places and systems that enable our daily lives, we can slash emissions way beyond the immediate carbon savings - because our own personal emissions are just the tip of a vast iceberg of energy and resources consumed far from our view. View quote
Alex Steffen
Copenhagen has done a remarkable job creating streets that are focused on bicycles and pedestrians. View quote
Alex Steffen
Cabbies in particular seem to like discussing the fate the Earth. View quote
Alex Steffen
Saying the Tech Bloom is not commercially driven is like saying Mother Teresa had an interest in the poor. View quote
Alex Steffen
The Internet has made some phenomenal breakthroughs that are still only poorly understood in terms of changing people's ideas of us and them. If mass media, social isolation in the suburbs, alienating workplaces and long car commutes create a bunker mentality, the Internet does the opposite. View quote
Alex Steffen
There's no really rosy scenario ahead, where climate change just doesn't happen, but I believe we don't have the ethical right to throw our hands up in the air and say, 'Game over.' Whatever pathway we choose, our descendants will be dealing with that reality for centuries to come. View quote
Alex Steffen
Cynicism is often seen as a rebellious attitude in western popular culture, but in reality, our cynicism advances the desires of the powerful: cynicism is obedience. View quote
Alex Steffen
No future can be beautiful which involves an economy that violates the rights of future generations, that degrades fundamental planetary systems in any way, or that fails to offer every human being a basic share of safety, dignity and happiness. View quote
Alex Steffen
Kids born today will see us navigate past the first greatest test of humanity, which is: can we actually be smart enough to live on a planet without destroying it? (Alex Steffen)
The answer to the problem of the American car is not under its hood. ...The best car-related innovation we have is not to improve the car but to eliminate the need to drive it everywhere we go. View quote
Alex Steffen
To be young and aware is to suspect that, in the end, the debate about climate action isn't about substance, but about rich old men trying to squeeze every last dollar, euro, and yen from their investments in outdated industries. It is to agree with the environmentalist Paul Hawken that we have an economy that steals the future, sells it in the present, and calls it GDP. It is to begin to see your elders as cannibals with golf clubs. View quote
Alex Steffen
Our goal should be to cool the planet in ways that reinforce and restore the resilience of its natural systems. View quote
Alex Steffen
Any future which is not beautiful is unacceptable. View quote
Alex Steffen