Fossil Quotations

Enzymes - plainly the most important biotechnology of our era - already permeate many industrial processes. Unlike fossil fuels, they carry chemical programming which drives complex reactions, are renewable, and work at ordinary pressures and temperatures.

What the fossil record does do is to force us to contemplate our place on the planet. We are but one species of several hominids that inhabited Planet Earth, and like our distant cousins who went extinct fairly recently, our time on Planet Earth is also finite.

Just as fossil fuels from conventional sources are finite and are becoming depleted, those from difficult sources will also run out. If we put all our energy and resources into continued fossil fuel extraction, we will have lost an opportunity to have invested in renewable energy.

Yet, despite our many advances, our environment is still threatened by a range of problems, including global climate change, energy dependence on unsustainable fossil fuels, and loss of biodiversity.

The source of all the energy is the sun. The big challenge is, how do you use all of that energy? Solar power has to fascinate you. There have been strides to get the costs down, and if this will work, you have to get costs down so it is competitive with fossil fuels.

As long as we're dependent on those fossil fuels, we're dependent on the Middle East. If we are not victims, we're certainly captives.

I said that if an alien came to visit, I'd be embarrassed to tell them that we fight wars to pull fossil fuels out of the ground to run our transportation. They'd be like, 'What?'

Is it philosophical, is it quite allowable, to assume without evidence from fossil plants that the family or any of the genera was once larger and wide spread? and occupied a continuous area?

There is hardly an activity that a person can think about that does not intrinsically involve energy, most of which is currently provided by fossil fuels.

There is more He-3 energy on the Moon than we have ever had in the form of fossil fuels on Earth. All we have to do is to go there and get it.

People in all walks of life, and especially business, do not want to experience the collapse of cities like New York along with global finance and economy in chaos, but this is what business faces if we continue to attribute climate change to fossil fuels alone.

Coal and oil lobbyists added fossil fuels to a bill aimed at helping American manufacturers, so they too could claim 'manufacturing' tax deductions.

As you know, the fossil record includes not only the ancestors of crocodiles and whales, but also the ancestors of human beings. And this, of course, is why evolution remains controversial.

Both the United States and the world economy have already reached - and surpassed - their sustainable physical limits. Ground water is being drawn down, soils eroded, forests cut faster than they grow, fish caught faster than they reproduce, non-renewable fossil fuels burnt without developing substitutes.

With the discovery of Zinjanthropus at Olduvai Gorge in 1959, my grandmother Mary Leakey pioneered the research in East Africa with my grandfather Louis. Many more spectacular fossil finds have since been made, both in Africa and elsewhere, by many researchers driven to understand our past.

The truth is, as most of us know, that global warming is real and humans are major contributors, mainly because we wastefully burn fossil fuels.

Fossil fuels, including oil, are running out and supplies are getting harder to find. If we do nothing, prices will continue to rise and our reliance on oil will come to an abrupt and tumultuous end, causing global economic and social turmoil.

Wind and other clean, renewable energy will help end our reliance on fossil fuels and combat the severe threat that climate change poses to humans and wildlife alike.

The sooner we get started with alternative energy sources and recognize that fossil fuels makes us less secure as a nation, and more dangerous as a planet, the better off we'll be.

But it really wasn't until three to four years later, when we had an opportunity in the lab to make very detailed observations, and comparisons with other fossil discoveries, that we realized she was a new species of human ancestor.

The popular notion is that Americans are addicted to fossil fuels, but I find that's not true; most people would be happy to power their lives with anything else.

A healthy environment, a strong economy and energy independent America - that would be the purpose of my presidency, is break the strangle hold that people enjoy on fossil fuels who hate our guts.

It's going to cost trillions of dollars to rework the energy sources all over the world. Were going to have to move away from fossil fuels.

Fossil fuels and mining is a short-term gambit. If we develop those resources at the expense of the environmental gold mine that is the Great Barrier Reef, we will all lose in the long run.

When it comes to fossil fuels, we're going to find more here and use less. Over time, we're going to become energy independent. I am tired of sending $300 billion overseas to buy oil from people who hate our guts. The choice between a weak economy and a strong environment is a false choice, that is not the choice I'll offer America.

If you have a carbon cap and trade system, there'd be an agreed-to limit the amount of carbon we emit. That changes the economic picture for fossil technologies and for the renewable technologies. It makes the renewable technologies more attractive and the fossils less attractive.

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.

I was brought up to understand Darwin's theory of evolution. I spent hours and hours in the Natural History Museum in London looking at the descriptions of how different kinds of animals had evolved, looking at the sequence of fossil bones looking gradually more and more and more and more like the modern fossil.

Some solutions are relatively simple and would provide economic benefits: implementing measures to conserve energy, putting a price on carbon through taxes and cap-and-trade and shifting from fossil fuels to clean and renewable energy sources.

We need an energy revolution by breaking our dependence on fossil fuels, polluting fuels... I am very, very confident our small state will lead this. We will be noticed by the country and the world.

We must get rid of fossil fuels by developing injection systems for automobiles, which can run on bio-fuel.

Now we've got to accelerate the transition away from dirty energy. Rather than subsidize the past, we should invest in the future - especially in communities that rely on fossil fuels. That's why I'm going to push to change the way we manage our oil and coal resources, so that they better reflect the costs they impose on taxpayers and our planet.

Fossil fuel corporations are supposed to pay the government fair market royalties in exchange for the right to drill on public lands or in federal waters.

POPULIST, n. A fossil patriot of the early agricultural period, found in the old red soapstone underlying Kansas . . .

One SF prediction that I would like very much to see: Get solar collectors launched to beam energy back home, and get away from fossil fuels.

Pluto is just the brightest of the many objects in the Kuiper Belt. It's a fossil relic of the formation of our solar system.

People who want to curb the use of fossil fuels need to understand that not everyone in the world has the luxury of inventing romanticized scenarios. Many people just need clean water and energy to fuel social and economic progress.

Natural gas is a dirty fossil fuel like the rest of them.

If we could cut carbon dioxide emissions by 80 percent over the next 20 years we could perhaps prevent this. If we continue burning fossil fuels as we are today in the very near future (the ice shelf) will slip in (the ocean).

If this fossil is correctly identified, it's very interesting to find it existed in South America at that period of the late Cretaceous some 90 million years ago,

We need a vision that reduces our reliance on fossil fuels. But that's also public policy, and that comes down to political will, ... It's the governor and the Legislature saying, 'We want to widen our narrow focus on fossil fuels. We want to diversify.'

Making ethanol from corn is a good thing if you want to offset fossil fuels from overseas. On the greenhouse gas side of things, it is not clear if corn, as grown today, is a good thing. We just don't know yet, but it appears to be a mildly good thing.

Fossil finding will be a very difficult job on Mars. I don't think robotic missions will do it. It will take astronauts and even then it will be a tough job.

What we find in the fossil record doesn't always represent what was going on. Prior to the pottery age, women in all societies are working in things that don't preserve very well, such as skins and braiding fiber.

I agree with Gould that the frequency of stasis in fossil species revealed by the recent analysis was unexpected by most evolutionary biologists.

We have to be aware that fossil fuel energy sources have an expiry date. A timeframe of 30, 40 or 50 years can seem a long time to get rewards for economic policy, but it's only a short time for implementing a new energy policy.

Under pressure from a growing movement of people who want their money out of fossil fuels, universities, pension investors and foundations are looking to exclude coal, oil and gas stocks from their portfolios.

Our long-term goal is to minimize dependence on fossil fuels, and we will get there by deploying a wide variety of new automotive technologies in our fleet.

It is better to use various inputs to grow corn and make ethanol and use that in your cars than it is to use the gasoline and fossil fuels directly.

It developed from a basic Judeo-Christian ideology of man being inherently evil, aggressive, and a natural killer. In fact, when you really examine the fossil and living non-human primate evidence, that is just not the case.

Our country has been asleep at the switch on these things. The basic economics are that the supply of fossil fuels is limited and the demand is outstripping the supply. It's a recipe for continued crisis if we don't start changing our ways.

Our goal in these settlement negotiations will be to achieve a project method that will provide strong protections for wildlife, wilderness qualities and fossil resources.

Our focus is to understand how high-level clouds, cirrus clouds, impact the climate system. Global warming is the climate change we're the most worried about. We are in the process of doubling the amount of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere since the Industrial Age began. The cause is the burning of fossil fuels, and it is significant because it is drastically changing the composition of the atmosphere.

It fills the gap in the fossil record there in Ethiopia.

I think we have a certain amount of climate change locked into the system. Even if we stop burning fossil fuel, the atmosphere and the ocean are going to take a while to respond. It's a very tough question for society. We're taking a gamble. We don't know all the global consequences.

It appears, at the end of the day, there are fossil fuel interests trying to stop a renewable energy project.

I think it's a fantastic opportunity to see one of the most unique specimens in the fossil record. We're taking a number of security measures, in terms of the case we're getting for it. We want to make sure we have fire control and other protection against physical damage.

We need policy change, and the most important thing people can do is to contribute and participate in the political process. We have to vote climate change deniers and people who will create subsidies for the fossil fuel industry out of office. We have to protest when bad decisions are being made about fracking or tar sands.

Today's vote promises to ultimately eclipse dirty and expensive fossil fuel with clean and efficient solar power.

With the current trend of development in Iran it will not be long before we will have to utilize all our fossil fuel resources for domestic purposes.

We know the chief sources of the warming -- fossil fuels and, in the tropics, the burning of trees for cooking -- but we haven't moved to stop it, ... It really isn't that difficult to begin reducing carbon emissions, as Europe and Japan are doing already. We could certainly put a cap on the quantity of greenhouse gases industry can emit.

We know the chief sources of the warming fossil fuels and, in the tropics, the burning of trees for cooking but we haven't moved to stop it, ... It really isn't that difficult to begin reducing carbon emissions, as Europe and Japan are doing already. We could certainly put a cap on the quantity of greenhouse gases industry can emit.

We need to reduce the fossil fuels we use and travel we do, but simply saying to people 'don't do that' is not effective. We see this as part of a wider picture - at some stage we will all have individual carbon allowances and our schemes are helping people to get used to the idea that they produce a personal carbon footprint.

Under the auspices of the (International Polar Year), to go out and prospect for fossil fuels, to put it politely - it seems ironic if not deeply misjudged.

We know today if you go to western and central Africa that humans and chimps live in similar and neighboring environments. This is the first evidence in the fossil record that they coexisted in the same place in the past.

The problem isn't private transportation. The problem is that we have an old-fashioned 19th-century technology, the internal combustion engine using fossil fuels. Let's solve that problem -- maybe by creating small, fuel-efficient vehicles -- and stop talking about putting the city back into its 19th-century state to make mass transit work. Instead, let's see what people want to do, then see how the city can be built around them.

Whole Foods Market is a leader in the natural and organic foods movement, and that involves caring about our communities and respecting our environment. Offsetting 100 percent of our electricity use with renewable, clean energy strengthens our commitment to be a leader in environmental stewardship by helping to clean the air and reducing our dependence on fossil fuels.

We can produce ethanol at roughly a buck a gallon and that's going to be going down. We can produce soy diesel, biodiesel, at around $2 a gallon. That's probably going to get less expensive, ... These products in the ag community become very, very competitive against traditional fossil fuels and I think that means nothing but good things for ag in Michigan.

We've looked at fossil earthquakes, we've made computer models, and we've made earthquakes in the laboratory. We've studied them from afar, but we've never before been where the action is.

We'll always need energy. We need to communicate, too, but we're not stuck with hand gestures and smoke signals. There are better ways to power our future than by digging fossil fuel from the ground and setting it on fire.

The problem with Skye is that the Jurassic rocks are topped by about 20-30 metre thick volcanic rocks, which is very hard, ... So you can't get at the remains. You have to wait for the fossil to fall out of the cliffs.

This proposal from the Bank does not suggest a strong ambition to re-direct financing away from existing fossil fuel patterns, or to deliver sustainable energy to the two billion people currently without.

We are running out of road on decision making -- unless we dramatically change the use of fossil fuels we will be committing future generations to the most severe impacts of climate change.

The delegates in Buenos Aires have to be reminded that climate change is not something which will happen in the future, it is happening now, most dramatically in the Arctic. The main cause is clear and undisputed. Increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere due to the burning of fossil fuels is accepted as the main cause of climate change by all scientists save those working for the fossil fuel industry. Polar bears may be some of the earliest victims, but the rest of us are not far behind.

The crest is a very bizarre-looking structure. I actually had a chance to see the fossil last summer in China while they were working on it. It's remarkably well preserved. And it has this strangely open triangular structure that flares a little bit at the back. Very delicate.

What we saw was a real mosaic between characteristics of fish and those previously thought to be only in land animals. The fossil was showing us how creatures were assembled over time to live on land.

There are a lot of individuals out there who will ultimately become the end purchasers of these things, and we would ask anyone who does come into possession of an unusual fossil to report it immediately to the federal police,

The high prices also highlight the fact that the U.S. is too heavily dependent on fossil fuels that we import from unstable parts of the world. To protect our national security, we must become more energy secure.

We're going to have to do something about the fossil fuel issue. I don't think the earth is going to continue to give the way she has the last 100 years.

A stock market index helps investors track the performance of a group of stocks. NRDC worked with FTSE to develop comprehensive and transparent methodologies that screen out companies linked to owning, exploring, or extracting fossil fuels.

We need to give our children a future less dependent on fossil fuel, ... According to the Energy Department's latest analysis, even if oil companies drill in the wildlife refuge and hit peak production, it will only lower gas prices by a penny per gallon.

As the fossil record becomes more complete, it sometimes provides the very intermediate forms the nonexistence of which the creationists were willing to predict. Even their favorite gaps are filling up, and the historical record of evolution becomes more compelling with each passing season.

I see this as very important because of America's heavy reliance on fossil fuels.

The share of fossil fuels (in China's energy use) may fall but the absolute amounts consumed will grow.

We will move the world ahead. We will not wait for George W. Bush. Together we can save the climate. Together we will stop fossil fuels from destroying our future.

When we look at the the reliability and the cost of nuclear energy and compare it with what's happening with fossil fuels, we don't have too many options.

The only explanation for that is they must have been fed by the mother. That would be oldest evidence of parental care in the fossil record,

These are the terrible consequences of our overdependence on fossil fuel, ... The natural disasters of Katrina and Rita have showed us firsthand how truly vulnerable we are.

Both are going on. These are large companies. Within them are strategists telling them that they will have no business left in 15 to 20 years if they continue to focus on fossil fuels. But in most cases, the public relations case is a stronger one. There is a real fear that they will be subject to things like windfall taxes.

Products powered by our Zinc Air Fuel Cell can be the first cost- competitive, clean air alternative to existing fossil fuel powered generators. The lifetime and durability demands for these First to Market applications are more achievable in the short term than those of transportation and co-generation which require much longer life time and established fuel infrastructures.

Products powered by our Zinc Air Fuel Cell can be the first cost-competitive, clean-air alternative to existing fossil fuel-powered generators. The lifetime and durability demands for these first-to-market applications are more achievable in the short term than those of transportation and co-generation, which require much longer lifetime and established fuel infrastructures.

Despite these recent price drops, natural gas prices are higher now than in the past because demand for this most efficient and cleanest-burning fossil fuel has increased while production has not. The natural gas market is extremely volatile, and Elizabethtown Gas will make every effort to hold costs to the lowest reasonable level.

Coal is responsible for as much atmospheric carbon dioxide as other fossil fuels combined and it still has far greater reserves. We must stop using it.

That's fossil water and when it's gone, it's gone. If you really are glacier-fed in a warming world, you're up the creek without a paddle, no pun intended.

That time period has historically been a lower electricity cost time of year. However, in 2005 prices rose considerably due to the high cost of natural gas and other fossil fuels and temperatures were below normal.

Our customers have expressed interest in being able to choose renewable resources and I'm pleased that we will now be able to offer them that choice. Green Mountain Power's overall power mix is already low in fossil fuels, but under our new program, customers can choose 100 percent renewable resources. We've called the program 'Greener Mountain Power' to reflect that greener choice.

People care about tyrannosaurs. People are interested in them - not just scientists - and this fossil goes a long way to understanding their early history.

Right now we get 93 percent of our energy from burning fossil fuels. If all of these projects come on-line that number will be down to around 55 percent.

Florida is too dependent on fossil fuels for our energy. With the vulnerability we have to hurricanes, there's a lot of potential for the supply to be cut off.

There are a multitude of things that the individual can do. There is the present debate going on about petrol, for instance. The fact is that we are poisoning the atmosphere and the less fumes we put in it, the better. And we are using up our fossil fuels.