Notable Ecologists, Environmentalists, & Conservationists Posters “N...-O...-”
for science & social studies classrooms, home schoolers, offices.

Ralph Nader
Helen and Scott Nearing

Gaylord Nelson
Eugene Odum

Ralph Nader
b. 2-27-1934; Winsted, Connecticut

Author, lecturer, and attorney Ralph Nader is best known for his political activism in consumer protection, humanitarianism, environmentalism, and democratic government.

• Ralph Nader quotes ~
• “The use of solar energy has not been opened up because the oil industry does not own the sun.”
• “The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.”
• “There can be no daily democracy without daily citizenship.”
• “When strangers start acting like neighbors... communities are reinvigorated.”
• “A society that has more justice is a society that needs less charity.”
• “Ours is a system of corporate socialism, where companies capitalize their profits and socialize their losses...in effect, they tax you for their accidents, bungling, boondoggles, and mismanagement, just like a government. We should be able to dis-elect them.”
• “Today the large organization is lord and master, and most of its employees have been desensitized much as were the medieval peasants who never knew they were serfs.”
• “A seller-sovereign economy includes sellers who are monopolistic or oligopolistic without being confronted by the ultimate consumers who are organized in monopsonistic or ologopsonistic modes. It is an economy where enormous skill, artifice, and resources are used in getting consumers to buy what the sellers want to sell, notwithstanding the availability of more efficient, safe, economical, durable, and effective alternatives, including that of buying nothing at all.”
• “The corporate lobby in Washington is basically designed to stifle all legislative activity on behalf of consumers.”
• “The corporate lobby in Washington is basically designed to stifle all legislative activity on behalf of consumers.”
• “Once you don't vote your ideals ... that has serious undermining affects. It erodes the moral basis of our democracy.”
• “Sanctions against polluters are feeble and out of date, and are rarely invoked.”

• Ralph Nader books

Gaylord Nelson
b. 6-4-1916; Wisconsin
d. 7-3-2005

Gaylord Nelson, a principal founder of Earth Day, also served as governor and US Senator for the state of Wisconsin.

Gaylord Nelson quotes ~
• “The most important environmental issue is one that is rarely mentioned, and that is the lack of a conservation ethic in our culture.”
• “We must recognize that we're all part of a web of life around the world. Anytime you extinguish a species, the consequences are serious.”
• “If we continue to address the issue of the environment where we live as though we're the only species that lives here, we'll create a disaster for ourselves.”
• “Loads of chemicals and hazardous wastes have been introduced into the atmosphere that didn't even exist in 1948. The environmental condition of the planet is far worse than it was 42 years ago.”
• “I think the internal combustion engine will disappear from the streets of our cities in the next thirty years because transportation will be mass transportation, or probably electrical power.”

Helen and Scott Nearing

Back-to-landers Helen (1904-1995) and Scott (1883-1983) wrote extensively about their experience living what they termed “the good life”. They approached life by reducing their wants and engaging in a mostly barter exchange for their organic produce and other sorts of labor.

Scott Nearing had been a professor, dismissed for his socialist views in 1915.

Eugene Odum
b. 9-17-1914; Newport, NH
d. 8-10-2002; Athens, GA

Biologist and professor Eugene Odum is best remembered for his pioneering work on ecosystem ecology.

Sigurd F. Olson
b. 4-4-1899; Chicago, IL, raised in northern Wisconsin
d. 1-13-1982

Author, environmentalist, teacher, and advocate for the protection of wilderness, Sigurd F. Olson, served for more than thirty years as a wilderness guide in the lakes and forests of northern Minnesota and northeastern Ontario.

Spirit of the North: The Quotable Sigurd F. Olson