Cool Conservation Quotes, Vol. 2

The less of our landscape there is to save, the better our chances of saving it. It is a shame we have to lose so much land to learn the lesson, but desecration does seem a prerequisite for action. People have to be outraged. Most of the new land-use legislation and the pioneering programs did not come about as the result of foresighted, thoughtful analysis. They came about because people got mad over something they could see. Some of the most significant legislation can be traced to a small local outrage – a line of trees being chopped down for a highway, a meadow being asphalted for a parking area.

--- William H. Whyte, The Last Landscape (1968)