"Three months of camp life on Lake Tahoe would restore an Egyptian mummy to his pristine vigor, and give him an appetite like an alligator. I do not mean the oldest and driest mummies, of course, but the fresher ones. The air up there in the clouds is very pure and fine, bracing and delicious. And why shouldn't it be?—it is the same the angels breathe."—Mark Twain, Roughing It

Here are more than 3,700 quotations in 143 categories—from Acid Rain to Zoos—that provide a comprehensive collection of the wise and witty observations about our natural environment. The Dictionary of Environmental Quotations will delight, provoke, and inform readers. It is at once stimulating, entertaining, and enlightening, with quotations that provide a complete range of human thought about nature and the environment. Quotations have been drawn from a variety of documented sources, including poems, proverbs, slogans, radio, and television, congressional hearings, magazines, and newspapers. The authors of the quotes range from a philosopher in pre-Christian times to a contemporary economist, from a poet who speaks of forests to an engineer concerned with air pollutants.

Organized into 143 topic areas such as Air, Conservation, Forests, Greenhouse Effect, History, Nuclear Energy, Water, Wildlife, and other subjects. The Dictionary of Environmental Quotations presents a sweeping look at the history of environmentalism as well as the issues and topics that are debated today. It includes two indexes, one by subject and one by author.