The living and holistic biosystem that is nature cannot be dissected or resolved into its parts. Once broken down, it dies. Or rather, those who break off a piece of nature lay hold of something that is dead, and, unaware that what they are examining is no longer what they think it to be, claim to understand nature. . . . Because [man] starts off with misconceptions about nature and takes the wrong approach to understanding it, regardless of how rational his thinking, everything winds up all wrong.
—Masanobu Fukuoka, The Natural Way of Farming
The World can, in effect, get along without natural resources.
—Robert Solow, 1987 Nobel Prize, Economics