Paul Hawken

When cattle ranchers clear rain forests to raise beef to sell to fast-food chains that make hamburgers to sell to Americans, who have the highest rate of heart disease in the world (and spend the most money per GNP on health care), we can say easily that business is no longer developing the world. We have become its predator.

We assume that everything's becoming more efficient, and in an immediate sense that's true; our lives are better in many ways. But that improvement has been gained through a massively inefficient use of natural resources.

Let's take up the most important issues first. Let's take up the reauthorizations first; let's take up the appropriations bill first, not wait until four days beforehand - no one has mentioned anything, and, all of a sudden, somebody looks at their watch and says, 'Hey, in four days, the government is going to run out of money.'