Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. — Aldous Huxley

The kerosene that’s used for lighting alone is an estimated US$48 billion per year industry. Yet fuel based light production is extremely inefficient, dangerous and expensive, and has extensive economic, health and environmental costs, both locally and globally.— ewb-international.org

About 1.6 billion people (one quarter of the global population) presently have no access to electricity. Although that number has declined in absolute value and also as a fraction of the world’s population since 1970, by 2030 it is expected that 1.4 billion people will still lack electricity. — IEA, 2002

In Nepal, UC Berkeley researchers found the odds of having Tuberculosis were more than nine times greater for women using kerosene lamps for indoor lighting, rather than electricity. — (Berkeley.edu)

Education has, thus, become the chief problem of the world, its one holy cause. The nations that see this will survive, and those that fail to do so will slowly perish. There must be re-education of the will and of the heart as well as of the intellect, and the ideals of service must supplant those of selfishness and greed. ... Never so much as now is education the one and chief hope of the world. — G. Stanley Hall, Confessions of a Psychologist (1923)

The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world's problems. — Mahatma Gandhi

Common sense is what tells us the earth is flat. — Albert Einstein

Conservation and rural-life policies are really two sides of the same policy; and down at the bottom this policy rests upon the fundamental law that neither man nor nation can prosper unless, in dealing with the present, thought is steadily given for the future. — Theodore Roosevelt

The burning of kerosene causes both indoor and local air pollution, with fuel based lighting responsible for the emission of 244 million tons of carbon dioxide into the environment each year from developing countries.— ewb-international.org

Even today we don't pay serious attention to the issue of poverty, because the powerful remain relatively untouched by it. Most people distance themselves from the issue by saying that if the poor worked harder, they wouldn't be poor. — Muhammad Yunus (Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty)

Toxic fumes from the kerosene lamps contribute to respiratory infections and vision problems. Solid fuels used for lighting account for roughly 4-5% of deaths worldwide, of which half of the 2 million deaths were children who suffered from acute lower respiratory infections.— Kuwasha.org

The more you know, the less you need. — Yvon Chouinard (Let My People Go Surfing)

Happiness is not the absence of problems, it's the ability to deal with them. — Steve Maraboli

First, there is the power of the Wind, constantly exerted over the globe.... Here is an almost incalculable power at our disposal, yet how trifling the use we make of it! It only serves to turn a few mills, blow a few vessels across the ocean, and a few trivial ends besides. What a poor compliment do we pay to our indefatigable and energetic servant! — Henry David Thoreau

Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books. — John Lubbock (Lord Avebury), The Use of Life (1895)

What's the use of a fine house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on? — Henry David Thoreau

A tree is beautiful, but what’s more, it has a right to life; like water, the sun and the stars, it is essential. Life on earth is inconceivable without trees. Forests create climate, climate influences peoples’ character, and so on and so forth. There can be neither civilization nor happiness if forests crash down under the axe, if the climate is harsh and severe, if people are also harsh and severe. ... What a terrible future! — Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, (1888)

Despite African government policies that kept electricity prices low, some 550 million people, or almost 75 per cent of the population of sub-Saharan Africa, still do not have access. In 2004 in East Africa, fewer than 3 per cent of rural people and 32 per cent of urban residents were connected to their national grids.— UN.org/renewal

The time has come to link ecology to economic and human development. When you have seen one ant, one bird, one tree, you have not seen them all. What is happening to the rain forests of Madagascar and Brazil will affect us all. — Edward O. Wilson

A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it. — Albert Einstein

If most governments’ polices were to keep costs down why then are connection rates so dismal? The answer, says Mr. Babu, is that governments’ efforts to expand access have relied mostly on capping the amount power utilities can charge for use. But that doesn’t help rural dwellers and other poor consumers whose homes are not yet linked to the power grid, he points out, because they face very high connection costs instead. In cities where grids exist, the cost of a connection may start at $200. Where there is no grid, construction and connection costs can exceed $1,500. So, “poor people in rural areas are simply not connected.— UN.org/renewal

Social entrepreneurs are not content just to give a fish or teach how to fish. They will not rest until they have revolutionized the fishing industry.— Bill Drayton (Leading Social Entrepreneurs Changing the World)

Solar energy’s potential is off the chart. The energy in sunlight striking the earth for 40 minutes is equivalent to global energy consumption for a year.— Scientific American, Dec 2007

We enjoy warmth because we have been cold. We appreciate light because we have been in darkness. By the same token, we can experience joy because we have known sadness. — David Weatherford

Even the very poor who have access to electricity tend to use other (less costly) energy forms for the bulk of their energy needs; electricity, which is costly, is reserved only for those applications for which electrons have no substitutes. — UN.org/renewal

If you go out into the real world, you cannot miss seeing that the poor are poor not because they are untrained or illiterate but because they cannot retain the returns of their labor. They have no control over capital, and it is the ability to control capital that gives people the power to rise out of poverty. — Muhammad Yunus (Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty)

The interactions of man with his environment are so complex that only an ecological approach to nutrition permits an understanding of the whole spectrum of factors determining the nutritional problems that exist in human societies. — George H. Beaton

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. — Margaret Mead

It is presumed that there exists a great unity in nature, in respect of the adequacy of a single cause to account for many different kinds of consequences. — Immanuel Kant, In Theoretical Philosophy, 1755-1770

Nearly one million people a year die from kerosene lamp fires. An additional 1.6 million are estimated to die from the long term effects of indoor air pollution.— The Lumina Project

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. — Plato

You educate a man; you educate a man. You educate a woman; you educate a generation. — Brigham Young

I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority. — E.B. White

While it is always possible to wake a person who's sleeping, no amount of noise will wake a person who is pretending to be asleep. — Jonathan Safran Foer (Eating Animals)

Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple. — Dr. Seuss

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. — Anne Frank

There's always going to be bad stuff out there. But here's the amazing thing -- light trumps darkness, every time. You stick a candle into the dark, but you can't stick the dark into the light. — Jodi Picoult (Change of Heart)

Kerosene lamps contribute 200 billion kilograms of soot and CO2 to homes and the earth’s atmosphere every year — nciia.org

Physicist Isador Isaac Rabi, who won a Nobel Prize for inventing a technique that permitted scientists to probe the structure of atoms and molecules in the 1930s, attributed his success to the way his mother used to greet him when he came home from school each day. “Did you ask any good questions today, Issac?” she would say. — Richard Saul Wurman

Instead of cursing the darkness, light a candle. — Benjamin Franklin

The earth has music for those who listen. — William Shakespeare

Two thirds of adult female lung-cancer victims in developing nations are non-smokers.— World Bank

Here is your country. Cherish these natural wonders, cherish the natural resources, cherish the history and romance as a sacred heritage, for your children and your children's children. Do not let selfish men or greedy interests skin your country of its beauty, its riches or its romance. — Theodore Roosevelt

Be comforted, dear soul! There is always light behind the clouds. — Louisa May Alcott (Little Women)

Stories are light. Light is precious in a world so dark. Begin at the beginning. Tell Gregory a story. Make some light. — Kate DiCamillo

Food production is now so energy-intensive that more carbon is emitted providing a person with enough calories to walk to the shops than a car would emit over the same distance. — Dominic Kennedy (Citing calculations made by environmentalist author, Chris Goodall.)

According to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories, the single-greatest way to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions associated with lighting energy is to replace kerosene lamps with white light emitting diode (LED) systems in developing countries— ewb-international.org

The proverb warns that, 'You should not bite the hand that feeds you.' But maybe you should, if it prevents you from feeding yourself. — Thomas Stephen Szasz

The ultimate test of man's conscience may be his willingness to sacrifice something today for future generations whose words of thanks will not be heard. — Gaylord Nelson, Former governor of Wisconsin, Founder of Earth Day.

< a href="http://flexiwaysolar.com/the-solution-our-solar-powered-led-light/enabling-student-education/" title="Enable student education using solar-powered LED lights">Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today. — Malcolm X

Like music and art, love of nature is a common language that can transcend political or social boundaries.— Jimmy Carter

Nearly one million people a year die from kerosene lamp fires. An additional 1.6 million are estimated to die from the long term effects of indoor air pollution.— Stefano Pagiola ("Generating Public Sector Resources to Finance Sustainable Developmen")

I have no doubt that we will be successful in harnessing the sun's energy... If sunbeams were weapons of war, we would have had solar energy centuries ago.— Sir George Porter

In rural Kenya more women die of smoke-related illnesses than they do of malaria and tuberculosis. This smoke is from cooking and lighting fuels.— The United Nations Environmental Program

The use of solar energy offers huge potential for natural resource and climate protection, and for the expansion of renewable energies on the road to a future-oriented energy supply.— Margareta Wolf, Jun. 20, 2004

It wasn't his [the captain of the Exxon Valdez] driving that caused the Alaskan oil spill. It was yours. — Greenpeace (Caption, under a picture of Captain Joseph Hazelwood, in Greenpeace full-page advertisement, in various world newspaper)

Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great, you can be that generation. — Nelson Mandela

If civilization is to survive, it must live on the interest, not the capital, of nature. — Ronald Wright (A Short History of Progress)

The world is your school. — Martin H. Fischer

Blessed are the cracked, for they shall let in the light. — Groucho Marx

About a third [PDF] of electricity companies in Africa and South Asia don't even have the resources to conduct basic operations and maintenance -- let alone roll out access to new customers.— Worldbank.org via Grist

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world. — Nelson Mandela

Never fear shadows. They simply mean that there's a light nearby. — Ruth Renkel

I say it is impossible that so sensible a people [citizens of Paris], under such circumstances, should have lived so long by the smoky, unwholesome, and enormously expensive light of candles, if they had really known that they might have had as much pure light of the sun for nothing. —  Benjamin Franklin (Describing the energy-saving benefit of adopting daylight saving time, 1784)

It is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness. — Eleanor Roosevelt

The best way to predict the future is to invent it. — Alan C. Kay

Kerosene is more expensive than electric lighting, at 325 times higher ($/lumen hour of light) than the “inefficient” incandescent bulb, and 1,625 times higher than compact fluorescent lighting. — ewb-international.org

In Nepal, UC Berkeley researchers found the odds of having Tuberculosis were more than nine times greater for women using kerosene lamps for indoor lighting, rather than electricity. — (Berkeley.edu)

When will society, like a mother, take care of all her children? — Horace Mann (1837)

I think we need to take positive steps toward space solar-power systems. We need to move in a step-by-step manner. It's a real possibility to have a great new energy source for mankind. — Dana Rohrabacher, 2001

Only after the last tree has been cut down. Only after the last river has been poisoned. Only after the last fish has been caught. Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten. — Cree Indian prophecy.

We need to drive the cost of solar energy down to where it's competitive for bulk power generation. — JIM DIPESO, 2003

We used to be a source of fuel; we are increasingly becoming a sink. These supplies of foreign liquid fuel are no doubt vital to our industry, but our ever-increasing dependence upon them ought to arouse serious and timely reflection. The scientific utilisation, by liquefaction, pulverisation and other processes, or our vast and magnificent deposits of coal, constitutes a national object of prime importance. — Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill

The main concerns relate to high levels of indoor pollutants, particularly soot and lead. This is a major problem considering the fact that air-borne soot can penetrate the deepest areas of the lungs and the lower respiratory tract.— Ivy Mills

Over and over again, we must stress that a healthy ecology is the basis for a healthy economy. — Claudine Schneider

I have no doubt that we will be successful in harnessing the sun's energy. ... If sunbeams were weapons of war, we would have had solar energy centuries ago. — Sir George Porter

The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking. — Albert Einstein

Clearly, we need more incentives to quickly increase the use of wind and solar power; they will cut costs, increase our energy independence and our national security and reduce the consequences of global warming. — Hillary Clinton, Oct. 25, 2005

The worst thing that will probably happen—in fact is already well underway—is not energy depletion, economic collapse, conventional war, or the expansion of totalitarian governments. As terrible as these catastrophes would be for us, they can be repaired in a few generations. The one process now going on that will take millions of years to correct is loss of genetic and species diversity by the destruction of natural habitats. This is the folly our descendants are least likely to forgive us. — Edward O. Wilson

As the technology for solar cells gets better and better, this form of clean, renewable energy will find more applications that take up less space and produce more electricity, to meet the energy needs of our homes, schools and businesses. — Samuel Bodman, 2005

Exposure to indoor air pollution is a major factor contributing to the global burden of disease, including acute respiratory infections in children, chronic obstructive lung diseases such as asthma and bronchitis, lung cancer and still births.— Stefano Pagiola ("Generating Public Sector Resources to Finance Sustainable Developmen")

When we want to help the poor, we usually offer them charity. Most often we use charity to avoid recognizing the problem and finding the solution for it. Charity becomes a way to shrug off our responsibility. But charity is no solution to poverty. Charity only perpetuates poverty by taking the initiative away from the poor. Charity allows us to go ahead with our own lives without worrying about the lives of the poor. Charity appeases our consciences. — Muhammad Yunus (Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty)

Stay in college, get the knowledge. And stay there until you're through. If they can make penicillin out of moldy bread, they can sure make something out of you. — Muhammad Ali, advice to a young person to continue his education.

The largest land animal is the elephant, and it is the nearest to man in intelligence: it understands the language of its country and obeys orders, remembers duties that it has been taught, is pleased by affection and by marks of honour, nay more it possesses virtues rare even in man, honesty, wisdom, justice, also respect for the stars and reverence for the sun and moon. — Pliny the Elder (Gaius Plinius Secundus)

A nation that can't control its energy sources can't control its future. — Barack Obama

In the few months we have had the white LED lamps the improvement in the children’s academic performance has been absolutely remarkable!— ewb-international.org

(Users of) kerosene lamps may be exposing themselves to inflammatory agents such as carcinogens and teratogens. These may lead to increased risk of cancer, neurological and behavioural deficits and acute aggravation of existing respiratory diseases such as asthma.— Ivy Mills

Energie is the operation, efflux or activity of any being: as the light of the Sunne is the energie of the Sunne, and every phantasm of the soul is the energie of the soul. — Henry More (The first recorded definition of the term "energy" in English) In Platonica: A Platonicall Song of the Soul (1642)

780 million women and children breathing particular laden kerosene fumes inhale the equivalent of smoke from two packets of cigarettes a day.— World Bank

It always seems impossible until it's done. — Nelson Mandela

Optimism is a good characteristic, but if carried to an excess, it becomes foolishness. We are prone to speak of the resources of this country as inexhaustible; this is not so. — Theodore Roosevelt

Everything must be made as simple as possible. But not simpler.— Albert Einstein

There are over two billion people still using destructive kerosene lamps throughout the world. These lamps create recurring fuel costs for the owners ($38 billion globally) and add to the health and environmental burden of individuals living without electricity.— nciia.org

If ever there can be a cause worthy to be upheld by all toil or sacrifice that the human heart can endure, it is the cause of education. — Horace Mann

The sun, moving as it does, sets up processes of change and becoming and decay, and by its agency the finest and sweetest water is every day carried up and is dissolved into vapour and rises to the upper region, where it is condensed again by the cold and so returns to the earth. This, as we have said before, is the regular course of nature. — Aristotle

Poverty does not belong in civilized human society. Its proper place is in a museum. That's where it will be. — Muhammad Yunus (Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty)

Humanity stands ... before a great problem of finding new raw materials and new sources of energy that shall never become exhausted. In the meantime we must not waste what we have, but must leave as much as possible for coming generations. — Svante Arrhenius, Chemistry in Modern Life (1925)

Kerosene soot from burning lamps is said to emit dangerous fumes, which are not only environmentally hazardous, but also causes cancer. Various research studies have shown that kerosene lamps can produce a variety of harmful substances, including benzene and toluene, known as carcinogens.— Twine Bananuka

Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world...would do this, it would change the earth. — William Faulkner

EPA (United States Environmental Protection Agency), for example, has found more than 20 dangerous compounds in significant quantities, including acetone, benzene, toluene and lead as a result of usage of kerosene lamps.— Twine Bananuka

The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom. — Isaac Asimov

The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living differ from the dead.— Aristotle

Denuding the landscape in search of wood fuel for lighting is also recognized as a primary environmental problem in the developing world, as well as the release of heavy metals into local environments from the disposal of millions of non-rechargeable dry cell batteries. In a country like Nepal with a population of over 24 million, hundreds of millions of non-rechargeable batteries are discarded directly into the environment each year. — ewb-international.org

Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile. — Albert Einstein

The use of solar energy has not been opened up because the oil industry does not own the sun. — Ralph Nader

The dangers associated with using kerosene lamps are real. Therefore, as a substitute, the rural poor should be encouraged to use solar lanterns – which may appear expensive in the short-run, but cheap in the long-run. Poor people need not only cheap commodities, but also safe and healthy ones.— Ivy Mills

I must choose between despair and Energy, I choose the latter. — John Keats

..things are never as complicated as they seem. It is only our arrogance that prompts us to find unnecessarily complicated answers to simple problems. — Muhammad Yunus (Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty)

By blending water and minerals from below with sunlight and CO2 from above, green plants link the earth to the sky. We tend to believe that plants grow out of the soil, but in fact most of their substance comes from the air. The bulk of the cellulose and the other organic compounds produced through photosynthesis consists of heavy carbon and oxygen atoms, which plants take directly from the air in the form of CO2. Thus the weight of a wooden log comes almost entirely from the air. When we burn a log in a fireplace, oxygen and carbon combine once more into CO2, and in the light and heat of the fire we recover part of the solar energy that went into making the wood. — Fritjof Capra

We owe our lives to the sun... How is it, then, that we feel no gratitude? — Lewis Thomas

We are like tenant farmers chopping down the fence around our house for fuel when we should be using Nature’s inexhaustible sources of energy--sun, wind and tide. I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that. — Thomas A. Edison

…most of the damage we cause to the planet is the result of our own ignorance.— Yvon Chouinard (Let My People Go Surfing)

The inflammatory agents in kerosene lamps have been linked with everything from cancer to behavioral deficits. The lamps are also a safety risk as they can be easily knocked over and start fires in the home.— ipc-undp.org

A day without sunshine is like, you know, night. — Steve Martin

A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. — Albert Einstein

If we use resources productively and take to heart the lessons learned from coping with the energy crisis, we face a future confronted only, as Pogo, once said, by insurmountable opportunities. The many crises facing us should be seen, then, not as threats, but as chances to remake the future so it serves all beings. — L. Hunter Lovins

The measure of intelligence is the ability to change. — Albert Einstein

The negative health and safety effects associated with the use of kerosene lamps and biomass is well documented. Problems include burns from direct contact, accidental fires that result in destruction of individual homes, schools or even entire villages.— Kuwasha.org

Fear can only grow in darkness. Once you face fear with light, you win. — Steve Maraboli

Burdens faced by the energy-poor -- a child studying by the light of a kerosene lamp, a mother slaving over a wood stove, or a girl walking miles to fetch water -- could be lifted with the aid of modern energy.— Philip LaRocco, founder and Chief Executive of E+Co

The fact that the poor are alive is clear proof of their ability. — Muhammad Yunus (Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty)

Empowerment is the ability to refine, improve, and enhance your life without co-dependency. — Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)

Because we are now running out of gas and oil, we must prepare quickly for a third change, to strict conservation and to the use of coal and permanent renewable energy sources, like solar power.— Jimmy Carter, Apr. 18, 1977

Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed.— Mahatma Gandhi

The conservation of natural resources is the fundamental problem. Unless we solve that problem it will avail us little to solve all others. — Theodore Roosevelt

Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving. — Albert Einstein

Nations have recently been led to borrow billions for war; no nation has ever borrowed largely for education... no nation is rich enough to pay for both war and civilization. We must make our choice; we cannot have both. — Abraham Flexner. (1930)