4 - hours in which the world loses acres of tropical forest equivalent in size to the island of Manhattan
20 - percent of all global CO2 emissions caused by deforestation
2 trillion - amount in dollars that burning and clearing forests costs the global economy every year as valued through lost fresh water, food and timber and carbon reduction
70 - number of species of South and Central American frogs that have gone extinct, likely due to climate change
95 - percent of living coral Australia’s Great Barrier Reef may lose by 2050 due to climate change
25 - percent of all land animals and plants at risk of extinction due to climate change
25 - percent of all emissions reductions called for by 2050 that could be achieved by conserving and restoring tropical forests
143 million - acres of forest Conservation International has helped conserve over the last three years
40 - number of cars, trucks and SUVs’ yearly emissions offset by conserving just one acre of threatened tropical forest
15 - the cost in dollars for protecting one acre of forest with Conservation International. Protect an acre today

"Battling racism and battling heterosexism and battling apartheid share the same urgency inside me as battling cancer."
-- poet Audre Lorde

"I've been out most of my life. I don't feel like I have a choice about it. I look Gay." -- MSNBC talk show host Rachel Maddow

"I think it's pretty obvious who I'm seeing [Samantha Ronson]. I think it's no shock to anyone that it's been going on for quite some time. ... She's a wonderful person and I love her very much. ... Maybe [I'm Bisexual]. No [I'm not a Lesbian]. I don't want to classify myself. First of all, you never know what's going to happen - tomorrow, in a month, a year from now, five years from now. I appreciate people, and it doesn't matter who they are."
-- Actress, model and singer Lindsay Lohan

“Never discourage anyone… who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.” -- Greek philosopher Plato

"The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any." -- novelist and poet, Alice Walker

"...[W]e have been socialized to respect fear more than our own needs for language and definition, and while we wait in silence for that final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of that silence will choke us."
- author Audre Lorde

"[Her] genius resided in her insistence on bringing her whole self to whatever she was doing." -- novelist Jewell Gomez, describing poet Audre Lorde

"It's our hearts and brains that we should exercise more often...You can put on all the makeup you want but it won't make your soul pretty."
-- make-up artist to the stars, Kevyn Aucoin

"If you wanna change the world
Then you gotta change yourself
If you want
To open up your mind and let it in
Then free your heart
And let the light shine in
There’s no one else
Has all the magic that you have inside
Or knows the way
To share the gift that only you provide" -- poet, singer, songwriter Magdalen Hsu-Li

"I think anytime you face some type of fear, you're going to grow in some way. You're going to learn more about who you are in a tough spot."
-- comedian, actor, talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres

"I hate the idea that people think being gay is a choice…I was born this way and I've grown to love this part of me." -- Olympic gold-medalist Greg Louganis

"Love s the big booming beat which covers up the noise of hate." -- comedian, social activist Margaret Cho

"Sexuality and gender don't change anyone's performance on the [basketball] court." -- WNBA star, Sheryl Swoopes

"Sometimes when we are generous in small, barely detectable ways it can change someone else's life forever." -- comedian, social activist Margaret Cho

"Three events propelled my vision into reality: grief at losing my best friend, Marvin; fear at finding out that I, too, was positive; and rage at the heterosexual world because two boys, skinheads, had stabbed me and run away laughing as I lay bleeding in the gutter. These three moments together changed my life."
-- human rights activist, Cleve Jones, on what led him to found the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt

"It has been 25 years since the [AIDS epidemic] began, and 25 million people have perished. Last year, more than 3 million people died of AIDS. That’s three million coffins, three million eulogies, three million families. But the war is far from over. Every 10 seconds, someone on the planet dies of AIDS. More than 8,000 people will die today from this disease...As long as there is one person living with this virus, we cannot give up. Until there is a cure, there must be a fight…You see, we are the cavalry. We are the ones we have been waiting for."
-- author and activist, Keith Boykin

"When California passed Prop 8 [which stripped gay and lesbian couples of the right to marry] ... I felt like I was being attacked, personally attacked, our community was attacked. I got married October 25. You know, I don't really talk about my sexual orientation, I didn't feel like I had to, I was just living my life and, not necessarily in the closet, but I was just living my life. Everybody that knows me personally, they know I'm Gay. And that's the way people should be able to live their lives. We shouldn't have to be standing out here demanding something that we automatically should have as citizens of this country. And I got pissed off. They pissed me off. I said, You know what, now I gotta get in your face. And that's what we all have to do now. They pissed off the wrong group of people. They have galvanized a community. We are so together now and we all want the same thing and we are not going to settle for less. Instead of having Gay marriage in California, no, we're gonna get it across the country. When my wife and I leave California, I want to have my marriage also recognized in Nevada, in Arizona, all the way to New York. ... I'm proud to be a woman, I'm proud to be a black woman and I'm proud to be Gay."
-- Comedian Wanda Sykes

“Why do I deserve more rights as a heterosexual man than my mothers? I think I have turned out terrific from my family-if being a son who values fairness and open-mindedness is somehow bad for society, then I am not sure this is a society I want to be a part of.”
-- Camilo Ortiz, the adoptive son of two lesbian moms, at a rally about Proposition 8, which changed the California Constitution to forever prohibit same-sex couples’ marrying

''We don't think that capitalist countries have a monopoly on freedom, democracy and human rights. People in socialist countries should also enjoy freedom, democracy and human rights.”
-- Prime Minister Li Peng of China

“Our rights as Americans do not depend on the approval of others. Our rights depend on us being Americans." -- U.S. Congressman, African-American man and civil rights veteran, John Lewis

“Gays and lesbians are oppressed. Period. And it's still legal throughout the country. That's the crime. The crime is not that gays want the right to love without prejudice. Blacks and gays may not be the same, but neither are blacks and Hispanics or blacks and women. What does that prove? At the end of the day, it shouldn't matter which group was first oppressed or whether they are identically oppressed. What matters is that no group of people should be oppressed.”
-- author/journalist Keith Boykin, who is African-American and gay

'"Times can blind us to certain truths and later generations can see that laws once thought necessary and proper in fact serve only to oppress. As the Constitution endures, persons in every generation can invoke its principles in their own search for greater freedom."
-- U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy

"[My openly gay Sunday school teacher] made it very clear that you have a special gift, and as long as you lead your life with dignity, and are a human being of your word, and you have good character, the world cannot deny you."
-- Kenneth Reeves, on his own wonderful coming out experience as a teen. Reeves, a City Council Member and former Mayor of Cambridge, Massachusetts from 1992-1995, was the first openly gay African-American man to head a major U.S. city. More at: http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2002/brotheroutsider/reeves.html

"Gay people are the sweetest, kindest, most artistic, warmest and most thoughtful people in the world. And since the beginning of time all they've ever been is kicked ..."
-- Openly gay singer, Little Richard

“Equality is more than tolerance, compassion, understanding, acceptance, benevolence, for these still come from a place of implied superiority: favors granted to those less fortunate. These attitudes suggest that there is still something wrong, something not quite right that must be overlooked or seen beyond."
-- Openly lesbian author, Suzanne Pharr

"The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life."
-- Jane Addams, social worker & feminist … she lived long before anyone defined themselves as "lesbian," but she "shared her life for 40 years" with Mary Rozet Smith

"Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility. For the person who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry his own weight, this is a frightening prospect."
-- Eleanor Roosevelt, ambassador, first lady, human rights activist … who had two loves in her life, her husband, Franklin, and her partner, Lorena

"There are many persons ready to do what is right because in their hearts they know it is right. But they hesitate, waiting for the other fellow to make the make the first move -- and he, in turn, waits for you."
-- Marian Anderson, opera star who was African-American who, in 1939, when she was prohibited from singing a concert at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., sang instead, with the support of first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, at the Lincoln Memorial.

"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality."
-- Bishop Desmond Tutu

“We can love what we are, without hating what –- and who -- we are not. We can thrive in our own tradition, even as we learn from others, and come to respect their teachings.”
-- Kofi Annan, former United Nations Secretary-General and recipient of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize

"I want American history taught. Unless I'm in that book, you're not in it either. History is not a procession of illustrious people. It's about what happens to a people. Millions of anonymous people is what history is about."
-- James Baldwin, openly gay, African-American novelist, college professor and civil rights activist who lived his latter years in France

"Prejudice is a definitely a learned behavior. You aren't born hating a black person or an obese person or a gay person … Growing into myself, I realized that different is good, and different sets you apart."
-- Marissa Whitley, Miss Teen USA 2002, who is biracial

“A mature person is one who is does not think only in absolutes, who is able to be objective even when deeply stirred emotionally, who has learned that there is both good and bad in all people and all things, and who walks humbly and deals charitably with the circumstances of life, knowing that in this world no one is all-knowing and therefore all of us need both love and charity.”
-- Eleanor Roosevelt, ambassador, first lady, human rights activist … who had two loves in her life, her husband, Franklin, and her partner, Lorena

"I have noticed that as soon as you have soldiers the story is called history. Before their arrival it is called myth, folktale, legend, fairy tale, oral poetry, ethnography. After the soldiers arrive, it is called history."
- Paula Gunn Allen

“You know, as an artist, it’s not my job to fit in; it’s not my job to belong. I’m not a social worker; I’m not a therapist. It’s my job to beat the s*** out of the world. I’m not here to make people feel good…So you’re always battling the basic human need to be loved and accepted. That’s always the conflict with the artistic need to challenge the world.”
-- Sherman Alexie

“My only regret about being gay is that I repressed it so long. I surrendered my youth to the people I feared when I could have been out there loving someone. Don’t make that mistake yourself. Life’s too damn short.”
-- Armistead Maupin

“Look back, to slavery, to suffrage, to integration and one thing is clear. Fashions in bigotry come and go. The right thing lasts.”
-- Anna Quindlen

"What the people want is very simple. They want an America as good as its promise." -- Congresswoman Barbara Jordan

"You can hurt me. You can hate me, but do it because you know me, not because I’m a member of a group. Anyways, people aren’t grapes --- you can’t weigh them in a bunch, but I guess it’s easier than dealing with people as individuals. There, I’ve solved the riddle of prejudice: it saves time."
-- author, Rita Mae Brown

“The reward for conformity was that everyone liked you except yourself.”-- Rita Mae Brown

“No government has the right to tell its citizens when or whom to love. The only queer people are those who don't love anybody.”
-- Rita Mae Brown

“I believe in not being put into ‘either/or’ -- instead, I choose ‘and.’"-- Mandy Carter, black lesbian social justice activist and co-founder of the National Black Justice Coalition, explaining that she doesn’t have one identity that trumps all her other identities

“Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.”-- Euro-American anthropologist, Margaret Mead

"If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so we weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place."
-- Margaret Mead

“It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union.... Men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less.”
-- Susan B. Anthony

(Was she lesbian? Well, the term hadn’t been coined at that point, but see this perspective: http://www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/anthony_sb.html)

“The emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says, ‘It's a girl.’" -- Congresswoman (and 1972 presidential candidate) Shirley Chisholm

“Feminism is the radical notion that women are people.” -- Cheris Kramarae and Paula Treichler
“Men are taught to apologize for their weaknesses, women for their strengths.” -- Lois Wyse

“I became a feminist as an alternative to becoming a masochist.” -- Sally Kempton, attributed
“How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes!” -- Maya Angelou

“We've begun to raise daughters more like sons... but few have the courage to raise our sons more like our daughters.” -- Gloria Steinem

“There is more difference within the sexes than between them.” -- Ivy Compton-Burnett, Mother and Son

“Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood.”
-- Coretta Scott King

“Homophobia and transphobia pressure straight people to act unkindly or even cruelly towards GLBTQ people and encourage bullying and cruelty toward anyone whose appearance or behavior isn't sufficiently 'macho' or 'feminine' (from the viewpoint of the bully).”

-- Advocates for Youth’s 14 Ways Homophobia and Transphobia Affect Everyone (http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/lessonplans/activistally2.htm) adapted with permission of the Gay-Straight Alliance Network: http://www.gsanetwork.org/

“Bad politicians are sent to Washington by good people who don't vote.” -- William E. Simon

“Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.”
-- John Quincy Adams

“Those who stay away from the election think that one vote will do no good: 'Tis but one step more to think one vote will do no harm.”
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“To make democracy work, we must be a notion of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain.”
-- Louis L'Amour

“People who don't vote have no line of credit with people who are elected and thus pose no threat to those who act against our interests.”
-- Marian Wright Edelman

“All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.”----Martin Buber

Possibly LGBTQ? The term "homosexual" was coined in 1869; the term "transgender," in 1949. Before that, the concepts didn't exist … although some people have loved people of their own biological sex and some people have transgressed gender expectations throughout recorded history. However, until recently in parts of the world, and still today in other places, it has been (or still is) dangerous to love someone of your own gender openly or to behave in ways that aren't typical of people of your biological sex. So for folks who are now deceased and who were not vocal/out about being sexual minorities, we can only piece together evidence that suggests who they may have been romantically involved with or how they might identify if they lived today.

"Life only demands from you the strength you possess. Only one feat is possible - not to have run away." ~ Dag Hammarskjöld, Swedish diplomat, Secretary-General of the United Nations, Nobel Peace Prize winner (According to OutSmart magazine, "[Hammarskjold's]
diary, Markings, published posthumously in 1966, alluded to homosexual longings, perhaps never fulfilled.)

"The most effective way to do it, is to do it." ~ Amelia Earhart, aviation pioneer (365gay.com says, "American Flygirl Amelia Earhart was born in Atchison, Kansas. A tomboy, preferring riding pants to dresses, and having a marriage that allowed for infidelity, we will never know if she was bisexual.)

"When I was in the military, they gave me a medal for killing two men, and a discharge for loving one." ~ openly gay U.S Sgt. Leonard Matlovich, whose service earned him a Bronze Star, a Purple Heart, and an Air Force Commendation Medal. Sgt. Matlovich was discharged when he came out as gay.

“I don't mean to be a diva, but some days you wake up and you're Barbara Streisand.” ~ singer Courtney Love

"I got tired of this happening, and people always saying 'Why don't you just tell them you're not gay? Why don't you just tell them you're not gay? They'll leave you alone. But at that point, it wasn't about that. I was gay and it didn't matter. This shouldn't have been happening to me."
~ Jamie Nabozny, who in 1996 won the 1st lawsuit of its kind against the principals of several middle and high schools where he was not protected from brutal anti-gay assaults

"The more faithfully you listen to the voice within you, the better you will hear what is sounding outside.' ~ U.N. Secretary General, Dag Hammarskjöld

"The fundamental question is: Are we made by history or do we make history--and the answer is yes." ~ playwright Tony Kushner

"Maybe [being openly gay] hurt my career but really helped my life, which is much better than if it was the reverse." ~ singer/songwriter Rufus Wainwright