"We owe it to our children to be better stewards of the environment. The alternative? - a world without whales. It's too terrible to imagine"
About this Quote
Then he tightens the screw with a single emblem: whales. Not “biodiversity” or “ecosystems,” but a creature that’s basically preloaded into the public imagination as majestic, intelligent, and wronged. “A world without whales” isn’t just extinction; it’s cultural amputation. He’s invoking the absence you can feel, a future that sounds quieter, emptier, less enchanted. The move collapses a sprawling climate crisis into one image that can survive a soundbite and still land emotionally.
The phrasing does extra work. “Stewards” frames humans as caretakers, not owners, implying both responsibility and the possibility of competence - we can choose to manage this wisely. “The alternative?” is a little piece of courtroom theater: he’s presenting a binary verdict, daring the listener to pick the monstrous option. And “too terrible to imagine” admits a kind of helpless awe, a rhetorical feint that actually forces you to imagine it anyway.
Context matters: Brosnan has long been publicly tied to marine conservation, and as an actor he’s trading in narrative stakes. He’s asking for urgency by making the stakes cinematic: save the whales, or watch the credits roll on a living world.
Quote Details
| Topic | Ocean & Sea |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Brosnan, Pierce. (2026, January 14). We owe it to our children to be better stewards of the environment. The alternative? - a world without whales. It's too terrible to imagine. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/we-owe-it-to-our-children-to-be-better-stewards-153152/
Chicago Style
Brosnan, Pierce. "We owe it to our children to be better stewards of the environment. The alternative? - a world without whales. It's too terrible to imagine." FixQuotes. January 14, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/we-owe-it-to-our-children-to-be-better-stewards-153152/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"We owe it to our children to be better stewards of the environment. The alternative? - a world without whales. It's too terrible to imagine." FixQuotes, 14 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/we-owe-it-to-our-children-to-be-better-stewards-153152/. Accessed 8 Feb. 2026.









