Pollution Quotes

Pollution is nothing but the resources we are not harvesting. We allow them to disperse because we've been ignorant of their value.

R. Buckminster Fuller

Business, Ignorant, Littering

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When the last tree is cut, the last fish is caught, and the last river is polluted; when to breathe the air is sickening, you will realize, too late, that wealth is not in bank accounts and that you can't eat money.

Alanis Obomsawin

Money, Nature, Food

"Who is the Chairman of This Meeting? : A Collection of Essays". Book by Ralph Osborne (p. 43), "Conversations with North American Indians" by Ted Poole, 1972.

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Environmental pollution is an incurable disease. It can only be prevented.

Barry Commoner

Environmental, Disease, Environmental Pollution

"At 90, an Environmentalist From the '70s Still Has Hope". Interview With Thomas Vinciguerra, www.nytimes.com. June 19, 2007.

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The flood of money that gushes into politics today is a pollution of democracy.

Theodore White

Freedom, Nerd, Democracy

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The earth we abuse and the living things we kill will, in the end, take their revenge; for in exploiting their presence we are diminishing our future.

Marya Mannes

Revenge, Abuse, Environmental

Marya Mannes (1958). “More in Anger”

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Oh Beautiful for smoggy skies, insecticided grain,
For strip-mined mountain's majesty above the asphalt plain.
America, America, man sheds his waste on thee,
And hides the pines with billboard signs, from sea to oily sea.

George Carlin

Beautiful, Song, Nature

"Class Clown". Comedy album by George Carlin, 1972.

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Pollution is an unused resource.

Bill Mollison

Resources

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The most alarming of all man's assaults upon the environment is the contamination of air, earth, rivers, and sea with dangerous and even lethal materials. This pollution is for the most part irrecoverable; the chain of evil it initiates not only in the world that must support life but in living tissues is for the most part irreversible. In this now universal contamination of the environment, chemicals are the sinister and little-recognized partners of radiation in changing the very nature of the world-the very nature of its life.

Rachel Carson

Nature, Men, Sea

Rachel Carson (2002). “Silent Spring”, p.6, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.

Albert Einstein

Nature, Thinking, Web Of Life

Albert Einstein (2015). “Bite-Size Einstein: Quotations on Just About Everything from the Greatest Mind of the Twentieth Century”, p.15, St. Martin's Press

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There's so much pollution in the air now that if it weren't for our lungs there'd be no place to put it all.

Robert Orben

Fun, Air, Earth Day

"Waiting to Inhale: Don't Take a Breath Without the Report From Our Air Pollution Control District". The San Diego Union-Tribune, January 31, 2008.

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Air pollution is not merely a nuisance and a threat to health. It is a reminder that our most celebrated technological achievements-the automobile, the jet plane, the power plant, industry in general, and indeed the modern city itself-are, in the environment, failures.

Barry Commoner

Air, Cities, Achievement

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Sooner or later, we will have to recognise that the Earth has rights, too, to live without pollution. What mankind must know is that human beings cannot live without Mother Earth, but the planet can live without humans.

Evo Morales

Mother, Rights, Earth Day

"Bolivia's defiant leader sets radical tone at Cancún climate talks" by John Vidal, www.theguardian.com. December 11, 2010.

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...children born today-in both the industrialized world and developing countries-will live longer and be healthier, they will get more food, a better education, a higher standard of living, more leisure time and far more possibilities-without the global environment being destroyed.

Bjorn Lomborg

Country, Children, Energy

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If civilization has risen from the Stone Age, it can rise again from the Wastepaper Age.

Jacques Barzun

Future, Civilization, Vision

Jacques Barzun (1959). “The House of Intellect”

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We have met the enemy and he is us.

Walt Kelly

Trust, Peace, Fun

Poster for Earth Day (1970). Also appeared in the Pogo comic strip for 8 Aug. 1970.

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Because we don't think about future generations, they will never forget us.

Henrik Tikkanen

Time, Future, Kids

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On the other hand, there are plenty of red flags that link developmental disabilities to things like lead and mercury and pesticides and air pollution and certain kinds of unhealthy foods, and that's what's begging for a comprehensive and definitive study. We should have a long-term prospectus study that looks at all, you know, exposures, medications, life habits, etc., pollution, and traces people over a period of many years, starting with when - starting with their parents, from when they are healthy. This is how we learned what causes heart disease.

Jill Stein

Heart, Hands, Should Have

"Off Message" with Glenn Thrush, www.politico.com. September 19, 2016.

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There is a sufficiency in the world for man's need but not for man's greed.

Mahatma Gandhi

Love, Peace, Heart

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We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children

Chief Seattle

Motivational, Wisdom, Peace

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Global warming pollution, indeed all pollution, is now described by economists as an “externality.” This absurd label means, in essence: we don’t to keep track of this stuff so let’s pretend it doesn’t exist.

Al Gore

Mean, Essence, Track

Al Gore’s Speech on Global Warming at the New York University in New York City, New York, www.motherjones.com. September 19, 2006.

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The activist is not the man who says the river is dirty. The activist is the man who cleans up the river.

Ross Perot

Dirty, Men, Rivers

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The car as we know it is on the way out. To a large extent, I deplore its passing, for as a basically old-fashioned machine, it enshrines a basically old-fashioned idea: freedom. In terms of pollution, noise and human life, the price of that freedom may be high, but perhaps the car, by the very muddle and confusion it causes, may be holding back the remorseless spread of the regimented, electronic society.

J. G. Ballard

Life, Ideas, Confusion

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It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment.

Ansel Adams

Nature, Fighting, Government

"Playboy Interview: Ansel Adams". Interview with David Sheff, Playboy (p. 226), May 1, 1983.

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Approximately 80% of our air pollution stems from hydrocarbons released by vegetation, so let's not go overboard in setting and enforcing tough emission standards from man-made sources.

Ronald Reagan

Funny, Men, Air

Quoted in Sierra, 10 Sept. 1980

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Nature provides a free lunch, but only if we control our appetites.

William Ruckelshaus

Nature, Lunch, Pollution Control

Business Week, June 18, 1990.

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