Quote

I feel more like an environmentalist since I've been up here. There are parts of the Earth that are covered with pollution all the time. I saw weather that was unexpected. Storms bigger than we've seen in the past. This is a human effect. This is not a natural phenomenon.

It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it.

Pollution from human activities is changing the Earth's climate. We see the damage that a disrupted climate can do: on our coasts, our farms, forests, mountains, and cities. Those impacts will grow more severe unless we start reducing global warming pollution now.

The pollution problem is always seen as someone who was doing something bad that has to be stopped. To me, pollution is doing something bad and good. People don't pollute because they like polluting. They do it because it's a cheaper way of producing something else.

In the rich world, the environmental situation has improved dramatically. In the United States, the most important environmental indicator, particulate air pollution, has been cut by more than half since 1955, rivers and coastal waters have dramatically improved, and forests are increasing.

Indeed, our particular concept of private property, which deters us from exhausting the positive resources of the earth, favors pollution.

There is a growing recognition of the importance of really bringing pollution under control.

Pollution is a serious one. Water pollution, air pollution, and then solid hazardous waste pollution. And then beyond that, we also have the resources issue. Not just water resources but other natural resources, the mining resources being consumed, and the destruction of our ecosystem.

When I was a kid, we never heard of smog, ozone depletion, acid rain, green house gasses.

Sadly, in the name of progress, we have polluted the air, water, soil and the food we eat.