Environmental pollution means the presence of undesirable substances in any segment of the environment, primarily due to human activity - discharging byproducts, waste products, or harmful secondary products, which are detrimental to man and other life forms.
Environmental pollution is now considered a global phenomenon, which is increasingly attracting the attention of human beings of its severe long-term consequences. Over the past couple of decades, various sources of pollution have been identified that affect the composition of water, air and soil of the earth.
Sources of Environmental Pollutants
Waste generation has become a by-product of human living post-industrial revolution. Major sources of environmental pollutants are:
- Industrial Sources - Major industries contributing to pollution are manufacturing; power generation like coal-based power plants; mining, and construction. Different industries, based on their nature, can cause air, water or soil pollution.
- Vehicular Sources - Petrol and diesel-based automobiles like cars, heavy-duty trucks, and passenger vehicles all generate toxic exhaust fumes. Vehicular emissions are mainly responsible for air pollution.
- Agricultural Sources - Agricultural operations like the cultivation of crops and animals generate agricultural waste. These are rich in nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorous. They may enter into water streams as agricultural run-off or stay on land causing soil pollution.
- Domestic Sources - These include households that generate sewage rich in nitrogen and phosphorous causing water pollution.
Environmental pollution has become a globally pervasive problem. It is clear that the types of waste generated by human activities are beyond the capacity of the natural ecosystem to process and detoxify. Environmental science has offered many combinations of solutions like waste reduction and treatments. What’s needed is a smart combination of solutions like waste reduction and treatments. However for this to happen, it requires massive awareness generation amongst all the stakeholders including industry, people and Government.
In such cases, Quotes play a nice role in increasing awareness regarding pollution among people to stop them from practising any bad habits to reduce the level of pollution. In this article, I have compiled 55+ unique and creative quotes on environmental pollution and I believe this has encouraged many people to make positive changes for pollution reduction.
Environmental Pollution Quotes
- “Environmental Pollution is an incurable disease. It can only be prevented.” - Barry Commoner
- “Environment is no one’s property to destroy; it’s everyone’s responsibility to protect.” - Mohith Agadi
- “A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people.” - Franklin D. Roosevelt
- “If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.” - E.O. Wilson
- “Our planet’s alarm is going off, and it is time to wake up and take action.” - Leonardo DiCaprio
- “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
- “There’s so much pollution in the air now if it weren’t for our lungs there’d be no place to put it all.” - Robert Orben
- “I only feel angry when I see waste. When I see people throwing away things we could use.” - Mother Teresa
- “It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment.” - Ansel Adams
- “The only way forward, if we are going to improve the quality of the environment, is to get everybody involved.” - Richard Rogers
- “You want to cut down air pollution? Cut down the original source… Breathin”! - Walt Kelly
- “The most important thing about global warming is this. Whether humans are responsible for the bulk of climate change is going to be left to the scientists, but it’s all of our responsibility to leave this planet in better shape for future generations than we found it.” - Mike Huckabee
- “One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between man and nature shall not be broken.” - Leo Tolstoy
- “Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” - George Bernard Shaw
- “There’s one thing you can say about air pollution, you get utterly amazing sunrises.” - Terry Pratchett
- “The environment is where we all meet; where we all have a mutual interest; it is the one thing all of us share.” - Lady Bird Johnson
- “Climate change is happening, humans are causing it, and I think this is perhaps the most serious environmental issue facing us.” - Bill Nye
- “Raising awareness on the most pressing environmental issues of our time is more important than ever.” - Leonardo DiCaprio
- “People blame their environment. There is only one person to blame - and only one- themselves.” - Robert Collier
- “On climate change, we often don’t fully appreciate that it is a problem. We think it is a problem waiting to happen.” - Kofi Annan
- “The world must come together to confront climate change. There is little scientific dispute that if we do nothing, we will face more drought, famine and mass displacement that will fuel more conflict for decades.” - Barack Obama
- “We don’t have time to sit on our hands as our planet burns. For young people, climate change is bigger than election or re-election. It’s life or death.” - Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
- “Global warming is too serious for the world any longer to ignore its danger or split into opposing factions on it.” - Tony Blair
- “By polluting the oceans, not mitigating carbon dioxide emissions and destroying our biodiversity, we are killing our planet. Let us face it, there is no planet B.” - Emmanuel Macron
- “We are in danger of destroying ourselves by our greed and stupidity. We cannot remain to look inwards at ourselves on a small and increasingly polluted and overcrowded planet.” - Stephen Hawking
- “The planet will continue to cook.” - Paul Krugman
- “What is the use of a house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on?” - Henry David Thoreau
- “Climate change is the greatest threat to our existence in our short history on this planet. Nobody’s going to buy their way out of its effect.” - Mark Ruffalo
- “It’s not climate change that needs to be tackled. It is the political power of the fossil fuel industry.” - Richard Dennis
- “Climate change is the Everest of all problems, the thorniest challenge facing humankind.” - Lewis Gordon Pugh
- “The challenge of pollution and global warming is no longer the science or the rate of innovation, but the rate of implementation, we have the clean solutions; now let’s bundle them and install them.” - Jens Martin Skibsted
- “Climate change isn’t something people get to choose to believe or not, it’s happening.” - Matt Gaetz
- “If you really think that the environment is less important than the economy, try holding your breath while you count your money.” - Guy McPherson
- “The strongest governments on earth cannot clean up pollution by themselves. They must rely on each ordinary person, like you and me, on our choices, and on our will.” - Chai Jing
- “One of the biggest obstacles to making a start on climate change is that it has become a cliche before it has even been understood.” - Tim Flannery
- “To all of you who choose to look the other way every day because you seem more frightened of the changes that can prevent catastrophic climate change than the catastrophic climate change itself. Your silence is worst of all.” - Greta Thunberg
- “Climate change is sometimes misunderstood as being about changes in the weather. In reality, it is about changes in our very way of life.” – Paul Polman
- “We can’t take climate change and put it on the back burner. If we don’t address climate change, we won’t be around as humans.” - Conrad Anker
- “We are the first generation to feel the sting of climate change, and we are the last generation that can do something about it.” - Jay Inslee
- “We have a single mission, to protect and hand on the planet to the next generation.” - Francois Hollande
- “If we pollute the air, water and soil that keep us alive and well, and destroy the biodiversity that allows natural systems to function, no amount of money will save us.” - David Suzuki
- “Water is life's matter and matrix, mother and medium. There is no life without water.” - Albert Szent Gyorgyi
- “While the problem can sometimes seem overwhelming, we can turn things around - but we must move beyond climate talk to climate action.” - Ted Turner
- “We cannot burn our way to the future. We cannot pretend the danger does not exist - or dismiss it because it affects someone else.” - Ban Ki-moon
- “ Twenty-five years ago people could be excused for not knowing much, or doing much, about climate change. Today we have no excuse.” - Desmond Tutu
- “Climate change, if unchecked, is an urgent threat to health, food supplies, biodiversity, and livelihoods across the globe.” - John F. Kerry
- “Climate change is destroying our path to sustainability. Ours is a world of looming challenges and increasingly limited resources. Sustainable development offers the best chance to adjust our course.” - Ban Ki-moon
- "I’m often asked whether I believe in global warming. I now just reply with the question: Do you believe in gravity?” - Neil deGrasse Tyson
- “There is no question that climate change is happening; the only arguable point is what part humans are playing in it.” - David Attenborough
- “The climate is changing. The proper political debate would be how to deal with these risks.” - Steven Chu
- “ The warnings about global warming have been extremely clear for a long time. We are facing a global climate crisis. It is deepening. We are entering a period of consequences.” – Al Gore
- “I care about climate change because of our children. I want to safeguard their future.” - Cate Blanchett
- “Climate change is the environmental challenge of this generation, and it is imperative that we act before it’s too late.” - John Delancy
- “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
- “I try to conserve water and avoid using plastic as much as I can.” - Jim Sarbh
- “Pollution from oil and gas development, toxic runoff, and miles of plastic trash foul the waters and threaten marine life.” - Frances Beinecke
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