Paul Virilio Quotes

The causal chain of the deterioration (of the environment) is easily followed to its source. Too many cars, too many factories, too much detergent, too much pesticide, multiplying contrails, inadequate sewage treatment plants, too little water, too much carbon dioxide---all can be traced easily to too many people.

Solution to pollution by dilution is fallacious.

Overpopulation is the problem of the third and fourth World; over-consumption is the problem of the West. The average American child this year will consume as much of the world's resources as twenty children born in India. Deliberate and calculated waste is the central aspect of the American economy. We over-eat, over-buy, and over-built, spewing out our toxic wastes upon the earth and into the air.

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.

Wild animals are just as confused as people are now. You've got toxins in the water, oil, sewage, all sorts of things.

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

I have always seen pollution as theft.

I always saw pollution as theft, and I always thought, 'Why should somebody be able to pollute the air, which belongs to all of us, or destroy a river or a waterway, which is supposed to belong to the whole community?'

Brothers and Sisters: Our ancient homeland is spotted today with an array of chemical dumps. Along the Niagara River, dioxin, a particularly deadly substance, threatens the remaining life there and in the waters which flow from there. Forestry departments spray the surviving forests with powerful insecticides to encourage tourism by people seeking a few days or weeks away from the cities where the air hangs heavy with sulphur and carbon oxides.

Fortunately, we know more about the problems that we have than in all preceding history. We know now the consequences of the things that we put into the air, into the water - of the way we treat life on Earth.

By eating meat we share responsibility for causing climate change, the destruction of our forests, and the poisoning of our air and water. The simple act of becoming a vegetarian can make a difference in the health of our planet.

It is a fact that our fresh water is becoming more scarce and that the new ways we are getting energy in America - fracking, mountaintop removal, cyclic steam extraction, deep-sea drilling - all pollute water, pollute the air, and pollute our soil and food.

Imagine if Congress always put the interests of polluters ahead of the health of our families. Our rivers and lakes would be choked with sewage. Acid rain would pour down from smog-filled skies. Hundreds of thousands more of our neighbors, friends, and loved ones would be victims of cancer, heart disease, and asthma.

The strong evidence is that we're running out of space. We're collectively affecting the world's climate. This is due to the still-growing human population and our increase in consumption.

Like all animals, human beings have always taken what they want from nature. But we are the rogue species. We are unique in our ability to use resources on a scale and at a speed that our fellow species can't.

The coal industry is a huge industry when we're talking about polluting the environment, our air and our waterways.

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

With so much evidence of depleting natural resources, toxic waste, climate change, irreparable harm to our food chain and rapidly increasing instances of natural disasters, why do we keep perpetuating the problem? Why do we continue marching at the same alarming beat?

Water and air, the two essential fluids on which all life depends, have become global garbage cans.

We're not environmentally doing very good things to this planet, and we might not be around too long.

China leads the world in energy consumption, carbon emissions, and the release of major air and water pollutants, and the environmental impact is felt both regionally and globally.

Corporations are poisoning our air and water while at the same time lining the pockets of elected officials with political contributions.

Agriculture is the most destructive industry that we have. More than coal mining and other extractive industries.

War contributes greatly to global warming, which shouldn't surprise us. All those bombs going off, all those rockets, all those planes and helicopters. All that fuel of various kinds being used. It pollutes the air and water of this very fragile and interconnected planet.

Runaway technology, whose only law is profit, has for years poisoned our air, ravaged our soil, stripped our forests bare, and corrupted our water resources