Barry Gardiner Quotes

Americans are worried about pollution - oil trains running through their towns, fracking in their neighborhoods, coal dust in their air. They're worried about what the future will look like for their children if carbon pollution continues unchecked.

I reflect back 35 years ago, and look how far we have come in America with our environmental policy to improve the conditions of our air and water, and we have had some real successes.

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.

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

There should be more attention paid to scientific research in the ecology area, and I think that such attention to proper environmental concerns would make the public feel much better about it.

Smog is affecting larger parts of China, and environmental pollution has become a major problem, which is nature's red-light warning against the model of inefficient and blind development.

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

We all recognize that in recent decades, many important achievements have helped create a cleaner, healthier environment, yet our national needs in environmental health are not being fully met.

The free market should not include the right to pollute our environment.

The current challenge facing the environmental authorities is how to properly deal with the environmental problems caused by economic development.

I'm not a scientist. If there is a risk to our environment, there will be no fracking.

It should be noted that the EPA's banning of methanol is categorically absurd from the point of view of environmental protection.

Over and over, we hear politicians say they can't spend our tax dollars on environmental protection when the economy is so fragile.

If I were to do a foundation, it would be to promote solar energy. And I'm worried about drilling for oil. I think it is harming the earth, 'cos it drains the layer of oil under the surface, and that could be causing earthquakes. It's like we're giving the earth arthritis. I don't know if that sounds crazy.

All we can hope for is that the thing is going to slowly and imperceptibly shift. All I can say is that 50 years ago there were no such thing as environmental policies.

Comprehensive climate legislation must be passed so that we can ensure a world where this and future generations can experience the bliss of breathing clean crisp air, while fishing in the Adirondacks... and being able to eat the fish afterwards.

For the record, I am sticking with my claim that the simultaneous degradation of air quality, water quality, water supply, food safety, soil quality, and other environment-related variables is the main challenge to China's continued development.

The biggest tab the public picks up for fossil fuels has to do with what economists call 'external costs,' like the health effects of air and water pollution.

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.

Fossil fuels and mining is a short-term gambit. If we develop those resources at the expense of the environmental gold mine that is the Great Barrier Reef, we will all lose in the long run.

I tell my environmental friends that they have won. Every issue we look at from an energy perspective is now also looked at from an environmental perspective.

Our nation has abundant clean energy resources, and tapping them will generate jobs, make the air safer to breathe, and tackle climate change - the greatest environmental crisis of our time.

We really need to kick the carbon habit and stop making our energy from burning things. Climate change is also really important. You can wreck one rainforest then move, drain one area of resources and move onto another, but climate change is global.

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.

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.