Death pollution

“ Swarms of frogs, with no water or food, died and rotted over the countryside. Cartloads were burned, but not before the germs of pollution had time to multiply.
The air became filled with the disease germs bred in this ideal forcing-ground. 88 People and animals became infected.
Flies descended in swarms greater than people had ever seen, bringing more germs with them. Cattle died in their thousands.
Dust, in a naturally dusty country, became infected, spreading more disease and death. Nature took a turn. A terrific hailstorm shrieked over Egypt. ”

“ There can be little doubt but that a degree of pollution far short of that necessary to produce death has a weakening effect on the human organism, and that by means of the increased functional activity of other organs doing work intended for the lungs the resistance to disease is much impaired. Life is a continual struggle of the bodily tissues against the attacks of the micro-organisms and their tendencies to destroy life ”

“ American cities having unpolluted water-supplies have comparatively few deaths from this cause, although the figures never go so low as in Europe, perhaps on account of the fresh cases which are always coming in from less healthy neighborhoods in ever-moving American communities. In other American cities the death-rates from typhoid fever are many times what they ought to be and what they actually are in other cities, and the rates in various places, and in the same place at different times, bear in general a close relation to the extent of the pollution of the drinking-water. ”

“ Similarly, inadequate and environmentally unsound practices for the disposal or use of solid waste have created greater amounts of air and water pollution and other problems for the environment and for health; (4) open dumping is particularly harmful to health, contaminates drinking water from underground and surface supplies, and pollutes the air and the land; (5) the placement of inadequate controls on hazardous waste management will result in substantial risks to human health and the environment ”

“ But I felt at the same time that the subject of air pollution in manufacturing towns really deserved more attention than it has generally received; for the evil is a growing one, and I believe we shall realize one day, as the result of a very costly experience, the same necessity for breathing an untainted atmosphere as we now do for drinking unpolluted drinking water, or for consuming unadulterated food. ”

“ Because buildings and monuments cannot adapt to changes in the environment, as plants and animals can, historic structures may be particularly affected by acid precipitation. Scientists are studying effective control technologies to limit the emissions from power plants and automobiles that cause acid rain. The impact and usefulness of regulations that would require limits on air pollution are also being studied. Finally, scientists are examining the processes of deterioration to find effective ways to protect and repair our historic buildings and monuments. ”

“ In our time, man's capability to transform his surroundings, if used wisely, can bring to all peoples the benefits of development and the opportunity to enhance the quality of life. Wrongly or heedlessly applied, the same power can do incalculable harm to human beings and the human environment. We see around us growing evidence of man-made harm in many regions of the earth: dangerous levels of pollution in water, air, earth and living beings; major and undesirable disturbances to the ecological balance of the biosphere; destruction and depletion of irreplaceable resources ”

“ It may be granted, to anticipate objection, that it is quite possible that the bodies now buried may have lost most, if not all, their power of doing mischief by the time that the particular soil they inhabit is turned up again to the sun's rays, although this is by no means certain; but it is beyond dispute that the margin of safety as to time grows narrower year by year, and that pollution of wells and streams which supply the living must ere long arise wherever we bury our dead in this country. ”

“ In only a brief, cursory inspection we saw that there are far more deadly, serious kinds of pollution than we can count on two hands, and that the city is the sole perpetrator of these pollution crimes, and the source of all the evils that threaten humanity and the Earth. ”

“ Any pride we may have in our surroundings rarely extends beyond our own four walls, or, if we possess them, our garden palings. We suffer our river to become an open sewer, our buildings to be defaced by soot, our streets to be disfigured by huge advertisement hoardings, and our atmosphere to be polluted by smoke.
If the pollution of the river and the air, and the existence of unwholesome courts and uninhabitable dwellings offended the aesthetic sense only, we might wisely leave their disappearance to the improving hand of Time. ”

“ If the conditions of life in towns are unhealthy, and if the air, the very fountain of health, is polluted, then we have to face this fact, that three-quarters of the whole population are living under these conditions, and that, in proportion as the rural population diminishes, the invigorating admixture of country labour will decrease. ”

“ But we know, without the aid of mortality tables, that these things affect health, that they are therefore a source of danger to the community, and should not be permitted to exist longer than is needful for their removal. ”

“ Persons who have died of contagious diseases, women who die after conception or on delivery, and children under five years of age, are buried. Pollution is observed only for nine days when children die; and, in the case of men who die of contagious disease, a special group of ceremonies is performed by the sorcerer. Those who are under pollution, besides being forbidden to enter shrines and other sanctuaries, may not read or write, or partake of liquor, butter, milk, ghī, dhal, or jaggery. ”

“ Today I'm announcing new actions we're taking to protect our air, our water, and some of our most precious lands.
One of the simplest but most potent tools in our fight against pollution is public information. By requiring industries to tell communities how much they pollute the air and water, we empower citizens to fight back and create a powerful incentive for industry to pollute less. Remarkably, in the decades since the public's right-to-know about chemical releases became the law of the land, industry's toxic pollution has fallen nearly 50 percent. ”

“ The Italian physician Felix Dell’Acqua gives it as his opinion (in his study on cremation) , that graveyards infect the earth, the air, and the water, and constantly endanger public health during an epidemic. Dr. Polli proved that graves deteriorate the air we breathe and contaminate the water we drink, by loading them with organic matter.
Prof. Antonio Selmi, of Mantua, claims to have discovered organic germs in the air above graves, which he called septopneuma, and which, when injected under the skin of a pigeon, caused a typhus-like disease that ended in death within three days. ”

“ When the Administrator makes a judgment whether to regulate greenhouse gases, that judgment must relate to whether they are air pollutants that "cause, or contribute to, air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare." ”

“ Any liability to disease that may come from faulty construction of habitations is likely to spring from a polluted subsoil. Such pollution vitiates the air drawn from that soil and is a source of danger on account of the resulting impurity of the whole atmosphere within the house. ”

“ Often, these illnesses are aggravated by air pollution – pollution from the same sources that release carbon and contribute to climate change. And for the sake of all our kids, we’ve got to do more to reduce it. ”

“ Our national government today is not structured to make a coordinated attack on the pollutants which debase the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the land that grows our food. Indeed, the present governmental structure for dealing with environmental pollution often defies effective and concerted action.
Despite its complexity, for pollution control purposes the environment must be perceived as a single, interrelated system. ”

“ Where the one deleterious cause is less complicated with others, as in open plains after the burial of the dead in fields of battle, the effects are perceived in the offensiveness of the surface emanations, and also in the pollution of the water, followed by disease, which compels the survivors to change their encampments. ”

“ Contamination of soils, ground-water, and people by agrochemicals is widening and chemical pollution has spread to every corner of the planet. The incidence of major accidents involving toxic chemicals has grown. Discoveries of hazardous waste disposal sites – at Love Canal in the United States, for example, and at Lekkerkek in the Netherlands, Vac in Hungary, and Georgswerder in the Federal Republic of Germany have drawn attention to another serious problem. ”

“ A single source may pollute the air with smoke and chemicals, the land with solid wastes, and a river or lake with chemical and other wastes. Control of the air pollution may produce more solid wastes, which then pollute the land or water. Control of the water-polluting effluent may convert it into solid wastes, which must be disposed of on land.
Similarly, some pollutants—chemicals, radiation, pesticides—appear in all media. Successful control of them at present requires the coordinated efforts of a variety of separate agencies and departments. The results are not always successful. ”

“ Thus atmospheric pollution, once perceived only as a local urban-industrial problem involving people's health, is now also seen as a much more complex issue encompassing buildings, ecosystems, and maybe even public health over vast regions. During transport in the atmosphere, emissions of sulphur and nitrogen oxides and volatile hydrocarbons are transformed into sulphuric and nitric acids, ammonium salts, and ozone. ”

“ In the country as well as in the city they drive cars, burn propane gas, use electricity, smoke cigarettes, waste paper, spread agricultural chemicals, and drain detergent into the rivers and lakes; as long as the country belongs to the civilized state, it cannot escape the fact that it is an accomplice. Thus saying, the city attempts to shift part of the blame for pollution onto the country. And what is more, the city also tries to justify its own pollution as an unavoidable phenomenon of a modern state. ”

“ Natural hazards: NA Environment - current issues: toxic and hazardous waste disposal is ineffective and poses health risks; water pollution from raw sewage; limited natural fresh water resources; deforestation ”

“ The loss of forests could bring in its wake disastrous erosion, siltation, floods, and local climatic change. Air pollution damage is also becoming evident in some newly industrialized countries.
27. In many cases the practices used at present to dispose of toxic wastes, such as those from the chemical industries, involve unacceptable risks. Radioactive wastes from the nuclear industry remain hazardous for centuries. Many who bear these risks do not benefit in any way from the activities that produce the wastes. ”

“ While wholesale river-pollution from any source is utterly inadmissible on any sanitary grounds, so infinitesimal pollution by dilute sewage, indirectly discharged into the water-course, is equally dangerous, and attended with sure though more remote fatal results, "especially if human excreta he present in any form whatever." ”

“ The onus lies with no one group of nations. Developing countries face the obvious life-threatening challenges of desertification, deforestation, and pollution, and endure most the poverty associated with environmental degradation. The entire human family of nations would suffer for the disappearance of rain forests in the tropics, the loss of plant and animal species, and changes in rainfall patterns. Industrial nations face the life-threatening challenges of toxic chemicals, toxic wastes, and acidification. ”

“ Pollution by Surface Refuse and Sewage.—This occurs where a large number of people congregate, as in cities, towns, etc., and very seriously contaminates the ground by the surcharge of the surface soil with sewage matter, saturating the ground with it, polluting the ground water from which the drinking water is derived, and increasing the putrefactive changes taking place in the soil. Here the pathogenic bacteria abound, and, by multiplying, exert a very marked influence upon the health by the possible spread of infectious diseases. ”

“ Despite this, air pollution has today reached serious levels in the cities of several industrial and newly industrialized countries, as well as in those of most developing countries, which in some cases are by now the world's most polluted urban areas. ”

“ The Secretary may, after consultation with State officials of all affected States, also call such a conference whenever, on the basis of reports, surveys, or studies, he has reason to believe that any pollution referred to in subsection (a) is occurring and is endangering the health and welfare of persons in a State other than that in which the discharge or discharges originate. ”

“ Environmental pollution remains grave, and in particular, some areas are frequently hit by heavy smog. We need to further strengthen our steps to combat pollution. There are also many problems causing public concern in housing, education, healthcare, elderly care, food and drug safety, and income distribution. ”