Charles C. Mann Quotes

I rarely fly, for environmental reasons more than anything else.

People realised this is real pollution; it is not fog. Now everyone has to face the data and come out of their comfort zone.

Some studies have shown that natural gas could, in fact, be worse for the climate than coal.

We will run out of air long before we run out of oil.

Climate change carries implications that stretch far beyond extreme weather, however. The effects on public health are far more alarming - and those have to be taken into account in order to calculate an accurate estimate of the costs of inaction.

We had this incredible pass over the Himalayas, and to just see all of that pollution that's riding up against those mountains from the south is just really heartbreaking.

It is a fact that, today, up to seven million people a year are dying from fossil fuel pollution.

Chinese emissions are a problem not just for its own people but also for the world. It has now overtaken the U.S. as the biggest carbon emitter; most of the coal that is burned anywhere on Earth is burned in China.

The U.S. limits mercury, arsenic, and soot from power plants. Yet, astonishingly, there are no national limits on how much carbon pollution these plants can dump into our atmosphere.

The doomsayers of the 1970s were wrong about how quickly the world would run out of oil, but not about the dangers that hydrocarbon consumption posed to the global environment, especially with respect to climate change.

I honestly don't know, but if America continues to refuse to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, I see a bleak future not only for American society, but for the world as a whole. This is a global problem that is not going away, and the United States is an obstacle to solving it.

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.

There's so much pollution in the air now that if it weren't for our lungs there'd be no place to put it all.

We all know we have a problem, a broad problem. Ninety-eight percent of the fuel that is used by our vehicles, our autos and trucks for personal and commercial purposes, for highway and air travel operates on oil. The world has the same problem.

Greenhouse gas pollution, through its contribution to global climate change, presents a significant threat to Americans' health and to the environment upon which our economy and security depends.

Coal boosters like to tout coal as cheap and plentiful - well, not anymore. At least not in China.

The science linking the increased frequency and severity of extreme weather to the climate crisis has matured tremendously in the last couple of years.

Australia has suffered a decade of drought, epic floods, a Category 5 cyclone, and a plague of locusts. But just because Aussies have the biggest carbon footprint in the world, it doesn't mean they're stupid.

But like the rest of the country, Maine has reached an impasse, for most of the mercury that fouls our skies, waters and land comes from outside our borders.

Carbon pollution contributes to climate change, which causes temperatures to rise. Hotter temperatures mean more smog in the air, and breathing smog can inflame deep lung tissue. Repeated inflammation over time can permanently scar lung tissue, even in low concentrations.

The trains carrying coal to power plants are death trains. Coal-fired power plants are factories of death.

Dealing with global warming doesn't mean we have all got to suddenly stop breathing. Dealing with global warming means that we have to stop waste, and if you travel for no reason whatsoever, that is a waste.

Many people believe the whole catastrophe is the oil we spill, but that gets diluted and eventually disarmed over time. In fact, the oil we don't spill, the oil we collect, refine and use, produces CO2 and other gases that don't get diluted.

CO2 is not a pollutant in any normal definition of the term.

I'm really looking forward to a time when generations after us look back and say how ridiculous it was that humans were driving cars.