Environmental Progress Quotes

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.

The countries in the Paris climate accord have broken almost every promise they've made, and the nation (the U.S.) that hasn't signed the treaty is doing more than any other nation to reduce global warming.

Across energy, food, transportation, housing, and all of that, very little of our progress is going to be through getting people to voluntarily consume less. People resist that tremendously. What we have to do, if we want to succeed, is provide more of the clean, non-polluting, climate-safe options in all of these.

If you go to London now, not everything is beautiful, but it's amazingly better than it was. And the Thames is certainly a lot better: There are fish in the Thames.

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.

If we invest in researching and developing energy technology, we'll do some real good in the long run, rather than just making ourselves feel good today. But climate change is not the only challenge of the 21st century, and for many other global problems we have low-cost, durable solutions.

What we've often seen is that when we Americans say, look, we've got to reduce pollution, business - some businesses complain about it, but almost every time, it's turned out to be easier and cheaper and accomplished faster, and they've gained confidence, and then we go farther.

The making of the far-famed New York Central Park was opposed by even good men, with misguided pluck, perseverance, and ingenuity, but straight right won its way, and now that park is appreciated. So we confidently believe it will be with our great national parks and forest reservations.

We cannot afford a dead stop on all of the progress we have made under President Obama in saving our planet from the devastating consequences of climate change.

This Nation has realized significant environmental improvements over the last three decades.

Americans have made it clear we want to build a more sustainable future. I am excited to harness that energy and see what we can create together.

We've made extraordinary progress on the environment over the decades, and that's something we should celebrate.

I have a personal staff that helps me scour the internet and other media for the latest scientific peer-reviewed findings, the latest examples of climate-related extreme weather events, and the latest examples of progress. The world is in the midst of a sustainability revolution that has the scope of the industrial revolution, but with the speed of the digital revolution. That's not enough without new laws and the right kind of political leadership. But it does give us a base from which to build a movement that will save us from the most catastrophic consequences of the climate crisis.

We've made tremendous successes in clean energy. We should be proud of what we've accomplished.

Invoking Nature always measures the distance we have yet to travel to achieve real progress on environmental issues.

There must be progress, certainly. But we must ask ourselves what kind of progress we want, and what price we want to pay for it. If, in the name of progress, we want to destroy everything beautiful in our world, and contaminate the air we breathe, and the water we drink, then we are in trouble.

Having worked on climate crisis for almost 40 years now, I've seen good days and bad days. And through all of that time, the general trajectory has been it's getting worse, it's getting worse. But in the last ten to 20 years, there's a second development; the solutions are more and more, and more available. So having this broad overview that I've developed over a long period of time, I now see the evidence that the solutions are available. We're gonna do this.

Take air quality in the United States today: It's about 30 percent better than it was 25 years ago, even though there are now more people driving more cars.

The Northwest is in better shape than it was eight years ago.

Global sustainability is now the only avenue to future inclusive progress that can deliver the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris climate agreement.

I think we learn slowly as a group, but we learn. The ozone layer is still there.

It is important for me to personally visit Superfund sites to assess the progress being made.

No one can predict whether the earth will be cooler or hotter next year, let alone do anything to change it. If you're afraid of global warming, turn off the lights when you leave the room - but don't participate in the corruption of science, don't scare our kids with unproven cataclysmic theories, and don't try to ban economic energy sources that people living on this planet depend upon today. And don't try to stop progress; it's the only hope the earth has of seeing clean industry, short of exterminating mankind.

All this green stuff is great, it's great we don't have plastic bottles or plastic bags and all of that, but how about some great schools?

Seeing the rebirth of the Delaware Estuary as a valuable natural resource is certainly encouraging, and I am encouraged not just by the progress made in the Delaware Estuary but in estuaries throughout the country.