We are now facing a crossroads not only in our biological and socioeconomic crisis regarding the environment, but also the erosion of traditional philosophical and religious values.
Pollution has a long history.
The creation of wastes has been one of the distinguishing characteristics of every human society. For thousands of years the chief struggle was over sanitary arrangements and the main challenge was to obtain unpolluted water supplies. These problems became every more acute as human numbers and urban life increased, but widespread industrial production and the use of new technologies introduced new pollutants and brought new risks to human health and the environment. Human understanding of the consequences of waste creation and disposal has always tended to lag well behind the release of pollutants into the environment. At first cars and buses were welcomed as less polluuting than th ehorses that fouled city streets during the nineteenth century.