Concept information
Preferred term
pollution
Definition
- Pollution is defined as undesirable physical, chemical, or biological changes in the characteristics of water, air, or land that negatively affect the survival, health, or activities of humans and other living organisms. For much of human history, the natural world was considered as an adversary to be defeated and as a reservoir of resources to be exploited—pollution was at most a local problem for some communities and was not of widespread practical or ethical concern. [Source: Encyclopedia of Business Ethics and Society; Pollution]
Broader concept
Narrower concepts
- Agent Orange
- Alaska pipeline
- alternative energy
- appropriate technology
- arsenic
- asbestos
- automobiles
- Basel Convention
- best available technology
- Bhopal disaster
- Bikini Atoll
- Buffalo Creek disaster
- Cairo Guidelines on Waste Trading
- Canadian mining scandals
- Cancer Alley
- carbon dioxide
- carbon tax
- carcinogens
- car corporate average fuel economy standards
- catalytic converters
- chemical pollution
- chlorinated hydrocarbons
- chlorofluorocarbons
- circle of poison
- Clean Air Act
- Clean Water Act
- coal
- coal mining
- corporate dumping
- cradle-to-grave regulation of hazardous waste
- DDT
- Deepwater Horizon oil spill
- Department of Energy
- dioxins
- Earth Day
- Environmental Protection Agency
- Erin Brockovich
- extinction of species
- Exxon Valdez oil spill
- Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act
- food irraditation
- fossil fuels
- framework convention on climate change
- gasoline
- global environmental change
- global warming
- grassy narrows first nations reserve
- green chemistry
- green consumerism
- greenhouse effect
- greenhouse gases
- green movements
- Greenpeace
- green production and industry
- green revolution
- groundwater
- hybrid vehicle
- hydrogen fuel
- hydropower
- industrialization
- kepone scandal
- land pollution
- love canal disaster
- Montreal Protocol
- mutation
- natural gas
- nitrogen oxides
- nonpoint source pollution
- oil spills
- ozone and ozone depletion
- ozone depletion
- paleoclimatology
- pesticide
- petroleum
- point source pollution
- polychlorinated biphenyls
- polyvinyl chloride
- radioactive pollution
- renewable energy
- Safe Drinking Water Act
- salinization
- temperature inversion
- Three Mile Island
- times beach contamination
- uranium
- urban parks movement
- visual pollution
- wastewater
Belongs to group
URI
https://concepts.sagepub.com/social-science/concept/pollution
{{label}}
{{#each values }} {{! loop through ConceptPropertyValue objects }}
{{#if prefLabel }}
{{/if}}
{{/each}}
{{#if notation }}{{ notation }} {{/if}}{{ prefLabel }}
{{#ifDifferentLabelLang lang }} ({{ lang }}){{/ifDifferentLabelLang}}
{{#if vocabName }}
{{ vocabName }}
{{/if}}