3 ms·

Of course. Operating a foot-treadle floor loom doesn't pollute. Stirling engines don't necessarily pollute (unless you consider kinetic energy to be pollution).

• lotsofpulp 6y ago
  It depends on the definition of pollute. Pollute can mean anything that increases entropy. Pollution can mean anything that alters the environment, and that certainly includes any human activity. Pollution can mean anything that increases the probability that the parameters of the environment that allow human life will change. This can include human activity in sufficient amounts that cause environmental damage. Simples example is too many people existing, and their waste causing issues with water sources and then having to build sewage facilities and dealing with the side effects of that. The point is that everything affects everything, and there is no “pure” solution. Causing pollution of one type might help mitigate pollution of another type, and the trade offs are impossible to completely analyze. Obviously some pollution (emissions from fossil fuels) are easy to figure out and blame. But the benefits of those are also incalculable, such as increased life expectancy due to ability to travel, plastics to reduce disease transfer, etc. But at its root, human activity, namely living longer and increasing number of human lives is itself the biggest polluting factor.