We blame plastic. We curse smoke. We rage against carbon. But the biggest pollutant on Earth is not an object. It is us. Humans!

We like to think pollution is accidental. An unfortunate by-product of progress. A side effect of development. That is a comforting lie. Pollution today is intentional, organised and defended. It wears the language of growth. It hides behind convenience. It survives because we choose not to stop.

Look at news about Mount Everest. The highest, purest symbol of nature’s defiance. Once sacred is now littered with oxygen cylinders, torn tents, plastic wrappers, human waste and even frozen bodies. The mountain did not invite this. Man carried it there. We wanted conquest. We left garbage. Even altitude could not save pristine innocence.

Then look upward. Beyond skies. Beyond clouds. Into space. We imagined space as infinite and clean. A final frontier untouched by human error. What did we do? We polluted that too. Thousands of dead satellites. Fragments of rockets. Invisible debris racing at lethal speed. A junkyard orbiting Earth. We call it “space........

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