I think most of us agree that the current pollution mechanics are FUBAR. They're neither realistic nor fun. Have any of the devs given any confirmation that they might be changed?

I quote from the "What's next for Humankind" devblog:

"We’ve seen many avid discussions about the game, and many interesting suggestions for how to change or improve it. Diplomacy, pollution, religion, and war resolution are only some examples of the many topics that came up in these discussions. We are of course keeping a close eye on these discussions to understand what you do or do not like about the game and what changes you would like to see.

However, these are big topics that may require big changes to address your concerns thoroughly. We need to carefully consider the steps we take on these issues, and then take time to properly implement and test these changes, so we will unfortunately not be able to provide a quick solution to these, though we will continue to work on balance improvements that may help to alleviate some of the problems you have been talking about."

So yes, they are aware of it. But considering how many bugs they need to fix, which are obviously a higher priority, who knows when will it be balanced...

I consider pollution's current implementation to be a game breaking bug. 

Faust wrote:

I think most of us agree that the current pollution mechanics are FUBAR. They're neither realistic nor fun. Have any of the devs given any confirmation that they might be changed?

Why do we need one?  It's clearly in the part of the game that they didn't finish.  Of course they are going to work on it while they are working on everything else wrong with the contemporary era.