Posted on 08/12/2008 4:02:18 PM PDT by newbie2008
It should be recognized that the American environment, on the whole, is much cleaner than most places around the world. Certainly the environmental destruction revealed by the unveiling of the iron curtain dispelled any notions that love and central planning are better for the environment than commercial society.
However, I dont want to argue the point that capitalism is good for the environment (the evidence suggests that it is), but rather that the above table is a testament to the remarkable wealth in the United States. It is also a testament to the American political institutions that have enabled Americans of all stripes to have their preferences for environmental quality reasonably well represented.
I grew up in Westchester California Home of LAX the 70 s were the worst for smog it hurt to breath and eyes stung like crazy
Which is why all the draconian warnings concerning greenhouse gasses & global warming fail to impress very much. At least as far as the US's culpability is concerned.
Very good info, btw; thanks for posting.
There’s a couple dunderheaded liberals at my workplace that won’t know how to respond to this.
Agreed. To listen to Al Gore and his followers, you would swear that the last 35 years of environmental clean-up, increases in car gas mileage, indsutrial site clean-up, etc. never happened. Of course we know they did happen, and that the environment is much better in the US today than years ago. But to them, all those years of action simply set the stage for where we are today, which according to them, is the edge of the environmental cliff.
Wouldn’t Dems argue that this is a result of the creation of the EPA and increasing gov’t regulations?
Earth Day worked!
I understand what you mean. They think nothing has changed and it is so frustrating for them when they must admit the truth.
Thanks for posting that info. Pretty much what I thought.
I wonder if the pollution levels in the US will start rising again because of 100s of new coal plants in India and China?
Maybe thats why the pollution improvement has sort of halted?
I also think the pollution level would correlate well (inversely) with global warming. The earth cooled from 1945-70ish as more pollution filtered out more sun. Warmed as the pollution went down from 70ish to 98ish. Now its flat or cooling again as we get more pollution from Asia.
Now we need to do the same with our environmentalists.
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