We have some effect on the planet. The real question to be debated is how much effect.
It is indeed a good thing that cars are dramatically cleaner than in the 60s, when my lungs always bothered me after a hard Little League workout. Smog alerts in the summer were the norm. Look at pictures of Beijing today. https://www.google.com/search?q=beijing+smog&rlz=1C1JZAP_enUS679US679&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjKzPvQlbDPAhVq6oMKHb79D34Q_AUICSgC&biw=1093&bih=560
Man has done some damage. And the more people on the planet results in more of man’s impact.
We should all try to do little things to lessen the impact. I cut grass with a push mower -— the only fuel is me. I often walk to the store with a backpack if I am just getting a few things. And I try to combine errands when I am out in the car. It is not that hard to do.
Unfortunately, rather than encouraging everyone to do the little things that can help, the left has co-opted the issue and uses it for their own power and controlling lives.
I met Ed Begley, Jr. at an automotive event in L.A. For him, I have respect. He rode a bike to the event and does not live in a 20,000 sq ft house that uses as much energy as probably 50 families. He does not own a Sundance ski resort where people collectively drive hundreds of thousands of miles in polluting vehicles. STFU, Redford.
It really is a good thing if we do simple things to conserve what God has provided to us.
China has nearly all of the manufacturing that we used to have. Somehow, we survived all that, as they are surviving. They apparently banned leaded gasoline after 2000, but there have been recent reports of it still being in use.
I’m still in agreement with Hamilton’s outlook on the USA “possess(ing) within itself all the essentials of national supply … compris(ing) the means of subsistence, habitation, clothing and defense”, and I believe that pollution controls (on genuine pollution, not carbon dioxide gas) can be attended to by the private sector without the growth of overbearing executive departments that suck up treasury money to make business too expensive and too untenable to conduct within US borders.