by Steven Milloy, E&E Legal Senior Policy Fellow and Junkscience.com Founder
As appearing on Junkscience.com
As climate bedwetters hyperventilate about the state of the environment for the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, reality strikes back. Here is my summary of the state of our environment.
Good News Drowned Out by Apocalyptic and Agenda-Driven Hysteria: “You didn’t clean that up.”
Summary: Americans began cleaning up their industrialized environment in the late 1940s well before the first Earth Day in 1970. Since then, many decades of efforts have produced a U.S. environment that is as clean as any industrialized society in the world, especially considering a population of 330 million with a historically unparalleled high standard of living. In fact, this high standard of living is what made environmental clean-up desirable and possible.
Air quality. U.S. air is as clean as it has ever been. From 1980 to 2018, except where noted [Source: U.S. EPA]:
Carbon monoxide, down 83%
Lead, down 99%
Nitrous oxides, down 61%
Ozone, down 31%
Particulate matter (10 micrograms & below), down 26%
Particulate matter (2.5 micrograms & below), down 39% (2000-2018)
Sulfur dioxide, down 91%
