America's clean air might seem like a Christmas Miracle, but it's largely thanks to the innovation of America's energy producers.
Colorado Business Magazine (12/24/22) article: "If you’ve lived here long enough, you know about Colorado’s infamous brown cloud and seen the electronic signs with air quality warnings. These ozone alerts from the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) appear more often on hot summer days and advocate carpooling, exercising indoors, or driving and mowing lawns after 5 p.m. The signs are a plea to residents and visitors to literally take cover to mitigate impact from — or avoid contributing to — additional ozone pollutants. However, there are numerous competing factors that cause, bring and trap these pollutants in Colorado’s air...While emissions from the oil and gas industry do exist, what’s less talked about are the benefits the industry delivers. For years, the Denver-based Western Energy Alliance (WEA) has highlighted that Western natural gas is a powerful 'clean air tool,' citing statistics that indicate the use of cleaner-burning natural gas to produce electricity emits approximately half the carbon dioxide (CO2) of coal along with lower levels of other air pollutants. Burning natural gas for electricity generation improves air quality and helps cities comply with NAAQS for sulfur oxides and particulate matter, according to the Alliance... Perhaps the most impressive point is one the Institute for Energy Research (IER) has been driving since just before Earth Day’s 50th anniversary celebration in 2020, and just prior to the pandemic when people hunkered down and reduced travel, which led to reduced transportation emissions. IER highlights, using EPA data, that between 1970 and 2021:
- U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) increased 292%.
- vehicle miles traveled increased 191%.
- energy consumption increased 59%.
- and U.S. population increased by 46%.
During the same period, total emissions of the six principal air pollutants dropped by 73%. Even with the increased use of our natural resources in almost every sector, U.S. air pollutant measurements are lower today than 50 years ago. It might very well be the greatest energy, economic and environmental success story you’ve never heard."
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"We are now in the unfortunate situation where the environmental movement, which professes its belief in science, ignores or attacks all research that disconfirms its beliefs."
– Richard S.J. Tol,
University of Sussex
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