By Isaac Wysocki
Air Pollution is an interesting problem in this day and age. In a society so dependent on fossil fuel, where is the line drawn on how much we should restrict the use of fossil fuels versus the functionality of modern civilization.
America’s Issue with air pollution started in the late 1940’s. One incident that caused this was the Donora PA. smog in 1948. Due to a warm air pocket passing above the industrial hub, the air pollutants got trapped closer to the city causing 50% of the inhabitants to fall ill and experience respiratory or cardiovascular issues. With the deaths rising to 40 souls, the crisis in Donora was publicized heavily, giving momentum to environmentalism and government restrictions, such as the Clean Air Act. The Clean Air Act is a piece of U.S. legislation passed in 1970 that gave the federal government broad reach over the state and local governments. This legislation is why we have a National Ambient Air Quality Standards. The government body created to give oversight of this legislation was the Environmental Protection Agency or the EPA.
The EPA serves an important role at the federal level, keeping all states accountable but lately, regulation that politicians have been suggesting plays off people’s natural tendency to care of the land and its inhabitants. The Green New Deal is a piece of such legislation that has good intentions but is a very ill-conceived document. This piece of proposed legislation plans to change the United states from 15% renewable resources to 100% renewable resources in 10 years. This is infeasible. European countries such as Germany have had similar plans to reduce carbon emissions to zero and the only effect, they have seen is more expensive energy, nearly doubling the price from 2000 to 2017. Germany is now realizing that the wind isn’t always blowing, and the sun isn’t always shining, the supply of energy isn’t constant and can be in shortage or even in surplus of energy. To cover the gap in this program, Germany has increased its coal fired generation of energy, doing worse for the environment then before their program.
America leads the world in technological innovation, even in clean energy technology. America’s leadership is not because of restrictions and laws passed by its legislators, but because of the economic opportunities and freedoms available in its economy. In our economy, the people decide what gets produced, not the government. If people stopped buying products that cause air pollution, the market would adapt to offer cleaner solutions. Environmental Alarmism is a scam that makes people feel good but in actuality, hurts more than it helps. The laws we have put in place after environmental crisis’ serve a purpose to protect the ecosystem, but a lot of regulation proposed now is overkill and have unintended consequences. In 1978, the EPA wanted to put strict air pollution regulation over the state of Pennsylvania, The EPA suppressed data on the cost the restrictions would cost and if the senators of Pennsylvania hadn’t worked so hard to oppose the restrictions, the United States Steel industry would have been severely crippled. It’s situations like this that show that government intervention in affairs such as air pollution should be minimal at best and that alarmism hurts more than helps.
https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/fossil-fuels/coal/france-germany-turn-coal/