midnight orange
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Do you remember LA's pollution during the 80/90s? What changed?
This is an excerpt curb the Mises article Hot Air.
Similarly in our times, air pollution was being reduced in the United States decades before any federal regulations were adopted. From 1950 until 1970, the amount of volatile organic compounds and carbon monoxide in the nation's air fell by more than 20 percent, even though total vehicle-miles traveled in the country rose by 120 percent, from 458 billion to 1.1 trillion. The level of sulfur dioxide in the air began falling as far back as 1920, and the total amount of airborne particulate matter has been reduced by 79 percent since 1940.
Much of this was achieved through increased fuel efficiency in automobiles, consumer adoption of oil and natural gas for the heating of homes, and the introduction of new energy sources such as nuclear and solar power. Entrepreneurs, in their desire to attain the highest yield of energy per unit of resource, were voluntarily reducing air pollution at a dramatic rate.
Yet government economic planners were not pleased with society's progress. In another usurpation of property rights, government forced businesses and consumers to cut back even further on emissions, to reduce the use of specific energy resources, and to cease at numerous other activities. Even today, the left continues to profess the Clean Air Act as society's environmental savior. Yet after almost 30 years of regulating, the EPA is unable to produce evidence that its efforts have independently improved air quality.