The Institute for Energy Research (IER) notes that the EPA released their annual air quality report that is just stock full of good news. Mainly that the population has increased over the past 20 years and we have seen a corresponding increase in energy consumption and vehicle miles traveled, yet aggregate emissions have steadily declined, which is clearly communicated in this graphic:

IER notes:

Air quality in the United States has dramatically improved and, according to all indicators, it will continue to improve. . . .

GDP, vehicle miles traveled, population, and energy consumption have all increased since 1990. But despite the fact that more people are using more energy to produce more goods and services, air pollution emissions have decreased.

HT to Hot Air, who posts a second, 40-year graph and offers up a further analysis (emphasis added):

A few points to note here.  First, I grew up in Southern California, when smog alerts were commonplace and it sometimes got so bad that it hurt to breathe.  That would have been at the front end of the 40-year trend graph, and emissions have dropped over 60% during that time.  . . . Most intriguingly, travel has gone up much faster than population growth while emissions declined.

The carbon emissions data is also instructive.  In both graphs, its linkage to population growth is so close that the actual percentage has to be moved off of the right border of the graph.  It also parallels energy consumption, which has grown at a slightly lower rate than population, especially over the last couple of years of the report (which may have more to do with the recession).  Either way, carbon emissions are not out of control — and attempts to lower them will require an effort much different than the attempt to eliminate pollutant emissions.

Personally, I remember the days of air traffic being diverted from LAX due to smog banks, as well as rivers catching on fire. Anyone who doesn’t believe things have gotten better must be too young to know better. But that doesn’t explain why the media ignores facts like these.

Technorati Tags: Institute for Energy Research, IER, EPA, Air Quality, Pollution, Global Warming and Other Myths