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Whoa, there. Watch your step. You just attacked the free market. Define "clean." Air pollution is going down (and has been) rapidly, thanks to new technology reducing true pollution that the free market created, without being forced by the government. As for Co2, it is completely and totally harmless, in fact it is what plants need to grow. When the government tries to mess with the economy, bad things happen. I defy you to find me a single incident in the history of these States when government intervention has produced economic growth, or heck, any kind of benefit that was not outweighed by the cost.
You actually think the coal industry developed that technology on their own? Please come back to the real world. EPA standards are 100% responsible for the air pollution coming down. When the dems get in the EPA standards get tightened and everybody whines about the cost. Then the pubs get in and reduce the standards and all the rich people get richer till the next dem comes along. If it was up to the utility companies their plants would still be belching out black smoke and we would look like China. Cars would still be burning leaded gas. The only thing they would have improved on engines that would reduce emissions would be fuel injection and they would have done it for the extra power and cold running capability. Emission control would have been an added benefit. Yes Co2 is harmless except for the fact that it traps all the other pollutants in our atmosphere. Government intervention isn't meant to save money. It's meant to control things that would otherwise not be controled. Things like sub prime mortgages. tainted food and drugs, pollution, monopolies, out of control creditcard practices. Lots of things that the so called free market abuses through greed.
OOoooh.. That explains why air pollution was dropping long before the Clean Air Act.
As for your other baseless attacks on the free market... My favorite is the thing about monopolies. They don't exist unless government grants one with a different name. As for tainted food and drugs, do you honestly think people would buy from a company with a reputation for that? It sounds like you think that they intentionally taint food/drugs. Last I checked, businesses want to get more customers, and selling tainted foods is not a way to attract more people. Out of control credit card practices? The only reason that they are "out of control" is because people (for some reason) use credit cards all the time, and spend WAY more than they can afford. It's like people think debt has no meaning.