How USA is one of top polluters in most sources but is consistently ranked relatively favorably (in the middle) for how polluted it is?
In: Chemistry
Because the US isn’t “polluted,” even though it emits a rather large amount of pollution.
Outside of a few individual cities (particularly LA), smog, particulates, NOx, and SOx emissions are relatively low. The US really just produces two emissions; carbon dioxide, and methane. One is only harmful at concentrations above 1000 PPM for sustained periods (which we’re not really close to in the ambient), and the other is completely odorless, colorless, and benign to living tissue.
The other important aspect is that the areas where pollution density is highest (our cities) are still significantly less polluted than our peers overseas, entirely because our cities are so much less dense. Emissions follow consumption on a per-capita basis, and so when you have a lot of people crammed together, you’re going to have a lot of emission production crammed together as well. The US really only has three cities that have population densities approaching our peers in Europe and Asia; two of them (NYC and Boston) are kept relatively clean via city regulation, and the third (Washington DC) is kept clean by virtue of the US government bending over backwards to keep the Capital looking spotless (helped in major part by the fact that the National Mall is National Park space).
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