How USA is one of top polluters in most sources but is consistently ranked relatively favorably (in the middle) for how polluted it is?

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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

7 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

A lot of it is just how big the US is and how much the population and industrial centers are spread out.

If I have a country that is 100 square miles and pollutes x amount, and a country that is 1000 square miles and pollutes 5x amount, the second country pollutes 5 times as much as the first country but said pollution is spread out over 10 times the area, so would likely be only half as polluted.

Oversimplified but still pretty accurate. The USA is the third largest country by area behind Russia and Canada and ahead of china.

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