Environmental Sustainability In The United States

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As a nation, it is vital that the United States of America begins to move toward a process of environmental sustainability in order to protect the prosperity of this country and the planet as a whole for generations to come. In the past, environmental legislation has been put into place in order to start to encourage a transition toward a mindset of preserving the overall well being of the planet. An example of this is the clean air act, which was implemented in 1963, and then amended in 1966, 1970, 1977, and 1990. While this has been considered a successful piece of legislation that has reduced air pollution by up to 70%, it is still not enough, as harmful emissions into the atmosphere continue to mass pollute the planet(McCarthy and Burke, 650). One of the main issues …show more content…

If real progress is to be made with this issue, then laws need to be put into place that will limit the polluting of everyone, not just major companies. One way to do this without taking away individual rights, is to tighten emissions standards on motorized vehicles. In the United States, these vehicles account for just about 20% of all emissions. This emits around 24 pounds of carbon dioxide for every gallon of gas(Union of Concerned Scientists, 1). By tightening these standards so that these numbers go down significantly, great progress can be made toward a much more environmentally friendly nation. If progress is made toward making cars and trucks continuously more and more environmentally friendly, then the biggest source of harmful emission into the atmosphere will be put to a stop. On average, for each mile driven in a standard vehicle, 411 grams of carbon dioxide are emitted into the atmosphere, this equates to roughly 4.7 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year, whereas a car that operates fully on electricity releases no tailpipe emissions into the atmosphere(EPA, 1). As this staggering

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