The Dire Pollution Predictions that Missed and the Case for Regulation

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Forty years ago, around the time of the first Earth day, just before sweeping regulations like the Clean Air Act of 1970 took effect, a number of dire predictions were made about air pollution; most of them haven't come true. Noting that these projections didn't come true, the American Enterprise Institute's Mark J. Perry believes we need not worry about pollution regulation.This seems like a situation where someone's missing the point. Fortunately, Treehugger isn't:

Air quality is still decent today because serious regulations were undertaken to limit the pollution of heavy industries! But Perry's argument, which seems to amount to "environmentalists make a bunch of ballyhoo about pollution, but prosperity and the free market have prevented that dangerous pollution over the last 40 years," astonishingly omits any reference to the Clean Air Act that forced industry to apply pollution controls.

Read the complete Perry take-down at Treehugger.