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Wednesday, November 16, 2011

On the anniversary of the "Clean Air Act"

This week, most people won't know, is the anniversary of the "Clean Air Act" by Congress, in Washington, of 1990. It turns 21 years old, thank goodness. As we know, our air in the 1960's, at least, had gotten pretty fouled and dirty and awful and we needed to do something about it--we needed to clean it up. So clean it up we did, thank goodness. And, as it turns out, the Act did help us clean our air, some, anyway, and set us on a good, intelligent, healthier and far more sustainable path. Sure, we need to do more about our air and cleaning it and it will have to come from partnerships with corporations but some of those companies have found that clean air is not only in their best interests but that it can also help create both more business for them as well as new technologies and jobs. We need to develop more in this arena--we need to create yet more, "greener" and cleaner technologies and capabilities, including and especially solar power, particularly photovoltaic cells that create our electricity. So in this week that we say "Happy birthday!" to the Clean Air Act of 1990, I am reminded of Oliver in the Charles Dickens story and later, movie and can only tell the US Congress the following: Unfortunately, too many in Congress now think there's too much "regulation". (http://www.iwatchnews.org/2011/11/16/7399/5-questions-william-ruckelshaus?utm_source=iwatch&utm_medium=social_media&utm_campaign=facebook). All I can say is, we don't want to end up like polluted China. Let's not go backward. Let's keep cleaner air and progressing forward. Link: http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/11/16/370028/happy-birthday-clean-air-act-jobs-innovation-saving-lives/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+climateprogress%2FlCrX+%28Climate+Progress%29

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