{"id":24911,"date":"2019-11-10T12:20:42","date_gmt":"2019-11-10T17:20:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/?p=24911"},"modified":"2019-10-30T00:34:15","modified_gmt":"2019-10-30T04:34:15","slug":"should-we-expect-less-pollution-with-a-larger-population","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2019\/11\/10\/should-we-expect-less-pollution-with-a-larger-population\/","title":{"rendered":"Should we expect less pollution with a larger population?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2019\/10\/23\/health\/us-air-pollution-worsening-study-scn-trnd\/index.html\">&#8220;Air quality in the US is getting worse and could be killing thousands, study finds&#8221;<\/a> (CNN).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The implication of the article is that, given sufficiently aggressive government regulation, we should expect improved air quality every year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But if we combine a growing population (<a href=\"http:\/\/chartsbin.com\/view\/gdn\">chart<\/a>) with a trend toward greater urbanization (<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Urbanization_in_the_United_States\">data<\/a>), wouldn&#8217;t our starting assumption about air quality be that the typical American would be breathing filthier air every year? If we hit any kind of technological plateau, a larger denser population should experience dirtier air, no?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We are gradually adopting some cleaner technology, but we are also gradually growing in number of people and density. Why is CNN shocked that one growth curve can&#8217;t beat the other consistently?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Air quality in the US is getting worse and could be killing thousands, study finds&#8221; (CNN). The implication of the article is that, given sufficiently aggressive government regulation, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[51,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","category-migration-refugees-and-asylum"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Should we expect less pollution with a larger population? - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2019\/11\/10\/should-we-expect-less-pollution-with-a-larger-population\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Should we expect less pollution with a larger population? - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&#8220;Air quality in the US is getting worse and could be killing thousands, study finds&#8221; (CNN). 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