Comment Re:Kind of.. (Score 1) 481
But nobody would have cared if California had Oklahoma's population density. No harm would have been observed, certainly not at a scale that would prompt the creation of the Clean Air Act and a cabinet-level agency to enforce it. Mother Nature can absorb a certain amount of pollution of any kind... just not at California scale.
There are probably more cars in Los Angeles County alone (population 10 million) than in the entire state of Oklahoma (population 4 million).
*If it were just a local issue, then we could put 100 coal power plants in the middle of nowhere and it wouldn't matter. But ultimately they reduce the air quality everywhere over time.*
Quantity has a quality all its own. 100 coal plants is not a major problem for anyone not living next to one of them. 100,000 is everybody's problem.