USA is presently facing a difficult situation shared by the whole world. This problem is pollution.

The environment is rapidly deteriorating because of the growing industrialization, that transforms
natural settings into lands of toxic pollution.
There are many types of pollution. They are acid rain, domestic smoke, smog, the
greenhouse effect, ozone layer depletion, oil pollution, and water pollution.
Americans do not worry about environmental problems and according to 2001 polls, only
four out of ten Americans are really concerned about this issue.
About 37 percent of the smoke in our atmosphere is generated in people's homes, and
most of this is from coal fires. These produce much more tar and hydrocarbons than an
equivalent-sized industrial furnace, and used to be a major contributor to smog.
In the last years, the industry of oil has developed rapidly in the USA and pollution
problems are increasing. Oil pollution is very dangerous to animals to and humans. Animals get
stuck in the sticky mess and suffocate and their fur gets all ruined. They die most of the time.
This happens all over the world. The number of gallons of large oil spills yearly is 37 million
gallons. Large oil spills result from tankers having collisions or crashing. Such was the case of
the supertanker Exxon Valdez that went aground and spilled millions of gallons of oil.
Toxic pollution includes chemicals that poison and kill organisms in and near streams,
rivers or lakes. When a body of water has a high level of toxic pollution, fishing for the purpose
of human consumption is banned. Even low levels of toxicity can be lethal when chemicals
accumulate in predators that consume large amounts of slightly poisoned organisms. Examples of
toxic pollution include pesticides and herbicides; gasoline, oil, and other automotive products;
household cleaning products; paints and solvents; battery acid; industrial waste chemicals; and
toxic substances in car exhaust and solid waste incinerator smoke.
Primary pollutants are those that are directly emitted into the atmosphere already in a
hazardous form.
Secondary pollutants form in the atmosphere after a primary pollutant reacts with
another component of the air. They do not come directly from a polluting source. The vast
majority of outdoor air pollution comes from the burning of fossil fuels in power plants,
factories, and motor vehicles.
Over one billion people live in urban areas where the air is very unhealthy to breathe.
Developing countries have few air quality standards. The air conditions in developed countries
used to be much worse. The most famous incident in America occurred in 1948 in Donora, PA,
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a steel town. 22 people died breathing a toxic fog that remained trapped over the town for five
days.
The United States, as part of the Clean Air Act of 1970, has set air quality standards for
six specific outdoor air pollutants. These six are known as the criteria air pollutants. All
communities must monitor their levels of these six criteria pollutants and if their levels are too
high, they may face stiff penalties from the federal government.
The Clean Air Act of 1970 (amended in 1977 and 1990) has been generally successful in
lowering the amount of air pollution in America. The six criteria outdoor air pollutants are
monitored regularly and compared to both primary standards (human health) and secondary
standards (environmental and property damage).
Since 1970, the overall level of the six criteria pollutants has decreased by 29%, despite
the fact that the population in America has increased by 32%.
The fact is that part of the Americans people give a relatively low priority to the country’s
pollution problems, as shown in the attitudes towards the withdrawal of US support for the
global-warming treaty adopted in Kyoto, Japan in 1997. On the other hand, there is hope
represented by the ecological movements presently active in the USA.