Air Quality/ pollution Is improving

Fact or Fiction: America's air quality is improving and pollution is decreasing. This is definitely up for debate and I read two different views on the matter. One definitely had me convinced, which one will you side with?

Air quality is improving/ Pollution is decreasing:
America is reportedly experiencing trends of improvement in urban ozone quality, and toxic air particles have decreased in the past three years by 31%. This benefits Americans because these air particles can prove to be dangerous to one's health as well as cancerous. The article talked a lot about how the government and environmental group's claims are exaggerated and are not relevant to what is the true case. In fact, pollution has been decreasing as we keep progressing because of our advancements in technology have created more efficient ways to process and create energy. CNN reports too, that Americans are living longer lives because the air they breathe clearer. According to a new study, the drop in pollution across metropolitan "areas between 1980-2000 appears to have added nearly five-ten more months to people's lives." This was published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Five more months is almost half a year, or even almost a year, longer with your friends and family and enjoy life. So evidently pollution causes more of an impact on humans than people initially thought, not just on their surroundings. Most of this change is brought about by the Clean Air act of 1970, which set air quality standards that the government regulates in an effort to have a better quality of life. The negative effects of pollution include: Increase in blood pressure, risk of heart attack; as well as other research has concluded that a nonsmoker living in a polluted city has about the same risk of dying of heart disease as a former smoker. There is a lot of research out there that presents the facts of increased mortality and worsened health to pollution.
According to this article, and newspaper, air quality is improving as our pollution control is getting more strict. We are on the right track for creating an environment that is more Eco friendly and less invasive to other life forms; as well as more healthy. The articles talk about data and interpret it as positively supporting the hypothesis of air quality improving. There are many convincing studies that were made, and I have to wonder about the authenticity of them. As always, the data that is presented in articles always supports the theories, but they never show any evidence that shows other possibilities. For instance, the articles highlighted 51 towns that had improved pollution numbers, in one state. The articles did not acknowledge any other towns that may have suffered with more pollution. It did not give us a wider view of how pollution affects the other towns nationwide. And it only gave one town in the country, which may have proved their point, but that may be their only core evidence. The article needed to provide more statistics to completely back up what they were saying and to block the many holes in their evidence that they left.

Bailey, Ronald. "U.S. Air Quality Has Improved Since the 1970s." Current Controversies: Pollution. Ed. Debra A. Miller. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2008. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale. Deerfield High School. 9 Feb. 2010

Harding, Ann. "Drop in U.S. air pollution linked to longer lifespans."CNN. 21 January 2009. 7 February 2010.