In celebration of Earth Day I’m very proud of how far we have improved the quality of life and benefited the environment. It’s been a long struggle, but through hard work and determination we have made it happen. Just some quick facts:
Healthier Air – emissions of six major air pollutants have dropped more than 60 percent since 1980.
Cleaner Water – Only about a third of American water was safe for swimming or fishing in 1972. Today, that proportion has risen to about two-thirds.
Saving Species – The bald eagle has become a poster child for saving species from extinction.
And we have greatly improved the quality of life for so many people:
We have natural gas that heats millions of homes, provides many gigawatts of abundant and affordable electricity, and cooks billions of meals around the planet each and every day. Plus it much better for the environment than burning coal or wood.
We have gasoline that powers our cars, jet fuel that enables millions of people to travel at a moment’s notice, and all the petroleum-based products that allow us to brush our teeth, make-up our faces and make ourselves smell better with deodorants and anti-perspirants.
We have the ability to get crude oil and natural gas out of the ground safely and environmentally responsibly. This provides feedstock for the fertilizers that enable the world’s farmers to feed more than 7 billion human beings on a daily basis and the plastics derived from petroleum that touch and improve our lives in a thousand different ways every day.
So lets all celebrate Earth Day today realizing that we are making a difference!