Tom is right about the West getting cleaner. Back in the heyday of Akron,
Ohio, when the city was the tire capitor of the world, the air was barely
breathable. The editor of the Akron Beacon Journal newspaper back then was
reported to have stepped outside one particularlly sooty day, taken a deep
breath, and said, "Smell those jobs!"
The return of the poster-child animals int parts of the US are due in large
part to the moving of agriculture and industry to other parts of the US or
to overseas. I can't help but think that we are cleaning up our act at least
in part at the expense of the third world.
Tom Barber