Ohio's clean air fight

Air pollution
Smog
Asthma
…and so on.

Welcome to Ohio, I guess, which is not quite as bad as "Welcome to Texas," according to a dirty air chart printed in The Columbus Dispatch. We are ranked fourth in the nation overall, and second in the nation based on coal-powered emissions. Texas is ranked #1, as worst in both categories. Not that I need to talk about Texas, but given our political preferences, it doesn't hurt to bring up certain connections.

As I read the article and add it to the bookshelf in my brain of all the other articles I've read, it leaves me with more questions than answers.

"…heavy industry,…warns that new carbon limits could batter a state economy that never recovered from the 2001 recession."

As I understand things, heavy industry is "conservative", and the conservative money making policies have driven jobs out of our state and into other countries without it having anything to do with clean air.

So. Why can't we cut back on manufacturing? Have you seen all the crap that's sold in all the stores? Crap that nobody wants or needs but gets bought and given as birthday and Christmas presents, if nothing else? Crap that gets tossed out sooner rather than later? Plastic crap? How much of this stuff do we need?

Clothing. Granted most of it is made overseas, but just how many clothes do we need at one time, anyway? And why do we buy clothes and throw them out or give them away after only a couple of seasons? And why do we care what "they" are wearing in the first place?

What if we just lived simpler lives? What if we just stopped the consumer addiction? Can we both clean up the manufacturing process and just not manufacture so much stuff in the first place?