Flutterby™! : Casting stones

Via Upstairs at Dry Creek, Gregg Easterbrook takes on the idea that Europe is further ahead environmentally.

Indeed, despite European protestations, American ecological standards are far more strict than European rules, and have been for 20 years or more. "Europe is now the world leader on environmental issues," the Swedish environment minister, Kjell Larsson, said as Mr. Bush arrived in his nation. But Paris today has worse smog than Houston; water quality, especially of rivers, is lower in Europe than in the United States; acid rain reduction has been more rapid in the United States than in Europe; European Union nations like Greece, Italy and Portugal still discharge huge volumes of untreated municipal waste water, a practice all but banned in America.