Thank You, Internal-Combustion Engine, for Cleaning up the Environment

摘要

The internal-combustion engine is widely believed to have been an environmental disaster. It has been accused of harming our health by reducing air quality and contributing to what is currently claimed to be the most threatening of all environmental problems, global warming. But long before carbon dioxide was declared a major pollutant, a car was smashed with sledgehammers by students in Seattle during the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970. Al Gore called for eliminating the internal-combustion engine within 25 years in his 1992 book Earth in the Balance (only ten years left).