208 ADDRESSES AND STATE PAPERS

to flourish. For the prolonged period of the industrial age, the space
age, the atomic age this layer is too thin to sustain life if we continue
to expend and proliferate our present industrial uses, and to repro-
duce the human race at the current unprecedented rate. More lungs
are consuming our finite supply of air and more products of modern
technology are contaminating it... so much so that air pollution has
become a menace to the health of the individual and a threat to the
survival of the human race.

What domestic progress has been made in our war against pollu-
tion — and ironically, what has brought an equal measure of progress
and compromise to the international cold war — has resulted from a
fear-filled recognition of the dangers of atomic radiation. The hazard
of atomic fallout — a form of air pollution — generated the first
significant postwar treaty between the United States of America and
the Soviet Union. As a result of this first great step toward diplomacy
and compromise, greater agreement on other subjects has been
reached. But it was this realization — that God and nature given air
refuses to know or respect international political boundaries and
would impartially spread atomic fallout over the nation of the victim
and the aggressor alike — that humbled the great political powers of
the world and brought them to the conference table.

Modern civilization has reached such a high plateau of technological
sophistication that we cannot afford to ignore or postpone our re-
sponsibilities for the adverse side effects from the great industrial
revolution that has brought us so far. We all know that vehicles,
factories, businesses and even residences utilize combustible material
of some form. Approximately 90 percent of the air pollution in the
United States consists of invisible but potentially lethal gases chat, re-
sult from the incomplete, imperfect or uncontrolled combustion that
energizes and accommodates our society. Nearly half of this nation's
contamination can be attributed to carbon monoxide released from
the exhaust pipes of automobiles, trucks and buses. The second major
source of gas pollutant is composed of oxides of sulphur produced by
home, power plant and factory combustion of coal and oil containing
substantial quantities of sulphur. In addition, open air burning pro-
duces poisonous gases in one or another chemical composition.

With the advent of the urban growth, the proliferation of industry
and the metropolitan residential explosion, air pollution is affecting
the health of our citizens, our natural vegetation, our agriculture and
our live stock. Cities with major smog problems like Los Angeles,
London, Duseldorf and other highly industrialized, highly motorized