question: How USA is one of top polluters in most sources but is consistently ranked relatively favorably (in the middle) for how polluted it is?
comment: A lot of it is just how big the US is and how much the population and industrial centers are spread out. If I have a country that is 100 square miles and pollutes x amount, and a country that is 1000 square miles and pollutes 5x amount, the second country pollutes 5 times as much as the first country but said pollution is spread out over 10 times the area, so would likely be only half as polluted. Oversimplified but still pretty accurate. The USA is the third largest country by area behind Russia and Canada and ahead of china.
passages: In the 2010 standard case, the United States, with its exceptionally large population of individuals with incomes above the $7,500 development threshold (capacity) and the world’s largest share of cumulative emissions since 1990 (responsibility), has the largest single share (32 percent) of global RCI. The EU follows with 25 percent of the global RCI. China, despite being relatively poor, is home to a significant number of people still living above the development threshold, and has a notable 6.6 percent share of global RCI, which puts it close behind Japan with its 7.4 percent. India is also large but far poorer, placing it far behind with a 0.8 percent share.
   The United States was the second top emitter in terms of from fossil fuels in 2009. It produced 5,420 million metric tons (abbreviated as mt) of the substance, constituting 17.8% of the world's total at the time. The nation was also the second highest emitter in terms of all greenhouse gas emissions, including construction and deforestation-related changes, in 2005. Specifically, the U.S. produced 6,930 mt (15.7% of the world's total). In the cumulative emissions between 1850 and 2007, the U.S. was at the top in terms of all world nations, involved with 28.8% of the world's total.
   Common offenders of environmental discrimination are corporations that build environmentally hazardous sites. These are typically waste processing facilities, energy companies such as coal plants, chemical plants, and manufacturers who use specific chemicals known to be hazardous to both the environment and/or human health. Other industries known for being responsible for negatively impacting the United States include transportation and energy mining and drilling. A list called The Toxic 100 is maintained by the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI), an institute at the University off Massachusetts Amherst, of the United States' top polluters. PERI uses a formula: Emissions (millions of pounds) x Toxicity x Population Exposure. Population is measured by its proximity to nearby residents, as well as, prevailing winds and height of smokestacks. The data on chemical releases come from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Toxics Release Inventory (TRI).
   Section::::Disparities in the effects of air pollution.:Environmental Justices and the Trump Administration.:The Paris Agreement.
   Section::::Disparities in the effects of air pollution.:Socioeconomic status.:Factors of environmental disparities due to low socioeconomic status.
  
  They generally divide into three categories: 
  
  BULLET::::1. Sociopolitical explanations in which hazardous facilities located in communities where they lack political capital to influence discussions
  
  BULLET::::2. Market-based explanations in which people who live in polluted areas have lower property value
  
  BULLET::::3. Racial discrimination in the placement of hazardous facilities.
  
  Section::::Disparities in the effects of air pollution.:Socioeconomic status.:Education status.
   BULLET::::- Ohio River, ranked as the most polluted river in the United States in 2010
  
  BULLET::::- Onondaga Lake
  
  BULLET::::- Aliso Creek (Orange County)
  
  BULLET::::- Bubbly Creek
  
  BULLET::::- Cuyahoga River
  
  BULLET::::- Duwamish River
  
  BULLET::::- Elizabeth River (Virginia)
  
  BULLET::::- Houston Ship Channel
  
  BULLET::::- Housatonic River
  
  BULLET::::- Hudson River
  
  BULLET::::- Kamilo Beach
  
  BULLET::::- Love Canal
  
  BULLET::::- Newark Bay
  
  BULLET::::- Newtown Creek
  
  BULLET::::- New River (Mexico – United States)
  
  BULLET::::- Passaic River
  
  BULLET::::- Lake Erie
  
  BULLET::::- Lake Gribben
  
  BULLET::::- Savannah River
  
  BULLET::::- Boston Harbor
  
  Section::::See also.
  
  BULLET::::- Summary information
  
  BULLET::::- Water supply and sanitation in the United States
  
  BULLET::::- Clean Water Act programs
   Section::::See also.
  
  BULLET::::- Cancer Alley
  
  BULLET::::- Environment of the United States
  
  BULLET::::- Environmental racism
  
  BULLET::::- Environmental racism in Europe
  
  BULLET::::- Uranium mining and the Navajo people
  
  BULLET::::- Toxic 100 - the top 100 polluters in the US
  
  BULLET::::- Regional Clean Air Incentives Market (RECLAIM, an emission trading scheme in California)
  
  BULLET::::- "Anderson v. Cryovac" - a landmark federal case concerning toxic contamination in Woburn, Massachusetts
  
  BULLET::::- Hexavalent chromium pollution in the United States
  
  Section::::External links.
  
  BULLET::::- United States Environmental Protection Agency - Pollution page
  
  BULLET::::- Scorecard Home (data about pollution in the United States)
   BULLET::::- Transparency International 2016 Corruption Perceptions Index: ranked 18 out of 175 countries
  
  BULLET::::- Reporters Without Borders 2018 Press Freedom Index: ranked 45 out of 180 countries
  
  BULLET::::- Economist Intelligence Unit 2017 Democracy Index: ranked 21 out of 167 countries
  
  BULLET::::- World Justice Project 2017-18 Rule of Law Index ranked 19 out of 102 countries and jurisdictions
  
  Section::::Standard of Living.
  
  BULLET::::- List of countries by Human Development Index: ranked 13 out of 189 countries for 2018
  
  BULLET::::- List of countries by inequality-adjusted HDI: ranked 25 out of 151 countries for 2018
   In a 2003 article for the "Chicago Tribune", Kennedy wrote, "The federal government is America's biggest polluter and the Department of Defense is the government's worst offender. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, unexploded ordnance waste can be found on 16,000 military ranges across the U.S. and more than half may contain biological or chemical weapons. In total, the Pentagon is responsible for more than 21,000 potentially contaminated sites and, according to the EPA, the military may have poisoned as much as 40 million acres, a little larger than Florida."
  
  Section::::Legal career.:Factory farms.
   Section::::Disparities in the effects of air pollution.:Environmental Justices and the Trump Administration.:Environmental Health Education.
   BULLET::::- Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development 2015 Programme for International Student Assessment, ranked 40 of 72 in mathematics, 25 of 72 in science, 24 of 72 in reading
  
  Section::::Globalization.
  
  BULLET::::- 2006 Globalization Index (A.T. Kearney) ranked 3rd
  
  BULLET::::- 2010 KOF Index of Globalization ranked 27
  
  Section::::Health.
  
  , the Maternal Mortality Ratio is 46th out of the countries ranked. (See Maternal mortality in the United States.)
   China's emissions have outpaced the U.S. in CO2 from 2006 onward. The U.S. produced 5.8 billion metric tons of CO2 in 2006, compared to the 6.23 billion coming from China. Per capita emission figures of China are about one quarter of those of the U.S. population.
  
  The single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. is power generation. For example, data from 2012 put that share as 32% of the total compared to the 28% of emissions related to transportation, 20% from industry, and 20% from other sources.
   For decades, nuclear power has played a limited role relative to many other developed countries, in part because of public perception following the Three Mile Island accident in 1979. In 2007, several applications for new nuclear plants were filed.
  
  Since 2007, the total greenhouse gas emissions by the United States are the second highest by country, exceeded only by China. The United States has historically been the world's largest producer of greenhouse gases and greenhouse gas emissions per capita remain high.
  
  Section::::Infrastructure.:Water supply and sanitation.
   In the United States unhealthy levels of pollution are measured by the Environmental Protection Agency and independent researchers or agencies, like the American Lung Association. Federal limits and pollution standards are set by the Clean Air Act.
  
  Section::::Health effects.
   Americans may be seen as reckless and imprudent people regarding the preservation of the environment. They may be portrayed as lavish, driving high polluting SUVs and unconcerned about climate change or global warming. The United States (whose population is 327 million) has the second-highest carbon dioxide emissions after China (whose population is 1.4 billion), is one of the few countries which did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol, and is one of just three countries to refuse to participate in the Paris Agreement after its withdrawal from the agreement in June 2017. In the context of stereotyping, it is perhaps more relevant to look at production per capita - the USA compares favorably with oil-producing nations in the Middle East, with Qatar at 40.3 metric tons per capita versus the United States's 17.6 metric tons per capita, but not with most European countries. Germany, for instance, emits only 9.1 metric tons per capita.
   In addition to the acute problems of water pollution in developing countries, developed countries also continue to struggle with pollution problems. For example, in a report on water quality in the United States in 2009, 44 percent of assessed stream miles, 64 percent of assessed lake acres, and 30 percent of assessed bays and estuarine square miles were classified as polluted.
  
  Section::::Types.
  
  Section::::Types.:Surface water pollution.
  
  Surface water pollution includes pollution of rivers, lakes and oceans. A subset of surface water pollution is marine pollution.
  
  Section::::Types.:Marine pollution.
   Section::::Challenges.:Distributional impacts of environmental and natural resource policies.
  
  Not all industries pollute the same amount; chemical and paper manufacturing industries, for example, tend to pollute more than others. It is difficult to accurately measure the pollution level of each industry in order to categorize and to set up a fair set of policies. In particular, improved water quality might highly favor the higher income groups due to the fact that most improvements are done in the urban areas.
  
  Section::::Challenges.:Links between trade and environmental and natural resource policies.
   Section::::Perspectives.:Municipal level.:Harlem, New York (United States of America).
   In a study conducted by Yale University, 'Environmental Inequality in Exposures to Airborne Particulate Matter Components in the United States’, Hispanics were exposed to 10 out of the 14 pollutants (e.g., 152% higher than whites for chlorine, 94% higher for aluminum), African Americans were exposed to 13 out of the 14 pollutants (e.g., 43% higher for zinc, 25% for vanadium), and Asians had higher exposures than whites (e.g., 103% for chlorine, 69% for vanadium, 64% for nickel). Some of the pollutants studied have been connected to asthma. In Bronx, New York, 66% of individuals who live in proximity of hazardous industrial facilities and waste sites are likely to be hospitalized for asthma. It has been reported that people who live within 1.86 miles of toxic waste facilities in the United States are people of color and twice as likely as white residents to live within a fence line zone of an industrial facility, contribute to air pollution, safety issues, and health concerns.
   At 760 kg per person the United States generates the greatest amount of municipal waste.
  
  Section::::Population.
  
  The total U.S. population crossed the 100 million mark around 1915, the 200 million mark in 1967, and the 300 million mark in 2006 (estimated on Tuesday, October 17). The U.S. population more than tripled during the 20th century — a growth rate of about 1.3 percent a year — from about 76 million in 1900 to 281 million in 2000. This is unlike most European countries, especially Germany, Russia, Italy and Greece, whose populations are slowly declining, and whose fertility rates are below replacement.
   BULLET::::2. Northwest Europe Basis (NWE)
  
  Hence the Index values cannot be used to get accurate results in other regions of the world. This variation might be due various factors such as 
  
  BULLET::::- Cost and availability of materials
  
  BULLET::::- Cost and availability of labor
  
  BULLET::::- Cost of transportation of equipment and labor
  
  BULLET::::- Import duties and local taxes
  
  BULLET::::- Currency exchange rates
  
  Of all these factors currency exchange rates is said to have the greatest impact in the variation of results.
   In a report published in the November 12, 2008 online issue of Environmental Science and Technology, researchers found that freshwater pollution by phosphorus and nitrogen costs U.S. government agencies, drinking water facilities and individual Americans at least $4.3 billion annually. Of that, they calculated that $44 million a year is spent just protecting aquatic species from nutrient pollution.
  
  Section::::Water.:Oceans.
  
  Section::::Water.:Oceans.:Oils.
  
  BULLET::::- 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill
  
  BULLET::::- 2007 San Francisco Bay oil spill
  
  BULLET::::- 2008 New Orleans oil spill
  
  BULLET::::- 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill
  
  BULLET::::- 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill
  
  Section::::Pesticides.
   These four groups of measures influence health Outcomes of a state's population, and improving these Determinants will improve Outcomes. Most measures are a combination of activities in all four groups. For example, the prevalence of smoking is one of the Behaviors strongly influenced by the Community and Environment, by public Policy including taxation and restrictions on smoking in public places, and by Clinical Care received to treat the chemical and behavioral addictions associated with tobacco.
  
  Section::::Methodology.
   Water contamination usually occurs through a series of two mechanisms: point and non-point sources of pollution. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), point source pollution is "any single identifiable source of pollution from which pollutants are discharged, such as a pipe, ditch, ship or factory smokestack.” Therefore, among the most common examples of point source pollution, poor factory and sewage treatment appear high on the list; although not as frequent, but, nevertheless, equally—if not more—dangerous, oil spills are another famous example of point source of pollution. On the other hand, non-point sources of pollution are those that may come from different sources, among which, poor and badly monitored agricultural activities can negatively affect the quality of any nearby sources of water.
   Section::::Disparities in the effects of air pollution.:Socioeconomic status.
  
  Socioeconomic Status (SES) is an individual's or group's sociological and economic status in society. Low socioeconomic status can correlate to a greater risk of exposure to unsafe and unhealthy conditions. People of lower socioeconomic statuses have an unequal access to resources and safety measures while people of higher socioeconomic statuses have a greater access to health and safety resources/measures.
  
  Section::::Disparities in the effects of air pollution.:Socioeconomic status.:Impact of low SES and air pollution on health.
  
presuppositions: USA is considered one of the highest polluted countries when in fact it is not that polluted.
corrections: There are many factors that determine how polluted an area is and USA's estimation is accurate. 
raw_presuppositions: USA is considered one of the highest polluted countries when in fact it is not that polluted. USA is considered one of the highest polluted countries when in fact it is not that polluted.
raw_corrections: There are many factors that determine how polluted an area is and USA's estimation is accurate.  There are many factors that determine how polluted an area is and USA's estimation is accurate. 