Good news: measured evidence of lower mercury emissions

I’m old enough to remember the coal soot/fallout/mercury/lead/smoke discussions from the ‘70s. There were huge downwind plumes of sulfur acid and mercury coming from coal power plants. Until regulation made the power plants clean up the output from the exhaust stacks, putting in scrubbers, before switching to natural gas supplies. The reduction of acid rain came first, and the output reduction of mercury in the smoke also came  soon after. There were reductions of mercury in fish and on the land. 

Now we get a study publicized on Eurekalert (www.eurekalert.org/...) that says mercury in the atmosphere dropped in the course of the 20th century. And the evidence is taken from plant samples of a slow growing bush on Mt. Everest. 

Small improvements over time. Photos: www.eurekalert.org/...