The cost is not only environmental, it is also serious in terms of the health consequences of your people, and in terms of the drag on economic growth.
Environmental problems are also increasingly global, as well as national.
For example, in the near future, if present energy use patterns persist, China will overtake the United States as the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, the gases which are the principal cause of global warming. We must work together. We Americans know from our own experience that it is possible to grow an economy while improving the environment . We must do that together for ourselves and for the world.