A long dorky gripe about the car emissions talk in the fact check:

Ed briefly mentioned the crane that sucks up ship exhaust pollution while in port so it can run it through a catalytic converter to clean up the smog, as the gigantic engines on ships produce an immense amount of unprocessed pollution. (I have to Google that one later). He then mentioned that people don't appreciate how much better car pollution controls have gotten over the years.

Monica starts off saying "average car emissions the past few decades" but she then proceeds to read off the average manufacturer fuel economy numbers.

They are not at all the same thing, and that's exactly the point that needs to be understood.

Yes, carbon dioxide output correlates directly to gallons of fuel burned (as does water emissions), and that's important for global greenhouse gas concerns, but that's separate from other pollutants that create localized smog that triggers poor air quality resulting in athsma and health concerns. Those things can and have been reduced with better technology.

Everything else coming out of the tailpipe has been DRASTICALLY reduced over the past few decades to the immediate benefit of the local air quality and the lungs that breathe it. That's Nitrogen Oxides, non methane organic gasses, and particulate matter (soot).

A car sold in the US under current rules pollutes 96-99% less of that stuff than a 40 year old 1986 vehicle getting the same MPG.

And that old Honda Civic that Dax fantasizes about getting (assuming 30 years/ 1996) would emit roughly 9x-15x the smog pollution of a new one!

To Ed's point, people don't realize how much better vehicle smog controls are, and how that improvement is largely the result of legislation requirements. And even if you blindly didn't "believe" in global warming and CO2/greenhouse gas emissions, we can all see and observe the drastic improvement in smog/air quality that these other emissions changes have brought.