The bald eagle, and the environment, have bounced back.

While ozone air pollution has fallen to its lowest level in U.S. history, hot air on the subject still hovers over us like a suffocating smog. This weekend — like every other Earth Day — environmentalists will saturate the country’s airwaves and newspapers with doomsday warnings about global warming and species extinction.

But the facts have begun to tell a different story. Bald eagles, forestlands, and wetlands have so prospered and multiplied that eco-alarmists are having a harder and harder time finding evidence to back up their gloomy predictions.

At long last, draconian environmental regulation of everything under the sun seems to be in retreat. And the new, decreased levels in air pollution and increased protection of wildlife can be attributed to greater grassroots involvement in environmental reform. Everywhere market incentives are replacing — and improving on — government fiat as the chief driver for environmental cleanup, as individuals take more responsibility for their own communities.

For example, while activists continue to warn about the dangers of carbon dioxide, man-made emissions of the gas have increased by only half of what was predicted. Even the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) projects that car emissions — one of the largest contributors to the problem — will be reduced by more than 80 percent over the next 25 years.

Last year we had the coolest July since 1992. It seems that environmentalists — even famous ones — just can’t get the earth to cooperate with their gloom-and-doom predictions. In another demonstration of exquisitely bad timing, Al Gore chose New York’s coldest day in 20 years to give a speech on the threat of global warming.

What enviro-activists like Gore will never tell you is that many U.S. cities have made enormous strides in the last few years in improving air quality. In fact, the entire nation has already met clean-air standards for four of the six pollutants regulated by law.

Air quality in the ten largest metropolitan areas — four of which are in California — has improved by more than 53 percent since 1980. The midwestern states have done even better. Their numerous coal-fired power plants were long seen as the largest contributors to ozone pollution and acid rain, but now the Department of Energy is reporting a massive shift.

In the department’s state-by-state breakdown, ten midwestern and southern states have reduced the total amount of sulfur-dioxide emissions by 93 percent for the whole country.

At the same time, wildlife is thriving in this cleaner environment. Forestland in the eastern half of the United States is increasing at a net rate of one million acres a year. Wetlands are also multiplying. After three centuries of decline, we now see a growth of some 26,000 acres a year on private land alone.

And the proud bald eagle? Our national symbol has made quite a comeback — from only 500 nesting pairs in 1965 to 7,500 today. It can finally be taken off the Endangered Species List.

People seem to sense the improvement. According to a recent Harris poll, 71 percent of Americans are happy with the quality of the environment where they live. Environmental issues were not on the front burner in the 2004 election, and doomsday activists are having a harder time convincing politicians and the public that we are headed for disaster.

All the good news may put green lobbies in a panic, but perhaps it’s time Americans gave themselves a pat on the back. We have taken on and solved a visible problem, and made real contributions to technologies that will bring about a greener and cleaner Earth.

Of course, not everyone gets the message. And life with all its major and minor catastrophes goes on. A recent field study in Venezuela documented that some species of dung beetles have declined, resulting in an odiferous pileup of monkey dung.

But when it comes to making a positive, large-scale impact on the environment, communities across America have reason to celebrate this Earth Day. Maybe we should give the alarmists some shovels and airfare to Venezuela.