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Specific environmental "threats" debunked, or at least challenged: Most of the bad news about the environment is wrong. If any of the following things were as hazardous as the environmental alarmists claim, none of us would have survived the 20th century. Keep in mind that risks cannot be completely eliminated, and there are a lot of environmental groups that profit from false alarms.* Safety bureaucracies and consumer activist groups routinely invent or exaggerate dangers to maintain their budgets and inflate their apparent worth.* You may also notice that newspapers and television news outlets thrive on alarming and sensational "news", whether it's valid or not.* One interesting thing about television is that today you may hear, for example, that chocolate is dangerous; but last week you heard the same people say — with equal certainty — that chocolate is essential to your diet. In many of these cases, the TV news "personality" was just reading whatever came up on the teleprompter, and the writer was just repeating the text of a "press release" without checking the facts. Listen carefully and you will notice that you almost never hear the whole truth about anything on television! Newspapers give you more detail, but stories may be arranged and phrased to emphasize the viewpoints of the editors. Read the following articles, and you'll get the idea that almost all the environmental "news" on television (and in your local newspaper) is misleading or simply incorrect. Alar: Alar: The Great Apple Scare. Apple juice and apple sauce were thrown away. Apples were taken out of school lunches, and parents on the border of hysteria called the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) about risks of cancer to their children. The publicity campaign was so effective that sales and prices of all apples declined sharply, and 20,000 apple growers in the U.S. suffered substantial financial harm — even the large number who never used Alar. The Alar Scare Ten Years Later: 1989 was the year in which something of a kangaroo court pronounced Alar, a powder used to prevent the pre-harvest rotting of apples, "the most potent cancer-causing agent in our food supply." It was the year in which the Natural Resources Defense Council, the TV newsmagazine 60 Minutes, then-talk-show host Phil Donahue, and film star Meryl Streep made "Alar" an almost dirty household word. The Editor asks... Why is an actress's opinion more valuable than anyone else's? Apples and Crossbones: In 1989, costuming oneself as an apple on Halloween would have befitted the times. That was the year of mass hysteria over Alar, a chemical product not otherwise noteworthy except for its usefulness to apple growers and apple consumers. Starbucks protestors spread false fears about safe foods: Anti-biotechnology activists engaged in a week of "direct action" at Starbucks Coffee shops in February [2002] with false and misleading information about food safety, nutrition, and the environment. The same people who brought you a long list of other false health and environmental scares — including the infamous Alar-in-apples scare, the Dow-Corning breast implant campaign, and dozens of other debunked fears — are at it again. Nine Worst Business Stories of the Last 50 Years -- [#2] Alar-ming Apples. It was another left-wing campaign that started one of the biggest food scares in U.S. history. Spurred by a study from the leftist Natural Resources Defense Council, CBS's Ed Bradley reported a Feb. 26, 1989, "60 Minutes" segment on daminozide, a pesticide used to keep apples attractive that Bradley dubbed "the most cancer-causing agent in the food supply." Arsenic: Bush a Lot like Clinton, Naturally. Since Bush took office, environmentalist groups have blasted him with wild claims that sound toxic: Bush increased the amount of dangerous mercury that power plants can put out, eased rules on arsenic in drinking water and, according to Robert Kennedy Jr., is "America's worst environmental president." They decry any regulatory reform as "weakening" environmental protections and begin anew their Chicken Little chant. In reality, these charges are no more than Orwellian double-speak; scare tactics designed to destroy the administration. Why the arsenic standard should not be changed: A strange thing happened in the last days of the Clinton administration: The Environmental Protection Agency rushed to set a new arsenic drinking water standard. For the previous eight years of the Clinton administration, and the 30 years of the EPA era, the existing arsenic standard was not deemed in need of change. Suddenly, EPA calculates cancer risks from arsenic as high as 1 in 100. If the risks were real, more Americans would still die from arsenic than from all other regulation chemicals combined. EPA Arsenic Standard May Be Unconstitutional. "The demands of the new standard are absurd," said Sam Kazman, the Competitive Enterprise Institute's general counsel. "The science has failed to find any adverse impacts of arsenic in U.S. drinking water at the 50 parts per billion level, a standard that has been in place more than 50 years." Local Budgets Reel Under Arsenic Mandates. The citizens of Middlefield, Ohio are being hammered by a staggering cost of $7,400 per household after water testing showed the community is very slightly above new, stringent federal standards regarding arsenic in water. … With arsenic measuring 12 parts per billion in community water supplies — just two parts per billion over the new federal standards — Middlefield's 1,000 households must foot the bill for a new $7.4 million water treatment plant. Penguins dumping arsenic in Antarctica. Penguin guano isn't usually considered an environmental hazard. Yet, according to new research, it is the main source of arsenic accumulation in Antarctic soil. … The droppings of the gentoo penguin contained far more than those of the other species — nearly twice as much as the droppings of the southern giant petrel and up to three times more than the local seals. Asbestos: Asbestos of All Possible Worlds? Asbestos litigation has gone on for decades, costing billions of dollars and driving a dozen companies into bankruptcy. Some 60% of all monies have been consumed by the lawyers and assorted parasites. A signal moment was the leakage of a memo from the Texas law firm of Baron & Budd, complete with photos, used by the firm to, ahem, freshen memories of claimants about which products and brands they were exposed to. Asbestos lawsuits have become a mass-production enterprise, with hundreds of thousands of claimants, nobody knowing or caring which ones are really sick. Taming the Asbestos Monster: The nation's courts are being flooded with lawsuits alleging health effects or the possibility of health effects from exposure to asbestos. Real victims of asbestosis (a scarring of the lung similar to "Black Lung" from coal dust), mesotheliona and other asbestos-related cancers are being denied compensation while people who are unlikely to ever experience an asbestos-related disease receive million-dollar awards from confused and misled juries. Asbestos Litigation Is Bankrupting America. What does Bubble-Wrap™, the popular packing material that many kids (and more than a few adults) love to "pop," have to do with asbestos? If you answered "nothing," you are right. If you said the company that produces Bubble-Wrap™ should be liable for up to a billion dollars for alleged injuries caused by a product it never manufactured or used, then you are probably a plaintiffs' lawyer who stands to earn millions of dollars if your lawsuit, implausible though it may seem, is successful. "… the Most Massive Abuse of Science I Have Seen." "My own experience is with asbestos and acid rain and how they relate to human health, both of which subjects I worked on as a U.S. government scientist. We have spent nearly $100 billion to remove asbestos from schools and other buildings, despite warnings by many of us that there was no risk to the health of the building occupants. In 1990, EPA finally agreed with our risk estimate, but the damage had already been done, most of it by EPA." Eco-Freaks. Fire testing organizations such as the National Fire Protection Association have consistently given asbestos materials a zero flame-spread rating, which means it has no ability to spread flame under any circumstances. Before asbestos was widely used, it was not uncommon for a fire in a school or theater to kill, dozens, and sometimes hundreds of people. Acid Rain: Acid Rain: Headline or Hoax? What is referred to as "acid rain" is simply rain that has absorbed airborne particles from both natural and manmade sources. Although some groups continue to try to scare Americans with stories of acid rain, scientific evidence shows that these stories are greatly exaggerated. What, Exactly, Is Acid Rain? Normal rain has a pH of about 5.0. Acid rain typically has a pH of 4.6, and the most acidic rain in North America (found in western Pennsylvania and nearby areas) has an average pH of 4.2. That is similar to the acidity of tomato or apple juice. Acid rain is a hoax! Rain is acidic anyway! Natural rainfall has a pH of ~5.6 (from atmospheric CO2). The Continuing Mythology About Acid Rain: On Tuesday evening, July 25, Ned Potter of ABC News did a three-minute segment purporting to show how acid rain (caused by sulphur dioxide -- SO2 -- emissions from Midwestern utilities) was killing trees in Camel's Hump Mountain in Vermont. Aerial photos showed a pattern of dead or dying tall spruce trees. We were informed acid rain was sterilizing the soil. An environmentalist guided us through the devastation. It was potent TV. It was also a hoax. This Is Going Around On The Net. The big hoax that went on in the 70's and 80's was "Acid Rain". It was just as big a story as global warming is now. Every newspaper and media outlet had it on constantly. Every scientist that tried to tell the truth was ignored by the media. Every scientific paper that came out proving it was a hoax was ignored. Finally 60 Minutes (usually a 100% liberal show) had a segment entitled The Acid Rain Hoax ... POW it was as if the spigot had been turned off. There was essentially never another story about it. Liberal Fantasyland. Acid Rain was once the environmental biggie, the Global Warming of the 70s and 80s. So the government spent 10 years and $550 million to look into it. The National Acid Precipitation Assessment Project (NAPAP) essentially concluded it is not a problem. For example, "The NAPAP study found that among thousands of U.S. lakes, only 4 percent were somewhat acidic. One-quarter of those were acidic due to natural causes, leaving only 3 percent somewhat influenced by human activities." The NAPAP report came out in 1990, suspiciously about the time Global Warming became the new big thing in environmental causes. Bird Flu: The Bird Flu Pandemic is a Hoax. The Great Bird Flu Hoax: An entire industry has taken flight around the great bird flu fear, with everything from bird flu masks and respirators to guides on how to survive the coming plague being hawked to a terrified public. But there is no coming bird flu pandemic. Bird Flu Hoax Exposed on Lou Dobbs. This avian flu is not a sudden arrival upon the scene. A lot of people think it just appeared in the last couple of years, some people think it appeared in 1997. Virtually nobody knows ... that this strain of avian flu, H5N1, goes back to 1959, in Scottish chickens. Bird Flu Hoax: In recent years I've discovered that getting a flu shot is one of the worst things you can do for your immune system to be able to fight off the flu. It's a scam by the manufacturers of the flu shots. Reviews of "False Alarm: The Truth About the Epidemic of Fear". [Dr. Marc Siegel] advocates replacing fear with courage and worry with faith: "Faith takes the worry away and transfers it to a higher Being who is controlling the world. Any sense of control we have is illusory." His concluding comments effectively sum up his book: "What bothers me most as a physician is that I see my patients being harmed, and there's little I can do to stop it. Fear is infectious, and the fear of bird flu has become particularly virulent. There is a vaccine for this fear: it is called information mixed with perspective." Editor's Note: Because television news has to be dumbed down and converted to one-syllable words, the term "avian influenza" was changed to "bird flu." A total of 161 people have died from avian influenza.* The "bird flu" has only affected dirt-poor people on the other side of the world who have poultry running in and out of their houses day and night. We certainly haven't seen the hundreds of thousands of deaths that were predicted.* CNN Team Perplexed by Calm U.S. Public: 'In the Money' co-host admits the media 'fanned the flames' of the bird flu scare, although so far to little effect. ABC Hatches Weeklong Series on Bird Flu: In 2003, ABC questioned government's bioterrorism warnings, but now emphasizes the latest concerns on bird flu. The Fed's Plan is More Scary Than the Bird Flu. Like many Americans, I have been mildly interested, if not amused, watching the parade of warnings — some quite dire — about the possibility of a bird flu pandemic. The feds have spent billions of dollars preparing for a pandemic that most experts predict will not occur. One Flu Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Flu fearmongers must be quite depressed these days. Seasonal flu is late. Bird flu — despite all the headlines — hasn't gained much traction among humans. And we haven't had pandemic flu in 36 years. WHO Confirms One Human-to-Human Bird Flu Case. The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed on Thursday [12/27/2007] a single case of human-to-human transmission of the H5N1 bird flu virus in a family in Pakistan but said there was no apparent risk of it spreading wider. Bird flu outbreak under control. A bird flu outbreak in northwest China has been brought under control, state media said Tuesday. There have been no cases of human infection and farmers who had contact with the poultry have been quarantined and have shown no symptoms, the official Xinhua News Agency said. U.S. pledges extra $320 million for bird flu fight. The United States pledged an additional $320 million to the global fight against bird flu and warned on Saturday [10/25/2008] against complacency in combating the virus, which could mutate and cause a deadly pandemic. The Editor says... We're spending $320 million to solve a problem in some other country — without any certainty that the "bird flu" will ever develop into a pandemic. This is the epitome of money down the drain. Mad Cow disease: Global warming: Don't look now. For a scare to take flight … it must contain the right mix of uncertainty and scientific plausibility. And it must be talked up by the media and "remedied" by the government, usually at enormous expense to the taxpayer. As a classic case of this, the authors cite the BSE fiasco, which began in 1996 when the health secretary Stephen Dorrell stood up in the Commons to announce the possibility of a connection between Mad Cow Disease and a horrendous new brain disease in humans called new variant CJD. Frightened to death: Why it's the scare stories that are the REAL menace. Do you remember that day in 1996 when a Tory health minister stood up in the House of Commons to announce that there might after all be a link between BSE, "mad cow disease", and what seemed to be a new form of the human brain disease, CJD? … For years to come, we would continue to pay billions of pounds for more than eight million cattle to be sent up in smoke, even though such a drastic step had never been recommended by any scientist. Caffeine: Debate Brews Over Caffeine Addiction. Dr. Astrid Nehlig recently completed a study with laboratory animals, which confirmed that caffeine consumed in moderation contributes to increased alertness and energy but does not bring about dependence at those levels. Carbon dioxide: There is a bunch of material about CO2 on this page. Chlorine: Volcanic activity, forest and grass fires, fungi, algae, ferns and the decomposition of seaweed all release chlorinated organics into the environment. Our own bodies produce hypochlorite to fight infection and hydrochloric acid for proper digestion. And there is, of course, sodium chloride — common table salt — present naturally in mines, lakes and seawater, found in our blood, sweat and tears, and essential to the diets of humans and animals.* The Envirotruth about Chlorine: Greenpeace has long waged a campaign against the chlorine industry claiming that chlorine poses a major threat to human health. Scientists disagree. JunkScience.com Announces Top Ten "Most Embarrassing Moments" of 2004. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officials who had halted use of chlorine disinfectant in the Washington, DC drinking water system — due to unfounded cancer fears hyped by the Environmental Protection Agency — replaced this proven germ-fighter with a more corrosive substitute that leached lead from the pipes and caused wide-spread public alarm as lead levels climbed above federal standards. Greenpeace's Efforts to Ban Chlorine are not only Sensational, but Dangerous. Chlorine is the 11th most abundant element in the Earth's crust — more abundant in nature than carbon, and arguably as essential as oxygen. While most people know that chlorine cleans water and disinfects, many people may not know that chlorine is used to make everything from surgical sutures and X-ray film to rocket fuel and football helmets. Or, that in the form of sodium chloride, it is the compound of which table salt is made. The Future of Chlorine. Numerous reports in the media have ascribed possible detrimental health effects to chlorine, dioxin and other chlorinated chemicals, often subjecting the public to exaggerated and misleading information. Greenpeace, a worldwide environmental activist group, has led the attack, pushing for a total ban on chlorine and chlorinated chemicals. Rachel's Folly: The End of Chlorine. Greenpeace, the international environmental advocacy group, launched the first salvo in 1991 with its call to phase out completely "the use, export, and import of all organochlorines, elemental chlorine, and chlorinated oxidizing agents (e.g. chlorine dioxide and sodium hypochlorite)." As Greenpeace's Joe Thornton explains, "There are no uses of chlorine which we regard as safe." Yet chlorination — considered one of the greatest advances ever in public health and hygiene — is almost universally accepted as the method of choice for purifying water supplies. In the United States alone, 98 percent of public water systems are purified by chlorine or chlorine based products. Facts about Chlorine and Dioxins: Chlorine is an element found in abundance in the natural world. It is one of 118 elements that comprise the matter that makes up our universe, and one of the 20 or so that make up 90 percent of our planet. It is found in nature as inorganic salts (common table salt is sodium chloride) and in more than 1,500 organic compounds, including plants, animals, and even human blood and saliva. Anti-chlorine activists hope politics will trump science. Senate Bill 1602 would force industry to abandon chlorine even as science vindicates its safety. Unable to prevail in the laboratory, anti-chemical groups are seeking to prevail in the U.S. Senate. Nothing Cleans Like Chlorine. For nearly 150 years, society has had a powerful weapon against life-threatening infections caused by viruses and bacteria: Chlorine. One of the most effective and economical germ-killers, chlorine destroys and deactivates a wide range of dangerous germs in homes, hospitals, hotels, restaurants and, of course, water. Chlorine-Purified Water Hailed As One of LIFE's Top Achievements of the Millennium. Along with the discovery of gravity, printing the Gutenberg Bible and landing on the moon, the use of chlorine-purified water was recently named one of the millennium's greatest historical events by LIFE magazine. Chlorine: Cornerstone of Modern Medicine. From acetaminophen to antibiotics, X-ray film to blood bags, and AIDS treatments to anti-cancer drugs, the common bond among these miracles of modern medicine is chlorine. The War on Chlorine: Nobody would seek to ban strawberries or blueberries because mistletoe berries are poisonous. But somehow, according to environmentalists, we have to ban the organochlorine used in plastic-making because a different one is used in a pesticide accused of thinning bird eggshells. This thinking also ignores the simple fact that, when discussing potential harm of chemicals, it's necessary to distinguish between levels of exposure. Exploiting Chemical Fears: For over a decade, various extremist environmental groups have tried to banish vital industrial chemicals, especially chlorine, with false and malicious claims about potential harm. Washington Town Finally Gets Chlorinated Water. Lacey, Washington, a town halfway between Olympia and Tacoma, has lost its distinction of being the state's largest town without a chlorinated municipal water system. Why I Left Greenpeace: The breaking point was a Greenpeace decision to support a world-wide ban on chlorine. Science shows that adding chlorine to drinking water was the biggest advance in the history of public health, virtually eradicating water-borne diseases such as cholera. And the majority of our pharmaceuticals are based on chlorine chemistry. Simply put, chlorine is essential for our health. My former colleagues ignored science and supported the ban, forcing my departure. Despite science concluding no known health risks — and ample benefits — from chlorine in drinking water, Greenpeace and other environmental groups have opposed its use for more than 20 years. Coal: Coal is one energy resource this country has in great abundance -- yet the people who oppose the use of coal are the same people who whine about America's dependence on foreign oil. Much more material about the senseless opposition to coal can be found on this page. Ohio Coal Association Says Obama Ticket Not Supportive of Coal. Mike Carey, president of the Ohio Coal Association (OCA), today [11/3/2008] issued the following statement in response to just-released remarks from Senator Barack Obama about the nation's coal industry. "Regardless of the timing or method of the release of these remarks, the message from the Democratic candidate for President could not be clearer: the Obama-Biden ticket spells disaster for America's coal industry and the tens of thousands of Americans who work in it. A Lovely Lump Of Coal: According to tradition, if one has been a bad little boy or girl, Santa will leave a lump of coal in your stocking. The Greens targeted coal along with virtually every other source of energy as "dirty" and, frankly, the truth about coal needs to be told lest we forget what a bounty we have in this nation and how well it serves us all. More Energy Sources Imperative, Says Geological Survey. Energy sources such as coal, traditionally taboo to environmental activists, can provide immediate relief. Let's Use Our Coal. [During] the original energy crisis of the 1970s, when we were told that it was urgent for us to develop alternative "renewable" sources of energy because we were running out of fossil fuels any moment now. Today we are told just the opposite - we must develop renewable sources of energy because we aren't running out of fossil fuels fast enough. Texans and coal plants: The most scandalous aspect of the coal-plant controversy is the refusal — yea, the inability — of coal-plant foes to describe just how they'd go about providing for Texas' large and growing energy needs at a time of shrinking natural gas supplies and deep opposition to nuclear power. We hear about "conservation." We hear about wind power, solar power; we sometimes even hear about coal gasification. We never hear coal-plant foes explain how that's going to happen, and what it would mean and cost. Edwards calls for end to coal-fired power plants. America should ban the construction of new coal-fired power plants and charge industry for creating greenhouse gases to generate money for investing in clean technology, Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards said Saturday. … Edwards said charging polluters could generate up to $40 billion to invest in clean technology to "get us off our addiction to oil." [This means higher taxes and/or higher utility bills, to develop pie-in-the-sky technology that has not yet been invented, in order to solve a problem that doesn't even exist.] In Kansas, No to Coal Plants, Yes to 'More Promising' Energy Sources. In an open letter to the people of Kansas on Thursday [10/25/2007], Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius supported her state's decision to deny air permits for two coal-fired power plants slated for construction in southwestern Kansas. Critics, including the coal industry, call the decision wrong-headed and short-sighted. [That's great, but coal technology is already up and running, whereas the "promising" technologies have yet to be developed.] Group discloses nearly $406,000 in spending on anti-coal ads. An anti-coal group financed by a natural gas company has reported spending nearly $406,000 on its advertising campaign last year, setting a lobbyist spending record. The group, Know Your Power, was required to file a report on what it spent on full-page ads urging readers to call their legislators "and let them know where you stand." After the state ethics commission issued that ruling, the group filed its report. Rejection of Proposal for Coal-Fired Power Plants Defies Kansas Climate Data. The Kansas Department of Health and Environment has rejected a request to build two new 700 megawatt coal-fired electricity generating power plants, citing concerns over the proposed plants' carbon dioxide emissions and "the potential harm to our environment and health." In making its October 18 finding, the department ignored all of the known climate history and future climate projections for the state of Kansas. Bipartisan bill would give coal plant another chance. A coal plant expansion in western Kansas could move ahead despite a regulator's objection under a proposed law pitched Wednesday [1/31/2008] by plant supporters. The plant would have to reduce its carbon emissions and pay a tax on any excess carbon it emits. That's meant to address worries that the plant would add to global climate change. The Editor says... Naturally that tax would be passed along to the consumers. And who decides what "excess carbon" means? Greens Will Leave us Cold and Hungry. Earthworks is about to initiate its own "No Dirty Energy" campaign "to alert the public to the climate, ecosystem and community risks associated with mining and burning the world's dirtiest fuel sources?" Labeling coal and oil "dirty" is pure PR and ignores the fact that coal, a cheap and abundant energy sources, provides just over fifty percent of America's electricity, an energy without which the entire nation would cease to function. It ignores the way the Green's campaign against oil has for four decades thwarted the right of American's to access and use its national oil and natural gas reserves yet to be found and extracted from 85% of our coastlines or the well-known fact that billions of barrels of oil remain untapped in ANWR. Coal-Cap Disaster. By pulling the plug on half of our current electricity production, cap-and-trade will risk a massive undermining of the American economy, as well as our future economic and national security. The coal story is so important simply because the U.S. has massively undeveloped coal resources. With 27 percent of the world's coal reserves estimated at 270 billion tons, the U.S. is the Saudi Arabia of coal. And yet cap-and-trade would destroy this critical sector. Gas Prices Too High? Burn Coal. The most logical answer to high gasoline prices has to be coal. We have centuries' worth of coal, and we have clean-burning systems such as fluidized bed combustion. But we've been retiring the old coal-fired power plants, and burning scarcer oil and natural gas in our power plants. That has driven up both gas and gasoline prices. Hybrid cars conserve a little oil, but shifting the power plants to "clean coal" would conserve a lot of it. From Coal to Fuel: As demand for oil began to rise early in the 20th century, scientists became intrigued with the possibility of converting carbon-rich coal into hydrocarbon liquids as a potential replacement for petroleum-derived fuels. Franz Fischer and Hans Tropsch, two German scientists, accomplished the feat in the 1920s. Burning Coal at Home Is Making a Comeback. Problematic in some ways and difficult to handle, coal is nonetheless a cheap, plentiful, mined-in-America source of heat. And with the cost of heating oil and natural gas increasingly prone to spikes, some homeowners in the Northeast, pockets of the Midwest and even Alaska are deciding coal is worth the trouble. Burning coal at home was once commonplace, of course, but the practice had been declining for decades. Saving lives with coal. Since 1970, unhealthy power plant pollutants have been reduced by almost 95% per unit of energy produced. Particulate emissions (soot) decreased 90% below 1970 levels, even as coal use tripled, and new technologies and regulations will nearly eliminate most coal-related pollution by 2020, notes air quality expert Joel Schwartz. Moreover, the vast bulk of modern power plant particulates are ammonium sulfate and ammonium nitrate. "Neither substance is harmful, even at levels tens of times greater than are ever found in the air Americans breathe," Schwartz says. Coal Hard Facts: Cleaning It Won't Be Dirt Cheap. Coal, more than any other fuel, powers the planet. It is the primary source of electricity in dominant economies from the U.S. to China to Germany. In all those places, coal is cheap and, unlike oil, domestically plentiful. Its use is rising, particularly in developing countries that soon will consume more energy than the industrialized world. EPA May Block Navajo Coal Site. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has decided to review permits that would allow the Navajo Nation to build a clean-burning coal power plant on tribal lands in northwestern New Mexico. The Navajo consider the proposed Desert Rock Energy Station a promising means of escaping generations of abject poverty, but environmental activist groups argue EPA should ban the construction of all coal power plants. "No Coal" Goal. The road to Copenhagen in December 2009, where the United Nations will attempt to come up with a successor to the Kyoto (global warming) Protocol, is already before us. The signs along the road indicate the global-warming alarmists are already blitzing the general public and the media about the supposed need to severely limit fossil-fuel usage, particularly coal. The Facts about Air Pollution from Coal-Fired Power Plants. America's improving air quality is an untold success story. Even before Congress passed the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1970, air quality had been improving for decades. And since 1970, the six so-called criteria pollutants have declined significantly, even though the generation of electricity from coal-fired plants has increased by over 180 percent. (The "criteria pollutants" are carbon monoxide, lead, sulfur dioxide [SO2], nitrogen oxides [NOx], ground-level ozone, and particulate matter [PM]. They are called "criteria" pollutants because the EPA sets the criteria for permissible levels.) Total SO2 emissions from coal-fired plants were reduced by about 40 percent between 1970 and 2006, and NOx emissions were reduced by almost 50 percent between 1980 and 2006. On an output basis, the percent reduction is even greater, with SO2 emissions (in pounds per megawatt-hour) almost 80 percent lower, and NOx emissions 70 percent lower. Nonsense has me incensed. Beware the New Luddite who preaches coal-fired power plants are "factories of death." True, such plants emit carbon dioxide and pollution which shortens life, but there is another factor to consider. That is, the certainty that without the energy such plants provide, millions will die because in the absence of electricity, people must use wood fires to heat and light their homes, and to prepare food, which catastrophically shortens life because of the air pollution it causes. Without electricity, without energy, people must stop work when the sun goes down. They can't store food. They can't efficiently pump water. Los Angeles will end use of coal-fired power. Los Angeles will eliminate the use of electricity made from coal by 2020, replacing it with power from cleaner renewable energy sources, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said. Consumers of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, the largest city-owned utility in the United States with 1.45 million electricity customers, will see higher power bills in the fight against climate change, he added in his inaugural speech for his second four-year term as mayor on Wednesday [7/1/2009]. The Editor says... Guess what, L.A. — the climate will inevitably change, and you'll be stuck with higher electric rates for no reason! The War on Coal. The United States Environmental Protection Agency is soon expected to make a decision that could have an enormous impact on coal-fired power plants across the nation and, by extension, on the cost of energy and building materials. No, we're not talking about greenhouse gas regulations here. The question that USEPA Administrator Lisa Jackson must answer is this: Should the ash generated from the burning of coal be classified as a hazardous waste or not? It's a decision that has the potential to pile more costs onto the price of energy at a time we can least afford it. Enviros play dirty on coal, natural gas. They don't discuss the subject too openly outside their own circles, but environmentalists make crystal clear on their Web sites that they want to stop all coal-based power production in this country. They claim coal can never be made clean, so it must be eliminated before it's too late to do anything about global warming. Ted Nace puts it succinctly in a Grist Web site post: "The stakes, for all life on the planet, surpass those of any previous crisis." That may sound extreme, but Nace is merely expressing mainstream environmentalist thinking. Dioxin: EPA's Never Ending Dioxin Scare. If ever there was an example of what's wrong with the intersection of government and science, the Environmental Protection Agency's 20-year campaign to scare the public about dioxin is certainly a leading candidate. The EPA slammed into a bureaucratic wall this week when a National Academy of Sciences panel told the agency to take its dioxin report back to the drawing board. Dioxin: Amidst all the eco-terrorist rhetoric comes a sweet taste of reality from an unlikely source: ice cream maker Ben & Jerry's. Two independent laboratories using different methodologies discovered that a single serving of Ben & Jerry's "World's Best Vanilla" ice cream contained about 200 times the level of dioxin EPA says is safe. Nevertheless, the ice cream maker remains in business, and continues to sell its "dioxin-laden" product … offering real-world evidence that the low-levels of dioxin in our food and the environment are not dangerous. Unsafe Levels of Dioxin Found in Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream, Study Says. The study authors report that, according to Ben & Jerry's and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standards, the level of dioxin measured could cause about 200 "extra" cancers among lifetime consumers of Ben & Jerry's ice cream. "The level of dioxin in a single serving of the Ben & Jerry's World's Best Vanilla Ice Cream tested was almost 200 times greater than the "virtually safe [daily] dose" determined by the EPA, said Michael Gough, lead study author. Top Ten Junk Science Stories of the Past Decade: Some called dioxin, a by-product of natural and industrial combustion processes and the "contaminant of concern" in the Vietnam-era defoliant known as Agent Orange, the most toxic manmade chemical. Billions of dollars have been spent studying and regulating dioxin, but debunking the scare only cost a few thousand dollars. New Research Questions EPA's Dioxin Assumptions. Studies show that at high body levels, humans eliminate from their bodies traces of dioxin three to five times faster than previously thought. Backyard Burning of Trash is Now the #1 Dioxin Source! The US EPA will be issuing a new projection for dioxin emission from land-applied sewage sludge for 2002/2004 based on surveys to begin in Spring, 2001. The US EPA expects that the new projection will be lower than the value previously projected. Viktory Over Alarmism. The "deadly dioxin" legend began with, of all things, guinea pigs. When fed to them in studies, they did fall over like furry tenpins. Yet hamsters could absorb 1,000 times as much dioxin before emitting their last squeals and other animals seemed impervious to the stuff. Further, the animal deaths were from acute poisoning. Yet as a matter of convenience for activists, it not only became accepted that guinea pigs are the best animal model for humans but also that dioxin is a powerful carcinogen. Electromagnetic fields: Covering Up Scientific Data Violates the Public's Right to Know: In June 1999, Robert Liburdy, who had received more than $3.3 million in federal grants for his research, was forced to leave Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory when it was discovered that he had faked data to produce results which indicated that electromagnetic fields caused cancer. None of the 20 studies subsequent to Liburdy's 1992 study have found any causal connection between electromagnetic fields and cellular changes in the body. More Proof That Power Lines Don't Cause Cancer: The latest study, sponsored by the National Cancer Institute and reported in the July 3, 1997, New England Journal of Medicine, is one of hundreds which have put the power-lines-cause-cancer theory in the category of junk science. On the other hand... Kill Cell Phones Before They Kill You. [Sue] Anderson and others set about to update themselves on the latest science regarding health effects of microwave radiation emitted by cell towers. "News and science reports from all over the globe seem to show that a cell tower neighborhood is basically a sick neighborhood. We found many media reports about cancer clusters in residential areas close to microwave towers," Anderson says. Irradiated foods: This subsection has moved to this page. Lead: Tap Dance: If anything, some utility managers conclude that just replacing city owned pipes actually causes lead levels to jump temporarily by shaking debris loose — and probably produces no lasting reduction if water still flows through lead fixtures once it's inside the building. What would electronics be without solder? John Burke, the senior manager of Optichron, an electrical components manufacturer in Fremont, Calif., [says], "There is absolutely no evidence that there is any reason for taking lead out of solder. There was no reason to do it in the first place, the replacement is ecologically more damaging, and, by the way, the replacement is less reliable." Pelosi's Toy Story: Under a new law set to go into effect February 10, unsold toys, along with bikes, books and even children's clothing are destined for the scrap heap due to an overzealous law to increase toy safety. The damage comes from new rules governing lead in children's products. After last year's scare over contaminated toys made in China, Congress leapt in to require all products aimed at children under 12 years old to be certified as safe and virtually lead-free by independent testing. Anti-lead law causes small-business devastation. Although horror stories keep pouring in about severe economic problems caused by an anti-lead law that went into effect Feb. 10, Congress continues to ignore the cries for relief. The law, called the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, provides fines starting at $100,000 per violation, plus possible jail time, for anybody convicted of selling lead-containing items intended for use by children aged 12 and under. ... Businesses selling everything from child motor scooters to used children's books to clothing stores and thrift shops are throwing out inventory, laying off workers or even going out of business. Mercury: FDA: Mercury-based fillings pose no serious health hazard. After more than three decades of controversy, the Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday [7/28/2009] issued new safety guidelines for mercury-based dental fillings that reaffirm the agency's long-held position that their use isn't a serious health threat to patients. States Split on Mercury Standards. In May, Minnesota and New Hampshire enacted legislation imposing stricter controls than existing federal proposals to limit the emission of mercury from power plants. Other states, including Delaware, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania, are considering such legislation or enacting limits through their respective environmental agencies under orders from their governors. The Editor asks... If states as small as Delaware have their own environmental regulatory agencies, why does the EPA exist? 22 States Say EPA Too Soft on Mercury. Air quality regulators in at least 22 states have concluded that the Bush administration's approach to cutting mercury pollution from coal-burning power plants is too weak and are pursuing tougher measures of their own. … The 22 states listed as having tougher mercury-cutting plans than the federal government are: [AZ CA CT DE GA IL IN ME MD MA MI MN MT NH NJ NY NC OR PA VA WA WI]. 
The Latest Reason Not to Worry About Mercury. Despite their snazzy Internet campaigns, well-publicized investigations, and scary language ("Tuna Roulette!", "The Mercury Menace!"), green-group activists can't change the simple fact that the mercury levels in the fish we typically eat pose zero health risk to consumers. But there's more to the story. Ladies and gentlemen, meet selenium. The Nation Descends into Mercury Madness. At some Maryland high schools, hazmat teams rush in to remove mercury that had gone unnoticed. In Washington D.C., a broken thermometer causes a school to close. And across the nation, environmental groups denounce the Environmental Protection Agency's new proposed rules for reducing mercury emissions from power plants as inadequate to protect children. All this seems rather odd to those of us who played with mercury in science lessons at school. The fact is that the health effects of mercury have been dramatically overblown. Mercury in Fish Overblown. The effect of mercury emissions on human health via fish consumption has been significantly overblown by environmental activists, who are keen to restrict mercury emissions for other reasons. But U.S. power plants emit only a small fraction of annual mercury emissions. That is why a recent joint study from the Brookings Institution and American Enterprise Institute found that the cost of the proposals vastly outweighed their marginal health benefits. Mercury Decision: Baseless Fish Scares 'Could Have Adverse Health Consequences'. This week we've explored a recent California court decision that may pave the way for common sense among the fish-eating public. Before refusing to allow California's Attorney General to require warning signs everywhere canned tuna is sold, Judge Robert Dondero heard thorough testimony from experts on both sides. Mercury Decision: 'Expert Witness' Misled The Court. Last week's landmark canned-tuna court decision was full of twists and turns. ... Perhaps the oddest development came in the form of an "expert witness" whose testimony the judge dismissed as "misleading" as well as "unreliable" and "biased" -- and who made claims (offered, the judge wrote, "under penalty of perjury") which turned out to be phony. Mercury Decision: 'Virtually All' Mercury In Ocean Fish Is 'From Natural Sources'. On Friday [5/12/2006], when the scales of justice swung in California's landmark mercury-in-tuna court case, they hit some cherished environmental dogma squarely in the face. ... Now, at least in California, the truth has become a matter of law -- that the vast majority of these tiny traces of mercury are as natural as the earth itself. Fever Pitch on Mercury Fears: It's enough to make any parent's heart race: children evacuated from schools as hazmat teams race in to decontaminate the buildings, while national headlines scream, "highly toxic hazardous spill." But when the source of this panic is a few beads of mercury from a broken thermometer, it's time to take a deep breath and seek some sound information. Small mercury spills can be easily cleaned up and don't pose a danger to children or their teachers — but panic-driven responses can cause real harm. Junk Science on Mercury Debunked. House Resources Committee Chairman Richard W. Pombo (R-CA) and Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee Chairman Jim Gibbons (R-NV) issued earlier this year a detailed report on the science of mercury and the environment, "Mercury in Perspective: Fact and Fiction About the Debate Over Mercury." The paper is a comprehensive synopsis of the peer-reviewed research regarding the debate over regulating mercury. Clinton's EPA Chief Springs the Mercury Trap She Left for Bush. Although she served as President Clinton's EPA chief for eight years, Carol Browner never imposed a crackdown on power-plant mercury emissions. But between Bush's election and inauguration, she proposed an expensive, technically infeasible mercury plan — for her successor. It was an effort to trap Bush by giving him the choice of imposing a draconian policy — or face condemnation by the left for supposedly being "weak" on the environment. Mercury: Grain of Truth, Gram of Nonsense. You have probably heard or read the oft-repeated statement, "One gram of mercury can contaminate an entire 20-acre lake." It shows up in the environmental advocates' literature as well as in EPA and state agency documents and various fact sheets on mercury. The statement is meant to scare us into believing that mishandling a thermometer or emitting even one gram of mercury would have irreversible negative consequences. [The article debunks this claim.] Senate Barely Squelches Mercury Panic. [In March 2005], the Bush administration issued the first-ever rules regulating emissions of mercury from coal-burning power plants — an event that itself raised doubt about the urgency or need for such regulation. The modern electric utility industry, after all, began burning coal and, thereby, emitting small amounts of mercury into the environment in the 1880s. The Mercury-In-Fish Scare is All Wet. The best science suggests that the mercury levels found in fish have no adverse effects on human health. A study published in the Lancet, an international medical journal, decisively demonstrates that there is nothing to fear from trace levels of mercury in fish. The Lancet study intensively examined women and their children in the Seychelles islands — where they eat fish with the same levels of mercury as the fish consumed in the United States. But they eat about 10 times as much fish as the typical American. Putting U.S. mercury emissions in perspective: While severe regulation of mercury emissions from U.S. power plants may be justified by politics and/or ideology, it is not at all justified by the present science. Mothers, Babies and Mercury: Whether they come from the U.S. FDA or special interest groups, warnings about methylmercury-contaminated fish endangering the health of our babies and children are alarming. But the evidence contrasts greatly from the fearmongering — regardless of the source. Fishy Mercury Warning: The FDA just issued a new warning to pregnant women about mercury in seafood. You can "protect your baby" from developmental harm by following three rules, claims the FDA. But there's no evidence that the rules will protect anyone and they're only likely to foster undue concern about an important part of our food supply. Enviros Exploit Mother's Day With Mercury Scare: U.S. power plants (search) simply aren't a major source of mercury emissions. About 14.3 million pounds of mercury are released into the atmosphere annually, according to figures from the Electric Power Research Institute. Of that amount, about 9.5 million pounds are from natural sources (ocean outgassing and terrestrial flux) and about 4.8 million pounds are manmade emissions. Only about 6 percent of the manmade emissions come from the U.S. EPA Proposes Mercury Limits. More than half the mercury in the environment comes from natural sources. U.S. power plants account for only 1 percent of global environmental mercury, according to the Center for Science and Public Policy. Scientists monitor mercury levels because as mercury settles in oceans and freshwater sources, it is absorbed by fish, and their heightened mercury levels are passed up the food chain to humans. Although environmental activist groups charge that mercury causes neurological damage in humans, recent studies suggest present mercury levels are not harmful. Proposed Utility Mercury Reductions and Interstate Air Quality Rules. According to the EPA, mercury emissions and their presence in the air are strongly trending downward (as are all other pollutants), and are expected to keep falling due to technological change and implementation of current standards, even without new legislation. MoveOn.org — Wrong on Terrorism, Wrong on Mercury. What do al Qaeda and mercury pollution have in common? Clinton appointees who did little about them are now claiming in MoveOn.org political TV ad campaigns that, thanks to George Bush, both threaten your health. Alaska Disputes EPA Mercury Guidelines. Alaskan health officials are telling state residents they can safely exceed federal health advisories for eating fish caught in the state. Four officials of the Epidemiology Section of the Alaska Division of Public Health published an article on the topic in the March 2005 issue of The American Journal of Public Health, claiming the federal government's precautionary approach to mercury may be causing state residents more harm than good. U.S. Senate Squelches Mercury Panic. The EPA study notes, "Human-caused U.S. mercury emissions are estimated to account for roughly 3 percent of the global total, and U.S. coal-fired power plants are estimated to account for only about 1 percent." Importantly, mere exposure to mercury isn't necessarily harmful. Despite much research, opponents of the Bush mercury rules could not identify a single study that credibly links typical exposures to mercury directly to any sort of health effect. Mercury in Fish is Not Dangerous, Study Shows. New data gathered from 700 children who were exposed to nearly unprecedented levels of mercury while in their mothers' wombs show the extremely heightened levels of mercury have caused no medical problems. For the past 15 years, scientists have been following the 700 children on the tiny island nation of Seychelles, Africa, whose mothers ate tremendous amounts of high-mercury fish while pregnant. All the mothers ate high-mercury fish daily, resulting in blood mercury levels six times higher than those of U.S. women. Pelosi's Green House: A 20-watt CFL [compact fluorescent light] emits as much light as a 100-watt incandescent bulb. But, unlike Thomas Edison's creation, each CFL contains about 5 milligrams of mercury. On New Year's Eve, you could have confused the town of Carmel, N.Y., with Chernobyl when a reported 100 firefighters, many in hazmat suits, responded to a 911 call regarding a broken rectal thermometer. Congress sends mercury export ban to president. The House on Monday [9/29/2008] sent to President Bush a bill sponsored by Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama that would eventually ban the export of elemental mercury. The United States is one of the world's biggest exporters of mercury ... . In the 2000-2004 period the United States exported 506 more metric tons than it imported and the legislation notes that the export ban would have a notable affect [sic] on the market availability of elemental mercury. Sweden to ban mercury. Mercury is to be banned in Sweden starting June 1st, environment minister Andreas Carlgren has announced. The ban prohibits products containing the heavy metal from being brought to market in Sweden. "Mercury is now dead and buried," Carlgren said. $50,000 to clean up a two-ounce mercury spill. Here is the headline in my local newspaper today: "Mercury Removal from T.F. [Twin Falls, Idaho] Apartment complex results in $50,000 bill." That's right — fifty grand. Two ounces of mercury were found in the road that leads into an apartment complex. It cost local, state, and the federal governments $50,000 to clean up the two ounce catastrophe. Radon: This subsection has moved to this page. Saccharin: Saccharin: In studies rats given very high doses of saccharin developed bladder cancer, so the FDA required saccharin to be labeled as a possible carcinogen. Later research demonstrated that saccharin caused bladder cancer in rats through a mechanism that was not present in human beings. Sweetener Is Safe, Government Panel Says. A Government advisory group has voted to give a clean bill of health to the artificial sweetener saccharin, which, despite its pink-packeted presence on restaurant tables everywhere, has been classified since 1981 as a suspected cause of cancer. Saccharin May Be Delisted From NIH's Carcinogen List. A synthetic compound derived from coal tar, saccharin was discovered in 1879 by a student researcher at Johns Hopkins University. Its tantalizing commercial appeal as a noncaloric sugar substitute — it is 300 times sweeter than sugar — was obvious from the start. Cyclamates: You're probably too young to remember when soft drinks contained cyclamates, but I remember noticing that such products tasted a lot better before cyclamates were banned in the U.S. That happened on October 18, 1969*, for the same reason as saccharin, that is, the development of bladder cancer in rats who were given massive doses of the stuff. But it is still in use in many other seemingly civilized countries, including Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Israel, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.* Are Artificial Sweeteners Really That Bad for You?. Too much sugar will make you fat, but too much artificial sweetener will ... do what exactly? Kill you? Make you thinner? Or have absolutely no effect at all? This week marks the 40th anniversary of the Food and Drug Administration's decision to ban cyclamate, the first artificial sweetener prohibited in the U.S., and yet scientists still haven't reached a consensus about how safe (or harmful) artificial sweeteners may be. Aspartame: Aspartame: Although there is no credible evidence that aspartame (best known by the brand name Nutrasweet) causes health problems, almost from the day it was approved by the FDA there has been a small group of people claiming it causes everything from brain cancer to Gulf War Syndrome. Artificial sweetener cleared of cancer link. A huge federal study in people — not rats — takes the fizz out of arguments that the diet soda sweetener aspartame might raise the risk of cancer. Salmon: Salmon: Health food or pink poison? Like alcohol and chocolate before it, salmon is now the subject of contradictory science. So what is the bewildered, bemused consumer to do, pelted with so many admonitions about what to eat, what not to eat, and how to eat it? Farm salmon fiasco joins history of food scares. We have a rich history of health scares, great trumped-up phony hazards that supposedly lurk in our food and environment. Cancer-causing agents, identified by the thousands, march through the media almost daily. The big ones—from electromagnetic fields to alar to PCBs and trans fats—linger for years in the public mind before they eventually fade. Sometimes whole industries are wiped out or are traumatized. Eco-Extremism, Not Science, Behind Fishy Salmon Scare. Junk science doesn't get too much fishier than last week's scary headlines about farmed salmon being a cancer risk. Farmed salmon is so contaminated with PCBs, dioxins and other "toxic" chemicals, reported the news media, that it shouldn't be consumed more than once per month. It was gullible media alarmism run amok as even the "scientists" whose much-reported study appeared in the Jan. 9 issue of "Science" plainly acknowledged there was no factual basis for concern. Scientists Expose Fishy Warnings about Farmed Salmon. An article in the January 9 issue of Science magazine warned readers against eating more than one serving of farm-raised salmon a month, claiming the fish present a cancer risk. Scientists quickly responded, however, with evidence showing the health benefits of eating farm-raised salmon substantially outweigh any hypothetical health risks. Catch of the Day: Politically Correct Fish. If you read a recent Associated Press article about a seafood distributor called EcoFish, you may have thought a fishmonger that "helps people make meals that reflect their morals" was too good to be true. Look a little closer, however, and you'll find that this New Hampshire company is a perfect example of "black marketing." Freon: Behind the Freon Frenzy: The impending refrigerant ban is based on faulty science. Ozone and Freon Fraud: The major costs of government regulations to the Appliance Industry in the early nineties were related to the elimination of Freon, both from foam insulation and sealed refrigeration systems. The excuse used by the EPA for the ban on Freon was it somehow seeps into the atmosphere and depletes the Ozone in our air. There is no scientific data available, in or out of government, to describe this "claimed" process. ... Freon, the "villain", is an odorless, tasteless, chemically neutral substance, which is HEAVIER THAN AIR, and by the laws of physics cannot rise into the atmosphere. If is spilled on the ground, it will settle in the soil and become plant food. Stratospheric ozone depletion: Spending billions on a non-existent problem. There are no holes in the ozone, there were none when it became a political issue in the 1990s and there are none today. This is not an issue of semantics, but an important fact in the relationship between scientific accuracy and the public perception and political reaction. Scientists say the ozone layer shows signs of recovery. The ozone layer is showing signs of recovering, thanks to a drop in ozone-depleting chemicals, but it is unlikely to stabilize at pre-1980 levels, researchers said on Wednesday [5/3/2006]. Ozone and Radon: The Real Story. A headline in September 2000 read, "Ozone hole over Antarctica unusually large, U.N. says." The headline was false. Thinning of the ozone layer occurred perhaps one to two weeks earlier than normal, but no measurements had even been taken of the size of the area. Who is held responsible for lying to the public — the United Nations weather agency, the news media, or both? The answer is, nobody is ever held responsible for such lies. … Popular stories about ozone fail to mention the beneficial effect of UV radiation in metabolizing calcium into bone structures of land animals, including humans. The Ozone Hole Is Bigger Than Ever. If you haven't heard anything about the ozone hole over Antarctica lately it isn't because it has gone away. Quite the contrary. Despite the fact that the chlorofluorocarbons, CFCs, that were supposed to be causing it have been banned for many years, the Antarctic ozone hole, whose appearances were largely responsible for the international decision to ban the use of CFCs, is bigger than ever. Should We Worry About Ozone? The theory of large-scale depletion caused by human use of CFCs is not yet supported by solid scientific evidence. It is not clear that stratospheric ozone is being significantly depleted worldwide, or that any depletion that may have occurred is permanent. Stratospheric ozone fluctuates so dramatically that it is almost impossible to define a long-term, statistically significant trend. Ozone Depletion: Although environmental pressure groups have made exaggerated claims that the stratospheric ozone layer is being eaten away by chlorofluorocarbons (most notably Freon) wafting into space, scientists have yet to see any increase of solar ultraviolet radiation at the Earth's surface. Actually, even the worst-case scenario would have resulted in only a minor increase in UV — one you could experience by driving just 60 miles closer to the equator. Nevertheless, the Bush Administration hastily imposed a ban on CFC production, costing U.S. consumers up to $100 billion. Five Scientific Questions on the CFC-Ozone Issue Stratospheric Ozone Depletion: 10 Years After Montreal. The decision to phase out methyl bromide is curious, and seems to be ideologically motivated. About two-thirds of methyl bromide present in the atmosphere is of natural origin. No one has yet observed an increasing trend of bromine in the stratosphere, which would indicate a human influence. In addition, the atmospheric lifetime of methyl bromide is less than one year. If a problem should arise, production can be stopped and anthropogenic methyl bromide will rapidly disappear from the atmosphere. A Critique of the UN Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion. There is no credible evidence for a long-term upward trend of ultraviolet radiation at the earth's surface. A fair evaluation of the recent theory and of stratospheric observations leads to the conclusion that chlorine from CFCs is not the principal factor leading to ozone destruction below 25 km, where most of the ozone is located. Water, in the form of vapor or ice particles, and sulfates in the form of aerosols may play a more important role. The Ozone-CFC Debacle: Hasty Action, Shaky Science. In spite of the hardships caused by the hasty phaseout of CFCs and other suspected ozone-depleting halocarbons, the EPA has never questioned the adequacy of the science that forms the basis for its phaseout policy. The facts are that the scientific underpinnings are quite shaky: the data are suspect; the statistical analyses are faulty; and the theory has not been validated. Antarctic ice threatened by ozone-hole recovery. Recovery of the ozone hole above Antarctica could warm the Antarctic and cause more ice to melt in coming decades, researchers say. As the ozone hole heals, wind patterns that shield the interior of the polar region from warm air may break down, causing warming in the Antarctica as well as warmer and drier conditions in Australia. Why climate change is hot hot hot. Remember the ozone layer? It was all the rage back in the old days. It was caused by spray-on deodorants, apparently. So we packed 'em in, and switched over to roll-on deodorants. And, because we forswore the sinful spraying of armpits, the hole began to heal. Which is tough on the Antarctic ice cap. Because the only reason it isn't melting is because the ozone hole isn't fully closed up. Once it is, more hot air will remain trapped and melt the ice. It may be time to start spraying your armpit hair again. The CFC Ban: Global Warming's Pilot Episode. Although it has been only a little over twenty years since the Montreal Protocol, which effectively created a global ban on chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), the interesting history of the ozone hole has slipped under the radar, largely eclipsed by the much greater story of the anthropogenic global warming fraud. It's interesting to revisit the CFC/ozone depletion scam and note the striking similarities to the current campaign against CO2. Those evil gas-guzzling SUV's: Let me refer you to this page about Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards. Vinyl and PVC: PVC Toys are Safe. Anti-vinyl Coalition Seeks Ban on Intravenous Medical Supplies. If it's bad for laboratory rats, then it must be bad for humans, the old song goes. The latest environmental group singing that tune is Healthcare Without Harm, a Washington, DC coalition of 140 environmental, health, and activist groups that recently launched a campaign to eliminate the use of vinyl medical products such as intravenous (IV) bags and tubing. Teflon: Teflon accusation doesn't stick. Teflon has recently gone from the frying pan into the fire, thanks to some money-hungry lawyers. They've cooked up a scary story, adding a dollop of hyperbole for good measure. Unfortunately, they left out common sense and science. Claims against Teflon simply don't stick. For anyone who cooks but doesn't like scrubbing, Teflon is a wonder product. Before Teflon, washing a pan or pot was among the most disagreeable of tasks. Cleaning up is a very different task in today's post-Teflon world. There are even some unintended health and safety benefits from Teflon kitchenware. You can cook using less fat, grease, or oil. Doing so is better for your heart. There's also less chance of fire. Nuclear energy: This very large subsection has moved to this page. Low-level radiation: This subsection has also moved to this page. Good old oil and natural gas: Cheap Natural Gas and Its Enemies. A vast reservoir of clean-burning natural gas could be available at reasonable cost in the coming years, freeing us from some of our dependence on imported energy. Yet there are those who consider such a development a threat. Gaia's Oil Spills. According to the U.S. Minerals Management Service, between 1985 and 2001, spills from offshore platforms and pipelines accounted for only 2% of the oil released in U.S. waters. ... Nature, not man, is by far the largest contributor of oil into the marine environment. In the Gulf of Mexico, natural oil seeps account for 95% of offshore oil, the National Academy of Sciences reports. In Southern California, they contribute 98% of the crude in the offshore zone. Those same natural seeps are responsible for 60% of the oil found in the North American marine environment. The Environmental Benefits of Offshore Drilling: Louisiana produces almost 30 percent of America's commercial fisheries. Only Alaska (ten times the size of the Bayou state) produces slightly more. So obviously, Louisiana's coastal waters are immensely rich and prolific in seafood. These same coastal waters contain 3,200 of the roughly 3,700 offshore production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. From these, Louisiana also produces 25 percent of America's domestic oil, and no major oil spill has ever soiled its coast. So for those interested in evidence over hysterics, by simply looking bayou-ward, a lesson in the "environmental perils" of offshore oil drilling presents itself very clearly. Offshore Oil Drilling; an Environmental Bonanza. [Scroll down] A study by LSU's Sea Grant college shows that 85 percent of Louisiana fishing trips involve fishing around these platforms. The same study shows 50 times more marine life around an oil production platform than in the surrounding Gulf bottoms. An environmental study (by apparently honest scientists) revealed that urban runoff and treated sewage dump 12 times the amount of petroleum into the Gulf than those thousands of oil production platforms. And oil seeping naturally through the ocean floor into the Gulf, where it dissipates over time, accounts for 7 times the amount spilled by rigs and pipelines in any given year. The Natural Gas Crisis: Greens Engineer Another Disaster. Most Americans don't know it, but the price of natural gas has increased as much as 700% in the last three years. … It's not that there aren't huge amounts of natural gas. The problem is that access to it has been effectively blocked. "We're not running out of natural gas, and we're not running out of places to look for natural gas," says Keith Rattie, president of Questar, an energy developer. "However, we are running out of places we are allowed to look for gas." Why do you think that is? Montana Voters Favor Rocky Mountain Oil and Gas Recovery. A majority of Montana voters favor increased production of oil and natural gas in the Rocky Mountains, according to a December [2003] poll conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc. The poll results may suggest a growing consensus among Western voters that energy production is not necessarily at odds with environmental concerns. The future of oil: Oil over $40 a barrel accelerates exploration for new fields, and development of known but technologically inaccessible fields, including some fields four miles below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, where there may be at least 25 billion barrels. Discovering oil: Predictably, the recent rise in oil prices has the usual doom-and-gloom crowd, which has consistently been wrong for 30 years, out saying once again that this proves we are running out of oil and that severe curbs on gasoline consumption must be imposed to preserve what little is left for future generations. They need not worry. There is growing evidence that oil is far more plentiful than we have been led to believe. Environmentalists Still Can't Get It Right. In 1885, the U.S. Geological Survey announced that there was "little or no chance" of oil being discovered in California, and a few years later they said the same about Kansas and Texas. In 1939, the U.S. Department of the Interior said American oil supplies would last only another 13 years. In 1949, the secretary of the interior said the end of U.S. oil supplies was in sight. Having learned nothing from its earlier erroneous claims, in 1974 the U.S. Geological Survey advised us that the U.S. had only a 10-year supply of natural gas. How much oil lies beneath the Earth's crust? In the 1970s, the consensus turned grim again: oil production would peak in the mid-1980s and then drop precipitously. A famous CIA report predicted the "rapid exhaustion" of accessible fields, while President Jimmy Carter warned that oil wells were "drying up all over the world." … Now doomsday forecasts are back, predicting the end of oil in this decade or the next. Are We Out of Gas? Let's get a little historical perspective. In 1914, the U.S. Bureau of Mines predicted American oil reserves would last merely a decade. In both 1939 and 1951, the Interior Department estimated oil supply at only 13 years. "We could use up all of the proven reserves of oil in the entire world by the end of the next decade," declared President Jimmy Carter gloomily in 1977. In fact, the earliest claim that we were running out of oil dates back to 1855 — four years before the first well was drilled! An oil 'crisis'?: part II. Soaring oil prices have revived the old bogeyman that the world is running out of oil. … This has been a worldwide phenomenon. At the end of the 20th century, the known reserves of petroleum in the world were more than ten times what they were in the middle of the 20th century — despite an ever-growing use of oil. Redesigning trucks in Washington: Since 58 percent of the oil we use is imported, while only 40 percent goes into cars, SUVs, vans and pickups, it follows that we would still be importing millions of barrels a day even if there were no passenger cars or trucks. Arctic oil: Facts versus Fiction. The truth is that the latest U.S. Geological Survey estimates are that the entire "1002 Area" contains up to 16 billion barrels of recoverable oil. If found, this oil could replace all of our imports from Saudi Arabia for more than 30 years! The reserve could prevent our dependence on foreign oil from getting any worse for decades. Rather than being 56 percent dependent like we are now, it could cut our dependence to around 50 percent, according to the Energy Information Agency. Much more about ANWR is on this page. Oil spills: Oil Is Not the Problem. John Robinson is the sort of man whose views on matters scientific and environmental must be taken seriously. His conclusions on oil spills, based on long experience, do not comport with environmentalist orthodoxy, to say the least. Second-hand Smoke: Debate Rages Over Second-Hand Smoke: Looking for a surer method of being ripped apart than entering a lion's den covered with catnip? Conduct the most exhaustive, longest-running study on second-hand smoke and death. Find no connection. And then, rather than being politically correct and hiding your data in a vast warehouse next to the Ark of the Covenant, publish it in one of the world's most respected medical journals. Secondhand Smoke Fears Overstated, Study Finds. A 38-year study of Californians, begun by the American Cancer Society and concluded by the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), has concluded that secondhand smoke has little if any negative impact on mortality. The study, published in the May 17 issue of the British Medical Journal, throws cold water on the efforts of state and local governments to ban smoking in restaurants and other public places in the name of public health. Scientific Evidence Shows Secondhand Smoke Is No Danger. In 1992 EPA published its report, "Respiratory Health Effects of Passive Smoking," claiming [second-hand smoke] is a serious public health problem, that it kills approximately 3,000 nonsmoking Americans each year from lung cancer, and that it is a Group A carcinogen (like benzene, asbestos, and radon). … [But] in November 1995 after a 20-month study, the Congressional Research Service released a detailed analysis of the EPA report that was highly critical of EPA's methods and conclusions. In 1998, in a devastating 92-page opinion, Federal Judge William Osteen vacated the EPA study, declaring it null and void. He found a culture of arrogance, deception, and cover-up at the agency. Minn., Calif. tests prove secondhand smoke not a health hazard. Air quality tests performed in Minnesota and California in smoke-filled bars and restaurants show that secondhand smoke may not be the major health hazard that some claim it is. The Environmental Health Department in St. Louis Park, Minn., tested for trace levels of nicotine and found results between 1 and 33 micrograms of nicotine per cubic meter of air. ... This means not only is it not going to kill you to smell smoke once in a while, it isn't even going to have much of an effect on you. Where's the Consensus on Secondhand Smoke? More than a year has passed since U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona said, "The debate is over. The science is clear: Secondhand smoke is not a mere annoyance, but a serious health hazard." At the time, Carmona released a seemingly impressive 727-page report on secondhand smoke, the introduction of which claims secondhand smoke killed approximately 50,000 nonsmoking adults and children in 2005. Carmona's report stated the new orthodoxy in the anti-smoking establishment: There is a "consensus" on the dangers of secondhand smoke. But did his report actually make the case? Passive Smoke: It is preposterous that those "scientists" who promote junk science studies such as this one are not exposed for the charlatans they really are. Instead, they pass as if they were "scholars" dedicated to saving humanity, and they get big dollars and media credence! The devastating part is that this incredible distortion is not an isolated case, but today it is almost the standard used for the most disparate issues, from pesticides, to plastic toys, to passive smoke, to food. Stoking the Rigged Terror of Secondhand Smoke. By any sensible account, the anachronism of the tobacco culture should be slated for extinction in an advancing civilization. Why must it happen under the tyranny of deception, when intelligent and transparent ways are available? The mild and pleasurable addictivity of nicotine and a lurking black market have continued to frustrate the abolitionist crusade, and abolition will not work in the long run. Scientific Evidence Shows Secondhand Smoke Is No Danger. A well-recognized toxicological principle states, "The dose makes the poison." Accordingly, we physicians record direct exposure to cigarette smoke by smokers in the medical record as "pack-years smoked" (packs smoked per day times the number of years smoked). A smoking history of around 10 pack-years alerts the physician to search for cigarette-caused illness. But even those nonsmokers with the greatest exposure to SHS probably inhale the equivalent of only a small fraction (around 0.03) of one cigarette per day, which is equivalent to smoking around 10 cigarettes per year. Myocardial Infractions. Six years ago, when I asked an epidemiologist about a report that a smoking ban in Helena, Montana, had cut heart attacks by 40 percent within six months, he thought the idea was so ridiculous that no one would take it seriously. He was wrong. Since then 10 other studies have attributed substantial short-term reductions in heart attacks to smoking bans, and last week an Institute of Medicine (IOM) committee endorsed their findings. But a closer look at the IOM report, which was commissioned by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suggests its conclusions are based on a desire to promote smoking bans rather than a dispassionate examination of the evidence. Genetically modified crops and biotech foods: GM Crops Saving Farm Economy from Drought. An August 11 [2006] federal government crop report shows biotechnology is saving the Midwestern farm economy from devastation in the wake of this summer's prolonged drought. They're trying to scare you. The campaigners warning us we might end up with two heads after eating GM foods are ignoring the science that says it's good for you. Let me prove how dead to reason are the state politicians now screaming that genetically modified crops could kill us. Frankenstein food beats starvation. As we eat our chips, hamburgers and milkshakes for lunch today, let's put the debate about genetically modified food into perspective. We eat food laden in fats and preservatives largely without debate or complaint. Yet the prospect of producing GM foods that could be drought resistant, grown without being heavily treated with pesticide and made more nutritious has caused a huge outcry. GM Tomato Tastes Better. Shoppers who miss the taste of farm-grown tomatoes may find solace in a new technology that puts back what generations of breeding for hardiness and shelf life have taken out. A new variety of tomato has been genetically modified (GM) to produce geraniol, a rose-smelling compound found in fruits and flowers. In a blind taste test, 60 percent of 37 testers preferred the flavor of the GM tomato, according to a study published online this week in Nature Biotechnology. Beyond Jeremy Rifkin: Crops made with gene-splicing techniques are currently grown by 8.5 million farmers in 21 countries on more than 100 million acres annually. Americans have consumed more than a trillion servings of foods that contain gene-spliced ingredients. Throughout all this experience, there is not a single documented case of injury to a person or disruption of an ecosystem. Zambia Allows Its People To Eat. Zambian president Levy Mwanawasa has finally ordered agricultural officials to allow GM corn into the country, greatly expanding the amount of food that will reach his country's under-nourished population. Environmentalists Say: Let My People Go … Hungry. No environmentalist can point to a single person who's been killed or even injured by a genetically modified food. Yet the entire world knows Africans die in large numbers due to starvation from famine, despotic governments and other preventable complications. In sub-Saharan Africa alone, 34% of the population — 194 million people — reportedly goes hungry every day. Biotech Advances Are Making Foods Healthier. Most people know fish is one of the healthiest foods on the market. Omega-3 fatty acids, abundant in fish and in little else, are proven to improve heart health, alleviate hypertension, ease arthritis, and lower cholesterol. However, many people dislike the taste of fish … it generally does not lend itself to fast and easy cooking [and] fish can be relatively expensive for people on a limited budget. … Researchers at the University of Maryland announced in April that they have discovered a way to genetically modify soybeans to produce omega-3 fatty acids. Activists Threaten World Food Supply. When Kenyan biologist Florence Wambugu developed a virus-resistant sweet potato that promised to feed millions, the Earth Liberation Front destroyed her lab and her crops. In another blow to scientific progress, eco-fanatics bombed a Minnesota plant genetics center to keep it from producing life-saving agricultural research. When activists don't approve, poor people don't eat. Biotechnology Beat the Drought in 2005. After this past summer's drought in major corn-producing states, such as Indiana and Illinois, the U.S. corn harvest may establish 2005 as a hallmark year in the genetic modification of plants, industry experts said on September 29. The federal government is predicting corn production this year will be the second-highest in U.S. history, despite the droughts. California County Rejects Biotech Ban. Sonoma County, California voters on November 8 soundly rejected a measure that would have banned cultivation in the county of genetically enhanced crops. The defeat, 56 percent to 44 percent, was devastating to anti-biotech activists, whose best chances for biotechnology bans are in counties such as Sonoma, where genetically enhanced crops are virtually nonexistent. California Fruits and Nuts Against Agriculture: California's referendum process frequently leads to incredibly dumb issues appearing on the ballot — and to some preposterous outcomes. Among the most egregious examples this year is Measure M, a Sonoma County anti-biotechnology proposal that would prohibit the cultivation of plants or seeds improved with state-of-the-art techniques. Bugs Not Building Resistance to Biotech Crops. The superbugs aren't showing up. In a major disappointment for environmental activists, insects are not building up resistance to the genetically-engineered Bt corn and cotton that have been planted on millions of acres around the world since 1995. Founder of "Green Revolution" Lauds GM Crops: Norman Borlaug, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for launching the "Green Revolution" in agriculture that helped curb world hunger, appeared on National Public Radio March 26 to laud genetic modification in agriculture and caution against the organic farming movement. Monsanto Caves to Activists on Biotech Wheat. Is it better to feed the poor and make money, or appease Greenpeace and do neither? Review of "The Frankenfood Myth". In The Frankenfood Myth: How Protest and Politics Threaten the Biotech Revolution, food safety experts Henry Miller and Gregory Conko have written a brilliant account of how self-interest, bad science, and excessive government regulation have profoundly compromised the potential of the new biotechnology. This book is a call to action for policymakers to resist a destructive political process that is currently denying enormous potential benefits to consumers throughout the world. Planting the seeds of misinformation: In Europe, the public has become obsessed with the idea that genetically engineered foods are too risky for general consumption. This uncertainty has been fueled by the distortion and misinformation spread by anti-biotechnology activists. It is easy to mislead the public on the subject of genetic engineering, because most people are unsure of what genetic engineering is and why scientists consider it so important. Greenpeace and Poverty: Greenpeace activist Farida Akthen recently blasted the Bangladesh agricultural ministry for approving research on one of the most promising of all biotech miracles: golden rice. By adding a daffodil gene to ordinary rice, researchers gave it a golden color and enriched it with beta-carotene, which people can convert to vitamin A. Simply by eating a few ounces of golden rice a day, malnourished children can ward off a vitamin deficiency that causes half a million kids to go blind every year and leaves hundreds of millions (including many thousands in Bangladesh) susceptible to disease, intellectual impairment and death. Why Mandatory Biotech Food Labeling is Unnecessary: Bioengineering and recombinant DNA techniques have been used to develop crops with traits that increase yields and allow farmers to reduce their use of synthetic pesticides and herbicides. The technology has made substantial contributions to the production of safe, inexpensive, and healthy foods. The next generation of products promises to provide even greater benefits to consumers, such as enhanced nutritional value and even foods that act as medicines. Unfortunately, opponents of this safe and important technology have convinced many consumers that mandatory labeling of bioengineered foods is necessary to give them a choice when making purchasing decisions. Mandatory biotechnology labeling … is not warranted scientifically, economically, or legally. It could actually serve to mislead consumers, not provide them with important information. Dr. Strangelunch — Why we should learn to stop worrying and love GM food. Plant breeders using biotechnology have accomplished a great deal in only a few years. For example, they have created a class of highly successful insect-resistant crops by incorporating toxin genes from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis. Farmers have sprayed B.t. spores on crops as an effective insecticide for decades. Now, thanks to some clever biotechnology, breeders have produced varieties of corn, cotton, and potatoes that make their own insecticide. B.t. is toxic largely to destructive caterpillars such as the European corn borer and the cotton bollworm; it is not harmful to birds, fish, mammals, or people. EPA and sound science validate biotech corn benefits. Sound science has debunked yet another purported biotech scare, as the EPA on October 16 [2001] declared biotech corn perfectly safe for monarch butterfly consumption. A 1999 study reported in the journal Nature claimed a high death rate among monarch caterpillar larvae fed milkweed leaves dusted with high doses of pollen from genetically modified corn. The story was quickly trumpeted by the anti-technology lobby and the mainstream media as a stark warning against animal and human consumption of "Frankenfoods." Editor's Note: If your family is hungry, do you care about caterpillars? When some leftist, tree-hugging, earth-worshipping hippie tells you that biotech corn endangers butterflies, the correct response is, "So what?" There is no shortage of butterflies! Spud growers face a decision. Willing or not, U.S. potato growers are about to be joining corn, cotton, soybean and dairy producers in the biotech fray. They have thus far avoided the fight only because they have refused to use the pest-resistant and high-starch GM varieties that have been available since 1999. Processors, unwilling to subject their fast food customers to the "frankenfood" fruitcakes, refused to buy them. New technology fights old pests, feeds more people. When I started farming 30 years ago, I never dreamed of how technological progress would revolutionize agriculture. We still can't control the weather. Yet recent innovations in biotechnology have improved agriculture beyond anything I ever thought was possible. We may even be on the verge of making another eternal scourge of farmers permanently obsolete. I'm talking about pests. GM Corn Protest Based on Bio-Fraud: Environmental and consumer groups staged protests and held news conferences across the country in April [2002] to call attention to their claim, as one news release put it, that "the genetic contamination of Mexican native corn varieties threatens not only the genetic integrity of corn, one of the world's most important basic crops, but the food security for millions in the Americas." The statement is false …and even its author knew it was false at the time it was written. It is an example of bio-fraud, an all-too-common tactic of radical environmental groups. U.S. Blames "Green Groups" for Food Shortage. Environmental groups and biotech companies are accusing each other of exploiting starvation in much of southern Africa for political gain as countries in the region try to determine whether it is safe to use genetically engineered crops to relieve famine. As the world begins to starve it's time to take GM seriously. [Scroll down] It is a point stressed by crop experts such as Professor Chris Pollack of the University of Wales. 'To stop widespread starvation, we will either have to plough up the planet's last wild places to grow more food or improve crop yields. GM technology allows farmers to do the latter — without digging up rainforests. It is therefore perverse to rule out that technology for no good reason. Yet it still seems some people are willing to do so. German universities bow to public pressure over GM crops. Scientists have decried the decision by two German universities to pull the plug on field trials of genetically modified (GM) crops, calling it a "disgraceful" interference with scientists' freedom to research. GM crops needed in Britain, says minister. Ministers are preparing to open the way for genetically modified crops to be grown in Britain on the grounds they could help combat the global food crisis. Ministers have told The Independent that rocketing food prices and food shortages in the world's poorest countries mean the time is right to relax Britain's policy on use of GM crops. GM crops: not against nature. The Prince of Wales is a man of social conscience who acts with complete propriety in intervening in public debate. And his concern for the environment is scrupulously politically disinterested. Unfortunately, his apocalyptic predictions of the effect of genetically modified crops do not enhance public debate, but degrade it. He maintains that GM crops augur environmental catastrophe. Green activists 'are keeping Africa poor'. Western do-gooders are impoverishing Africa by promoting traditional farming at the expense of modern scientific agriculture, according to Britain's former chief scientist. Anti-science attitudes among aid agencies, poverty campaigners and green activists are denying the continent access to technology that could improve millions of lives, Professor Sir David King will say today. GM Grapes Raise Hopes for Midwest Wine Industry. One of the most effective, widely used herbicides in the United States — known as 2, 4-D — has a serious drawback: It devastates grapes. That makes it very difficult to raise grapes in the Midwest, because 2, 4-D is widely used on popular staple food crops including corn and wheat, and it can harm grapes up to two miles away from its point of application. Scientists, however, report a minor genetic modification of Midwestern grapes can make them resistant to 2, 4-D. Germany to ban US biotech giant's genetically modified corn strain. Germany has decided to ban genetically modified corn, Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner announced Tuesday [4/14/2009], amid concerns over its environmental and economical impact. Biotech could save world wheat crops. Norman Borlaug is the most decorated civilian in history — largely because he was able to cross-breed a super-wheat that fended off the stem rust fungus, which had historically stolen one-fourth of the world's wheat crops. ... Borlaug's wheat breeding success made him "the Father of the Green Revolution." He and his fellow high-yield farming scientists saved 1 billion people from famine in the 1970s. A Real Humanitarian. Though [Norman] Borlaug has passed away, his Green Revolution needn't die. Aggressive advancements in the research and use of genetically modified foods, which he supported, would carry on the good work he has done. That would actually be the most fitting tribute to a man whose life was far more important than the legion of lesser lights who garnered much more attention. Urban sprawl, landfill space, overpopulation, and finite natural resources: Isn't all this talk of an apocalypse getting a bit boring? This year is the 40th anniversary of Paul Ehrlich's influential The Population Bomb, a book that predicted an apocalyptic overpopulation crisis in the 1970s and '80s. Ehrlich's book provides a lesson we still haven't learnt. His prophecy that the starvation of millions of people in the developed world was imminent was spectacularly wrong — humanity survived without any of the forced sterilisation that Ehrlich believed was necessary. It's easy to predict environmental collapse, but it never actually seems to happen. The Real Population Bomb: It's been 40 years since Stanford University population biologist Paul Ehrlich warned of imminent global catastrophe in his book "The Population Bomb." As it turns out, the book was aptly, though ironically, named. … Forty years later, no such mass starvation has come to pass. California's Man-Made Drought. The efficient solution is to allow a water market to develop so that allocations can be made in a competitive environment. The way to get consumers voluntarily to use less water is to allow the market price to rise to reflect its decreased availability. At higher prices, consumers will have an incentive to conserve. Water will be demanded only for its most highly valued uses. An efficient allocation results, and no regulatory intervention or costly policing is needed. Green Lies and "Open Spaces": To hear environmental zealots tell it, they are just trying to save the last few patches of greenery from being paved over. But in fact the land area of the United States covered by forests is more than three times as large as the land area covered by all the cities and towns across the nation. "Smart Growth" Policies Hurt. There is mounting evidence that smart growth policies have already prevented thousands of American households from their claim of the American Dream of owning their own home. Designed as an environmentally-sensitive response to perceived suburban overcrowding or "sprawl," smart growth policies crowd housing units together into clusters of dense, skyward structures. Global Warming on Steroids: We are being subjected to demands that we alter our economy to accommodate an utterly false assertion of global warming. At the same time, environmentalists are actively involved in schemes to put as much of the U.S. landmass as possible off-limits to any development. All of this has been neatly spelled out in a United Nations plan alleged to insure "sustainable development", but which in fact is designed to inhibit and prohibit any development anywhere. Going Green = $4 per Gallon. [Scroll down] Such policy is driven by the Sustainable Development lobby. Led by massively wealthy and powerful special interests like the Sierra Club, Audubon Society, the National Resources Defense Council and Earthjustice, to name a very few. With their dollars and lobbyists, they are forcing Congress to implement the policies outlined in the UN's Agenda 21 soft law document. It pretends to be environmental policy, but is really a complete transformation of our society and economy to a top down control, leading toward global governance. The environment is just the excuse to convince unaware Americans to give up their liberties "to save the earth." Al Gore, the United Nations, and the Cult of Gaia (1999): [Scroll down] These people believe in Gaia — an "Earth spirit," goddess or planetary brain — and they think that human beings can have mystical experiences or a spiritual relationship with this entity. In order to protect Gaia, in their view, the U.S. and other industrial countries have to be prohibited from certain uses of the world's natural resources. This is called "sustainable development." Do As We Say, Not As We Do. So why are so many smart-growth advocates avoiding density in their own lives? Take Henry Cisneros, a board member with Smart Growth America. The onetime head of the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development came to Los Angeles a decade ago to work for the Spanish-language channel Univision -- and immediately found a home in the plush, gated community of Bel Air Crest. Fossil Fuels: Saving the Trees for the Woods. The phrase "addiction to fossil fuel" has become a modern-day put-down that it ought not to be. Many today see this so-called addiction as a root problem, yet the benefits are beyond estimate — and long forgotten. One benefit of our use of fossil energy is the trees we don't burn. As surely as complaint follows progress, the use of fossil energy saved America's forests. Until the late 1800s, the yearly consumption of wood for fuel in the United States was more than 300 cubic feet per person. … If we burned that much wood per person today, it would be used up in 10 years. The Rain Forest News Crunch: The fact that the rain forest has come and gone in the imagination as a fad ought to make some take pause and consider that the same fate is likely to await the global warming absolutists. After Climategate, Pachaurigate and Glaciergate: Amazongate. It seems that, not content with having lied to us about shrinking glaciers, increasing hurricanes, and rising sea levels, the IPCC's latest assessment report also told us a complete load of porkies about the danger posed by climate change to the Amazon rainforest. No convincing evidence for decline in tropical forests. Claims that tropical forests are declining cannot be backed up by hard evidence, according to new research from the University of Leeds. This major challenge to conventional thinking is the surprising finding of a study published today in the Proceedings of the US National Academy of Sciences by Dr Alan Grainger, Senior Lecturer in Geography and one of the world's leading experts on tropical deforestation. "Every few years we get a new estimate of the annual rate of tropical deforestation," said Dr Grainger. "They always seem to show that these marvellous forests have only a short time left. Unfortunately, everybody assumes that deforestation is happening and fails to look at the bigger picture — what is happening to forest area as a whole." Natural Gas Needs No Dinosaurs to Form. Credible scientists have now demonstrated that methane, the main ingredient of natural gas, can form inorganically, as a result of natural processes that involve no biological material whatsoever — no dead dinosaurs, no rotting ancient forests, not even any little plankton trapped in the soil. California Voters Defy Activist Groups, Approve New Home Construction. Voters in the San Francisco suburbs of Pittsburg and Antioch, reflecting support from key Democratic elected officials, defied the Sierra Club and other activist groups by approving on November 8 two proposed housing developments. The activist groups have vowed to challenge the new communities in every venue possible, including zoning boards, planning commissions, and the courts. [This is typical of liberal Democrats. If they can't win at the ballot box, they head for the courtroom.] Smart Growth = Crime, Congestion and Poverty. Urban sprawl has sparked a national debate over land-use policy, launching a movement in the past decade called "smart growth." Advocates of such policies contend that urban sprawl causes crime and congestion, and limits opportunities for the poor and minorities. Testimony on Smart Growth and Public Transit. I do not favor sprawl. I favor allowing people to live and work where and how they like. And there is no reason not to allow it. Even today, urbanization accounts for less than three percent of the nation's land area. The "Smart Growth" movement seeks to stop or control urban sprawl. Proponents claim that it will reduce traffic congestion, reduce air pollution and reduce costs. It is important to understand that smart growth and containing sprawl require higher densities. Smart growth's goals simply are unattainable without much higher densities. "Smart Growth" Research: As much as 20 percent of federal transportation funding goes to transit, which serves less than 2 percent of travelers. … Since transit service is so much slower than cars and is focused principally in the core and central business districts of major metropolitan areas, people who use transit because they do not have a car face limited mobility and diminished job prospects. Fewer roads for more people. What does Beijing have in common with Portland, Oregon? Urban congestion. It's much worse in Beijing, but Portland's traffic congestion isn't getting any better. Further, both cities' traffic is worsened by bad government. What Causes Sprawl? While many factors spur Americans' shift from urban to suburban living, the main force behind this transition is our increasing wealth. This has raised living standards and allowed widespread automobile ownership. Living Wage, Dying City. Population losses have occurred in most of the developed world's inner cities, with cities such as Paris, London, Milan, Vienna, Stockholm, Tokyo and Osaka sustaining losses. In general, this international trend toward decentralization and suburbanization can be traced to rising affluence. As people acquire the income to afford automobiles and larger homes with more space in the suburbs, they move. Costs of Sprawl Measured in Benefits? Anti-growth advocates have invoked near hysterical language in characterizing the imperative for dealing with what they claim are the higher government costs of more sprawling development. The Crusade Against Urban Sprawl: There is a strong relationship between urban sprawl and air pollution — but not the one the new urbanists suggest. In the United States, air pollution tends to increase with population density. Similarly, traffic congestion tends to be worse in higher density urban areas. What Garbage Crisis? The general public is, at long last, beginning to take a more cautious, critical attitude toward the claims of the environmental establishment. Environmental values are still important to the electorate, but so too are other values such as common sense, individual freedom, property rights, jobs, and economic well-being. Moreover, the general public is beginning to recognize that much environmental hectoring consists of gross exaggerations and sometimes, as in the case of Big Green, directly contradicts elementary scientific principles as well as readily available evidence. The Increasing Abundance of Resources. Catastrophism in one form or another is really nothing new. It can be traced back at least to 1798 with the publication of Thomas Malthus' Essay on Population. Since that time we have been fed a steady diet of catastrophist predictions of imminent disaster. The most revealing thing about these predictions is that they have never come true. Help for Americans. John Stossel says that one writer, worrying about Niger, said that birthrates must be reduced drastically or the world will face permanent famine. Viewers and readers are left with the idea that the problem is the number of people, but that's nonsense. Niger's population density is nine people per square kilometer; however, population density in the United States is 28 per square kilometer, Japan 340, the Netherlands 484, and Hong Kong 6,621. One would have to be brain-dead to argue that high population density causes poverty and starvation. A better argument is oppressive and corrupt governments. Britain's colossal food waste is stoking climate change. Annually, the UK dumps 6.7 million tonnes, meaning each household jettisons between £250 and £400 worth of food each year. Most of the waste — which nationally costs £8bn — is sent to landfill where it rots, emitting the potent climate-change gas methane. The Editor says... Quite a bit of methane is produced if all that food is digested, too. So what's the difference? And of course the food is "sent to landfill where it rots." That's the idea. If it didn't rot, the landfill would be teeming with garbage from decades ago. The article is replete with one-sided arguments, meaningless statistics, and global warming alarmism. Recommended books for Christmas Giving: Another book that debunks much organized hysteria is Sprawl by Robert Bruegmann. If you or someone you know happens to believe the "open space" and "smart growth" advocates — or even take them seriously — the plain facts and no-nonsense analysis in this book will make the hysteria collapse like a house of cards. No Lefty Left Behind. ACORN is the group most responsible for imposing living wage laws in many of America's cities, and it's currently conducting a sustainable development campaign that, by limiting the growth of the suburbs, would make it more difficult for people to flee the high-tax cities. San Francisco Imposes Green Building Codes. Green building codes signed into law by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom (D) may cost city residents and businesses $700 million each and every year in expenses and lost economic output, the city's Office of Economic Analysis is reporting. The green building codes, signed in August, will force residents and businesses to pay significantly higher construction costs and rents and will likely drive many of them out of the city, the agency warns. Fake Christmas Trees Not So Green. [Scroll down] Another huge drawback to fake trees is that eventually, they will end up in a landfill where they will linger in the environment forever, whereas live trees are recycled and made into mulch," [Clint] Springer explains. The Editor says... So what? When the landfill is "full", whenever that is, the local government will cover it with dirt and make a golf course. And if there's a pile of plastic and glass under the golf course, what difference does it make? False Solutions and Real Problems. There were certainly places here and there where it took half a family's income just to put a roof over their heads. ... Almost invariably, these severe local problems had local causes — usually severe local restrictions on building homes. These restrictions had a variety of politically attractive names, ranging from "open space" laws and "smart growth" policies to "environmental protection" and "farmland preservation." Liberal Fantasyland. Plastic diapers, plastic bags and disposable coffee cups, turn out to be non-threats to the environment, according to the green Conscious Consumer and the Union of Concerned Scientists. While the environmentally aware were quick to preach to the rest of us how our use of disposable diapers, for example, was ruining the planet, they seem slow to catch on to this news. Air pollution: There is more information about air pollution in the Radon and Urban Sprawl sections above, and in the EPA subsection on this page. The American Lung Association's Fear Campaign: In the July issue of Environment & Climate News I showed how the American Lung Association (ALA) misleads Americans about air pollution levels and trends in their communities and the nation. This month, I will document the evidence that even air pollution levels far higher than any we experience in the United States are perfectly safe, and that the nation's air does not cause adverse health effects. ALA claims, "Over 136 million Americans … are exposed to unhealthful levels of air pollution." Even in terms of actual federal standards, this is a vast exaggeration. Facts Not Fear on Air Pollution: Most of what Americans "know" about air pollution is false. Polls show most Americans believe air pollution has been steady or rising during the last few decades and will worsen in the future, and is a serious threat to people's health. But these widely held views are based on myths that are demonstrably false. Air quality in America's cities is better than it has been in more than a century, despite the fact that Americans are driving more miles, using more energy, and producing and consuming more goods and services than ever. EPA Data Show Fewer Children Affected by Air Pollution. The Environmental Protection Agency's new report — 'America's Children and the Environment' — notes that air pollution declined, but asthma prevalence continues to rise. One possible conclusion from this is that air pollution is not actually a cause of asthma. In fact, that's the most plausible conclusion. Environmental groups petition U.S. to regulate air fresheners. A group of heavyweight environmental organizations is asking the federal government to crack down on air fresheners, products that scientific studies show can aggravate asthma and pose other health risks. Air Quality: Air pollution in western world cities has been improving for decades as technology has improved vehicle internal combustion engines and also lower sulphur fuels have reduced SO2 emissions. These vital facts so inconvenient to the Greens, and the over green EPA bureaucracies plus the anti-car brigade, have been very slow to penetrate the screen of green media bias and it is only since 2000 that scraps of truth slip out saying that AQ is improving. Testimony before a Texas Senate Hearing on Wind Turbines: I have practiced medicne for 36 years in the United States, and I assure you that people do not die from a change in temperature of 2 degrees or even 4, they do not die from air pollution in the United States. Not one person. Killer air and toxic air pollution are an historical problem, not a current problem, created by old industrial pollution more than 50 years ago, combined with a less capable medical system. Air Pollution Risks Exaggerated? Although the authors claim to have demonstrated a substantial risk from air pollution, they may have mistakenly attributed to air pollution health risks that are actually caused by other factors omitted from their analysis. Furthermore, even taking the results at face value, the study found a relatively small risk from particulates when compared with other risks people face. What Americans 'Know' about Air Pollution Is False. The nation's spectacular progress on air pollution began long before the 1970 Clean Air Act federalized air quality policy. … Air quality has continued to improve since 1970. Virtually the entire nation now attains federal standards for carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and lead, and levels of these pollutants continue to decline. What makes these air quality improvements so extraordinary is that they occurred during a period of rapid increases in pollution-generating activities. The Condition of Our Nation: The Press Is Always Wrong. Contrary to the pervasive negativity in the media, the U.S. today is in the best shape it has ever been. … For example, pollution is way down. As a boy raised in the 1940s and 1950s on the shores of Lake Erie, it is truly a miracle to me that Lake Erie is now clean. The Cuyahoga River no longer catches on fire; even the Hudson River in New York is back to its pristine state. … Over the past 30 years, the percentage of days per year in the Los Angeles area that have violated federal air quality standards has fallen from over 50 percent to less than 10 percent. In addition, the number of federal "health advisory" days per year in California has fallen from 166 to 11 over the same period. Houston Sees Record Low Ozone. The Houston metropolitan area, often cited as having the nation's most polluted air, exceeded federal ozone standards for a record-low 16 days in 2008. The official tally from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality contradicts a recent claim by the Houston Chronicle that "the region's goal of consistently healthy air remains elusive." Air Quality False Alarm: Heat Advisory, a recent report from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), claims that increased temperatures resulting from global warming will cause higher ozone smog levels and therefore harm Americans' health. In other words, in addition to other harms, NRDC claims global warming will cause future air pollution to be worse than current air pollution levels. For example, NRDC asserts that the number of days per year exceeding the EPA's 8-hour ozone standard will increase by an average of 60 percent in America's metropolitan areas. This report shows that air pollution will decline in the future, regardless of whether there is global warming, and that NRDC exaggerates likely future temperature increases in any case. [PDF] THIS is an air quality problem: Global warming gets cold shoulder. [Bjørn Lomborg] nominates as the most important, urgent and solvable problem facing the world: "Air pollution in the Third World. More than 1 billion people don't have access to electricity and many use really poor fuels, such as wood and dung, that pollute the air." Three Things to Know About Pollution: (#1) Air quality in the United States has markedly improved. Between 1993 and 2002, aggregate emissions of the six principal pollutants (nitrogen dioxide, ozone, sulfur dioxide, particulate matter, carbon monoxide and lead) decreased 19 percent. During the same time period, United States gross domestic product grew at an average of 5.15 percent annually. Volatile organic compound emissions from cars and trucks have fallen 73.8 percent since 1970, and carbon monoxide emissions from cars have been reduced 64 percent. Air Quality Rule Costly for Wisconsin Families. The Wisconsin Natural Resources Board has unanimously approved regulations that will bring the state into compliance with the Bush administration's Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR). Compliance will cost the state's residents more than $1 billion, or more than $500 per household, according to state officials. Ozone, a major component of smog, is widely believed to form from pollutant precursors (such as NOx oxides of nitrogen produced during combustion, (read auto engines and power plants). However the more I examine data the more I am convinced that this is not the whole story and that much tropospheric (lower atmosphere) ozone, which includes urban ozone of course, is in fact natural in origin, the product of peak afternoon temperatures on hot days acting on reactive particles in the air which are very often chemicals given off from vegetation, forests, sea foam and soil, not necessarily in urban areas at all. N.Y. adopts clean air rules, stricter than EPA's. New York environmental regulators adopted stricter air pollution rules on Tuesday [1/6/2009] to prevent power plants and factories from belching out more smog and soot. The Editor asks... Where is there a factory in New York, or any other state, that belches smog and soot? You'd have to go back to the 1960s to find such a place. In any case, since smog is a mixture of fog and smoke, I doubt if factories emit smog. Dangers of high-speed governing: "The days of Washington dragging its heels are over," said President Barack Obama the other day as he hastened to destroy the auto industry, eliminate jobs, render Americans less safe when they drive and gouge more dollars out of them. When you are president, such things can be easy, a virtual snap of the fingers, simply a matter of issuing a couple of executive orders, one of which says the following in so many words: The administration is going to go through some motions with EPA and then let California and other states set their own tailpipe emission standards even though they are much tougher than national standards. Detroit Takes One (More) for the Team. Never mind the absurdity of the issue. California has received waivers to set its own Clean Air Act rules since the very beginning because California suffered unique air pollution problems. California does not suffer unique global warming problems. In no way is the state uniquely affected by the climate risks posed by tailpipe emissions of carbon dioxide. California politicians were acting purely in a grandstanding capacity to seek such a waiver. Mr. Obama would be acting from purely a least-cost political calculation in granting it. Plants Absorb More Carbon Dioxide Under Polluted Hazy Skies. Plants absorbed carbon dioxide more efficiently under the polluted skies of recent decades than they would have done in a cleaner atmosphere, according to new findings published this week in Nature. The results of the study have important implications for efforts to combat future climate change which are likely to take place alongside attempts to lower air pollution levels. Environmentalism vs Creativity: It's not a coincidence that countries with the most government controls are also the most polluted. I've breathed the dirty air of a few former totalitarian, Eastern European nations, and I can attest that Hungary and Bosnia, for example, are far more polluted overall than, say, Houston or L.A. If industrial progress was as harmful to mankind as environmentalists would have us believe, then the life expectancy of people living in the most industrialized nations would be decreasing, not increasing. Car emissions order could affect Texas motorists. Texans might drive cars designed for California attitudes if federal regulators agree to permit state-by-state auto emissions standards, a prospect that emerged Monday in President Barack Obama's first major environmental policy action. Obama ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to review the Bush administration's refusal to allow California and 13 other states to set the nation's toughest vehicle emissions standards. The Editor says... This is why it is necessary for the other 49 states to squawk when California does something stupid: Their worst ideas have a way of spreading across the country. Report Shows Air Quality Improved During Bush Administration. A recent report from a Washington think tank shows that levels of numerous gases linked with air pollution, like carbon monoxide, have fallen off since 2001 and air quality in the U.S. has improved significantly over the last decade. U.S. Air Quality Continues to Improve. Sulfur dioxide emissions from U.S. power plants have fallen sharply this year, according to a recent report by energy research firm Genscape. Emissions of other pollutants have dropped as well. For the first half of 2009, SO2 emissions dropped 24 percent versus the first half of 2008. Emissions of nitrogen oxide (NOx) fell 5 percent in May and 11 percent in June compared against the same months last year. California's Toxic Air Scare Machine: James Enstrom, southern California native, earned a Ph.D. in elementary particle nuclear physics at Stanford, then received postdoctoral training in epidemiology and a Masters in Public Health from UCLA. ... In 2005, Enstrom published his results of a robust and current (50,000 people, 1973-2002) study on the effects of small particle air pollution in California. He found no premature death effect in California from small particle air pollution. California's air pollution of the '50s and '60s has declined for thirty years, and Enstrom was also familiar with the improvement in air quality and the conundrum of increasing rates of asthma that was being misrepresented by CARB. Nitrogen: Beyond Carbon: Scientists Worry About Nitrogen's Effects. Public discussion of complicated climate change is largely reduced to carbon: carbon emissions, carbon footprints, carbon trading. But other chemicals have large roles in the planet's health, and the one Dr. Giblin is looking for in Arctic mud, one that a growing number of other researchers are also concentrating on, is nitrogen. On the other hand... Can Nitrogen Be Used to Combat Climate Change? Growing evidence suggests that as humanity pumps more nitrogen into the environment, forests could become bigger carbon sinks and help mitigate climate change. But experts warn that it's a dangerous experiment that could have serious consequences. The Editor asks... Where is "humanity" getting this nitrogen that it is supposedly "pumping" into the environment? No matter how much additional nitrogen "humanity" has at its disposal, it's only a microscopic fraction of the atmosphere's nitrogen content. The mass of the atmosphere is about 5.14 x 1018 kilograms, or about 5.67 billion megatons, over five quadrillion tons, and 78.08% of that (by volume) is nitrogen. There is simply no way that "humanity" can add more than a drop to that bucket. Peanuts: The War On Peanuts: North Carolina is the fifth-largest peanut grower in the U.S., yet peanut-allergy nazis have persuaded even officials in that state to crack down on PB&Js. Harvard prof slams US nut allergy hysteria. A Harvard professor of medical sociology has agreeably warned that increasing hysteria over nut allergies in kids bears the hallmarks of mass psychogenic illness (MPI) — described as "a social network phenomenon involving otherwise healthy people in a cascade of anxiety". Writing in the British Medical Journal, Nicholas A Christakis cites the extreme example of when a potentially fatal peanut was "spotted on the floor of a school bus, whereupon the bus was evacuated and cleaned (I am tempted to say decontaminated), even though it was full of 10-year-olds who, unlike two-year-olds, could actually be told not to eat food off the floor". Free lunch "safety": Some people can die from eating ordinary wholesome foods like salmon or peanut butter. If the government banned every food that was fatal to someone, we might all die of malnutrition. Sound Public Policy or Hysteria? As someone with a background in public policy making and enforcement, I find it alarming that so much public policy today, particularly in schools, is motivated by fear-of-lawsuit hysteria rather than sound research, cost-benefit analysis, least restrictive means to meet the policy objective and other rational criteria. One extreme example of hysteria-based decision making is the banning of peanut products in schools. Nut allergies — a Yuppie invention. Your kid doesn't have an allergy to nuts. Your kid has a parent who needs to feel special. ... Genes don't mutate fast enough to have caused an 18% increase in childhood food allergies between 1997 and 2007. And genes certainly don't cause 25% of parents to believe that their kids have food allergies, when 4% do. Yuppiedom does. The fear about peanut allergies is nuts. What constitutes a peanut allergy for a parent is not what constitutes it for a doctor. If a child has diarrhea or vomits after eating nuts, it may signal a food allergy, but it may also mean food poisoning. The FAAN study did not confirm its subjects' claims that they were allergic to nuts. That would have required medical records and testing, neither of which were included in the study. Bisphenol-A: Connecticut, Chicago Ban Bisphenol-A in Baby Bottles. The Chicago City Council has banned bisphenol-A, a chemical that strengthens plastics, from food and beverage containers intended for use by children under three years old. ... The chemical known as BPA, widely used in baby bottles, has never been shown to endanger human health, but it has affected laboratory rats fed extremely high doses. A Chemical Scare Campaign Is Good Business for Some. If you're unfamiliar with Bisphenol A (BPA), it is a chemical used to make lightweight, versatile, durable, high-performance plastics. It's also one of the most extensively tested products in the world. For example, as Norris Alderson, the FDA's associate commissioner for science, said just last year, "a large body of available evidence" demonstrates that products made with it are safe. More about BPA: The Tangled Web of Green: Manufacturing a Public Scare. In addition to the "incestuous" relationship among some scientists, there seems to be an "incestuous" relationship between newspapers and environmental activists claiming to be health experts. Consider that the "health advocates" quoted in the December 29 Journal-Sentinel article by almost-Pulitzer Prize winner Meg Kissinger are Janet Nudelman of the Breast Cancer Fund and Alex Formuzis. The Breast Cancer Fund's agenda, despite its name, is environmental issues. Miscellaneous: Parasite Tied to Global Bee Deaths. The sudden collapse of honeybee colonies around the world, a condition identified in 2004, is most likely caused by the parasite Nosema ceranae, not the human causes alleged by environmental activist groups, Spanish researchers have reported in Environmental Microbiology Reports, a journal of the Society for Applied Microbiology. Nonsense has me incensed. How many times in our own lifetime have the doomsayers, confusing their own mortality with that of mankind, falsely warned we were at the end of days? Wasn't humanity supposed to have already been cut down by nuclear war? Global pandemics? The "population bomb"? The hole in the ozone layer? A new ice age? Acid rain? Genetically modified food? Toxic waste? A catastrophic extinction caused by pollution and pesticides? Pick your poison. None of it happened. Sticky or Non-Stick? Senate Bill 1313 ... [outlaws] PFOS, PFOA, higher homologues, or precursors to these chemicals, in any concentration exceeding 10 parts per billion. ... [But it] Seems there is little evidence that the chemicals cause any harm; it's found everywhere, yet there's been ZERO reported incidence of health problems caused by the chemicals, even in young children. A New Cigarette Hazard: 'Third-Hand Smoke'. Parents who smoke often open a window or turn on a fan to clear the air of second-hand smoke, but experts now have identified another smoking-related threat to children's health that isn't as easy to get rid of: third-hand smoke. That's the term being used to describe the invisible yet toxic brew of gases and particles clinging to smokers' hair and clothing, not to mention cushions and carpeting, that lingers long after smoke has cleared from a room. Pre-industrial CO2 levels were about the same as today. Why we are told otherwise? Proponents of human induced warming and climate change told us that an increase in CO2 precedes and causes temperature increases. They were wrong. They told us the late 20th century was the warmest on record. They were wrong. They told us, using the infamous "hockey stick" graph, the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) did not exist. They were wrong. They told us global temperatures would increase through 2008 as CO2 increased. They were wrong. They told us Arctic ice would continue to decrease in area through 2008. They were wrong. They told us October 2008 was the second warmest on record. They were wrong. 2008: The year of living stupidly. [Scroll down] Bad TV happens. So does bad government. The worst was the reaction by the Food and Drug Administration to an outbreak of salmonella that made nearly 1,000 people sick. The FDA panicked and blamed tomatoes. And so tomato farmers had to destroy up to $500 million worth of crops. McDonald's stopped serving tomatoes for a while in some areas. It turned out that tomatoes had nothing to do with the salmonella. Making city streets safer for criminals. In a commentary in Nature magazine (Jan. 1) presaging the 2009 International Year of Astronomy, astronomer Malcolm Smith says that it's time for cities to "turn off the lights" so we can better see the Milky Way, conserve energy, protect wildlife and benefit human health. ... "A fifth of the world's population cannot see the Milky Way," is Smith's headline argument. "This has a subtle cultural impact. Without a direct view of the stars, mankind is cut off from most of the Universe, deprived of any direct sense of its huge scale and our tiny place within it," he asserts. That fuzzy mix of cosmology, sociology and psychology would seem to be an odd argument coming from someone who holds himself out to be a scientist. Appetite for frogs' legs harming wild populations. Are frogs being eaten to extinction? We're used to hearing about how disease, climate change, and habitat degradation are endangering amphibians, but conservationists are warning that frogs could be going the same way as the cod. Gastronomic demand, they report, is depleting regional populations to the point of no return. David Bickford of the National University of Singapore and colleagues have called for more regulation and monitoring in the global frog meat market in order to avoid species being "eaten to extinction". Legless frogs mystery solved. Around the world, frogs are found with missing or misshaped limbs, a striking deformity that many researchers believe is caused by chemical pollution. However, tests on frogs and toads have revealed a more natural, benign cause. The deformed frogs are actually victims of the predatory habits of dragonfly nymphs, which eat the legs of tadpoles. Ecologists warn the planet is running short of water. A swelling global population, changing diets and mankind's expanding "water footprint" could be bringing an end to the era of cheap water. The warnings, in an annual report by the Pacific Institute in California, come as ecologists have begun adopting the term "peak ecological water" — the point where, like the concept of "peak oil", the world has to confront a natural limit on something once considered virtually infinite. MMR doctor Andrew Wakefield fixed data on autism. The doctor who sparked the scare over the safety of the MMR vaccine for children changed and misreported results in his research, creating the appearance of a possible link with autism, a Sunday Times investigation has found. Confidential medical documents and interviews with witnesses have established that Andrew Wakefield manipulated patients' data, which triggered fears that the MMR triple vaccine to protect against measles, mumps and rubella was linked to the condition. The Deadly Toll Of Vaccine Hysteria. The idea that a preservative once used in vaccines is to blame for rising autism rates has just been authoritatively debunked — again. Indeed, some of the key early "evidence" now stands exposed as fake. Sadly, none of this will kill this myth — because it was never based on good science. CDC Can't Link Human Health to Great Lakes Water Pollution. The best available scientific data show no firm connection between Great Lakes water pollution and human health effects, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry has concluded after an eight-year study. Study: Declining Great Lake Levels Entirely Natural. Like polar bears, hurricanes, and arctic ice caps, recent drops in Great Lake water levels have been a poster child for green activists' claims that the global warming crisis is upon us. Overheated White House Environmental Campaigns. [President Obama] has said on global warming, "The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear. Sea levels are rising. Coastlines are shrinking. We've seen record drought, spreading famine and storms that are growing stronger with each passing hurricane season." Fortunately for the world, not a single one of those claims is accurate. Laughing gas is biggest threat to ozone. Nitrous oxide, better known as the dental anaesthetic "laughing gas", has replaced CFCs as the most potent destroyer of ozone in the upper atmosphere, a study has shown. Unlike CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons), once extensively used in refrigerators, emissions of the gas are not limited by any international agreement. The Editor says... The total mass of stratospheric ozone is estimated as 3x10^12 kg.* That's 30 billion metric tons of ozone. There must be a lot more dentists than I had thought. California Judge Rules Styrene Safe. Styrene, an organic compound used widely in food packaging and a variety of plastic products, is not a known carcinogen and therefore cannot be listed among California's Proposition 65 chemicals "known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm," a California Superior Court judge has ruled. The decision is a blow to environmental activists who had lobbied to affix the Prop 65 label to styrene even though no regulatory body anywhere in the world has classified it as a known human carcinogen. Creating a Drug Crisis: A rather obscure theory, dear to the hearts of many environmental groups, holds that over-the-counter drugs, prescription drugs and pesticides are wreaking havoc on human health and the environment because they act as "endocrine disruptors." ... Such claims are nothing more than nonsense of the sort that environmental groups routinely spout in order to create non-existent crises that their supporters are urged to address. Not coincidentally, these manufactured crises are used by environmental groups to drum up contributions in order to battle evil corporations bent on destroying the planet. Back to the Environmental Issues Page Jump over to the Global Warming Page Back to the Home page 
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