Guest post by David Middleton
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt was one of the featured guests on Fox News Sunday yesterday. Chris Wallace grilled him about President Trump’s decision to scrap Obama’s Clean Power Plan (CPP). The interview mostly consisted of Wallace reading Obama Maladministration talking points about the CPP and demanding that Pruitt explain how they were going to “prevent those terrible things” without the CPP.
One of Chris Wallace’s mindbogglingly ignorant “gotcha” questions of struck a raw nerve:
WALLACE: A look at Nationals Park, where Washington’s finest have opening day tomorrow for the baseball season. But, there will be no presidential first pitch as the White House declined an invitation.
Mr. Trump, who once called global warming a hoax, signed a sweeping executive order this week calling for regulators to rewrite President Obama’s climate change policies.
Joining me now from Oklahoma is Scott Pruitt, Mr. Trump’s new administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency.
Mr. Pruitt, welcome to “Fox News Sunday.”
SCOTT PRUITT, EPA ADMINISTRATOR: Good morning, Chris. How are you?
WALLACE: Good.
When the Obama EPA announced its Clean Power Plan, it said that the reduction in carbon pollution would have the following health benefits. I want to put them up on the screen.
By 2030, it said there would be 90,000 fewer asthma attacks a year, 300,000 fewer missed work and school days, and 3,600 fewer premature deaths a year.
Without the Clean Power Plan, how are you going to prevent those terrible things?
PRUITT: Well, Chris, I think what’s important this past week is to recognize that the president is keeping his promise to the American people to rollback regulatory overreaches that have been occurring the last couple of years. And as you know, the Clean Power Plan is subject to a U.S. Supreme Court state. The steps have been taken by the EPA historically, they’ve equally been challenged several times with respective CO2 regulation. And each of those times the Supreme Court and courts have said that the power that has been used has been an overreach.
And so, the president is keeping his promise to deal with that overreach, Chris. It doesn’t mean that clean air and clean water is not going to be the focus in the future. We’re just going to do it right within the consistency of the framework that Congress has passed. Now, I think that’s very important to recognize.
WALLACE: But, sir, you’re giving me a regulatory answer, a political answer. You’re not giving me a health answer. I talked about 90,000 fewer asthma attacks, 300,000 fewer missed days in school and work.
The Obama Clean Power Plan called — said that carbon pollution from the power sector would be reduced by 30 percent. It would be one-third lower than it was in 2005.
Here’s what the American Lung Association says, “Half of all Americans now live in counties with unhealthy air.” You talk about all the regulatory overreach, but the question is, there are 166 million people living in unclean air and you are going to remove some of the pollution restrictions, which will make the air even worse.
PRUITT: Well, Chris, a couple things, we are actually pre-1994 levels with respect to our CO2 footprint. So, this country is doing far better than most across the globe. As you know, also since 1980, we’ve got a 65 percent reduction in those key air pollutants, SOx and NOx and particulate matter and ozone, while at the same time growing our economy.
I think what’s happened the last several years is that we’ve adapted to and adopted this previous administration’s views that if your pro-jobs and pro-growth, you can’t be pro-environment. If you’re pro-environment, you can’t be pro-growth and pro-jobs. And that simply is not the way we’ve done business as a country.
WALLACE: But, sir —
[…]
How is it that the EPA can continue to get away with claiming that its latest rule du jour will prevent any asthma attacks? It’s impossible to prove that something won’t happen in the future. Furthermore, there is no evidence that any of the rules imposed under the authority of the Clean Air Act (CAA) have even “bent the curve” as it pertains to asthma.
When the CAA was first passed by Congress, air pollution was a serious issue and air pollution was reduced by about 40% by 1990.
If air pollution was a major driving factor in asthma, why did this happen?
The Institute for Energy Research (IER) demolished the EPA’s asthma claims here: Five Charts That Blow Apart EPA’s Asthma Claims
All five of the EPA’s “criteria pollutants” have been drastically reduced since 1980, yet asthma continues to rise:
If the drastic reduction in real air pollution hasn’t reversed the trend in asthma, how can the regulation of a non-pollutant, CO2 have any effect on asthma? Unless the goal is to lower atmospheric CO2 to about 150 ppm and wipe out ragweed and other allergen-producing plants, the EPA’s Clean Power Plan, like all previous rules, will have no demonstrable effect on asthma. Anyone who clicked the “ragweed” link is probably asking the same question I did, “Why do the alarmists claim that CO2 and AGW will kill all the good plants and enable ragweed to thrive”?
On a personal note: I have suffered from asthma since I was 4 years old and was hospitalized for about a week in 1963. Since my onset of asthmatic symptoms occurred prior to Al Gore’s invention of climate change in 1988, I am confident that my asthma was not related to Gorebal Warming. While, I would love to see asthma eradicated, I wouldn’t agree to pay 1¢ more per kWh of electricity or gallon of gasoline to fund this Quixotic war on climate change… Because I know it won’t have any effect on either the prevalence of asthma or the weather and I know it will cost trillions of dollars.
Why does the EPA continue to justify new rules and regulations on the basis of unverifiable claims of x cases of y malady averted? Probably because they can’t offset the compliance costs with tangible benefits, particularly when they are forced to apply a realistic discount rate.
At What Cost is the Air Clean Enough?
Dr. Roy Spencer has a great example of the relationship between a clean environment and the cost of pollution reduction in his book, Climate Confusion: How Global Warming Hysteria Leads to Bad Science, Pandering Politicians and Misguided Policies That Hurt the Poor:
The CAA is a textbook example of a law which served its intended purpose… Unfortunately, it lacked any sort of sunset provision. Most pollutants are already at or near irreducible levels and almost all are well below the national standard; yet the EPA continues to ratchet down the standards, exponentially increasing compliance costs.
The U.S. EPA says, “the annual standard for PM2.5 is met whenever the 3 year average of the annual mean PM2.5 concentrations for designated monitoring sites in an area is less than or equal to 15.0 µg/m3.” The particulate matter pollution problem is not in the United States…
Ozone (O3) pollution has also been declining for 30 years:
Note that the National Standard for surface level ozone (O3) is ~0.07 parts per million. Ozone isn’t a problem until it gets above 0.2 ppm…
0.200 ppm
Prolonged exposure of humans under occupational and experimental conditions produced no apparent ill effects. The threshold level at which nasal and throat irritation will result appears to be about 0.300 ppm.
0.300 ppm
The ozone level at which some sensitive species of plant life began to show signs of ozone effects.
0.500 ppm
The ozone level at which Los Angeles, California, declares its Smog Alert No. 1. Can cause nausea in some individuals. Extended exposure could cause lung edema (an abnormal accumulation of serous fluid in connective tissue or serous cavity). Enhances the susceptibility to respiratory infections.
Lead (Pb) is generally considered to be one of the most toxic pollutants. Lead pollution dates back at least to Roman times. It appears that lead pollution peaked in the mid-20th century and have been dropping like a lead weight since the 1960’s, totally ignoring the population “explosion” and the EPA (which did not commence its mischief until 1970). Lead levels are currently about where they were before the industrial revolution.
Pollution abatement follows a production (AKA diminishing returns) function. Each dollar spent removes less pollution than the previous dollar. At what cost will the air be clean enough?
As usual, any and all sarcasm was probably intentional.
References
McConnell, J.R. and R. Edwards. 2008. Coal burning leaves toxic heavy metal legacy in the Arctic. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, doi:10.1073/pnas.0803564105 (published online in PNAS Early Edition, August 18, 2008).
The Benefits and Costs of the Clean Air Act from 1990 to 2020. Final Report – Rev. A.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Air and Radiation April 2011.
Over the last 2 decades, the air has become significantly cleaner yet asthma rates have increased.
So… Clean air causes asthma!!!
There’s some evidence that making the environment too clean is causing a number of auto-immune diseases as well other ailments where the immune system over reacts to small levels of contaminants.
Perhaps asthma is another example of this issue.
I have read that the failure to expose children to certain allergens at an early age is a possible culprit. Although, my first asthma attack was triggered after my older brother threw me into a haystack a few times. It was a lot of fun for a 4-yr old… until the wheezing started. On the plus side, I got to ride in an ambulance… an old Cadillac ambulance!
So David. When they put you in the hospital did you see one of those machines that goes bing!
I recall reading that after the Berlin wall came down and East and West Germany were reunited it was discovered that the filthy and polluted East had very little asthma whereas it was very common in the West.I believe this was around the start of the realization that asthma may be caused by environments that are “too clean” to enable the immune system to calibrate to real threats.
It’s called the hygiene hypothesis.
Cleaner air causes asthma, yes, there is no other conclusion to be drawn. More precisely, rising CO2 is causing rising asthma, just like rising CO2 causes rising insurance rates and rising birth rates and rising whatever else has risen while CO2 has been rising [sarcasm mot assuredly intended].
Seriously, though,
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/11/141104111631.htm
Big increases in CO2 correspond to high growth rates in plants. More plants, more pollen, more asthma. This is the most likely culprit. Certain plant types will release the asthma causing pollen. This is where research needs to happen. Councils need to plant trees that do not cause asthma.
My guess is leaf blowers. No one rakes leaves and grass cuttings anymore. These monster machines (try listening to two or three at a time) blow all sorts of organisms into the air that once were left undisturbed. Mold, anyone?
Children raised in households w/3 or more pets are less likely to develop allergies. So, more dander less asthma why would one conclude more pollen more asthma?
Not only leaf blowers might be stirring up a new civilized problem, but ANY kind of power equipment might be stirring up more airborne particles too. Think about it — all the power saws used in modern construction are churning out saw dust; city leaf-collecting services are blowing lots of debris into the air — notice what’s pouring out of the opening of a truck, the next time you see a leaf-collecting truck in action. Also, … farm equipment — plowing machines, harvesting machines. Oh, I forgot power sanders in carpentry and house painting.
I also wonder whether the physical inactivity of people in modern societies has screwed up their breathing patterns, disturbing the ratio of co2 to O2 in a way that causes the brain to have forgotten how to breathe in accordance to a physically active lifestyle.
CO2 in the body plays a role in dilating blood vessels — too little and the veins contract. Could bad breathing, then, be a reason for heart problems, as well as asthma? Is this a perfect storm, maybe? — physical inactivity, poor breathing habits, constricted veins, power tools pumping particles … ?
CO2 is NOT the problem. Rather, demonizing CO2 in a way that enables us to hide from the REAL problems is the problem.
I just had another thought — consider how much time people spend indoors. Is it the indoor time and what’s in indoor air the problem? Or is it the indoor time removing us from exposure to outdoor particles that has de-conditioned our lungs and brains from “knowing how” to breath in an atmosphere of these particles, similar to what someone else has suggested — living so clean that the body’s immune system is “out of shape”, whereas more exposure might provide an immune (conditioning) effect?
The Attributions of asthma related conditions and death were basically created out of nothing as it is impossible to do a real study and tease out the effects of such ephemeral climate factors.. So, they make up the data and then refuse to show any evidence for their findings. All such regulations need to be revisited and the “black science” of the EPA exposed to the light of day and reasonable pollution limits set for items such as ozone.
If the environment is too clean, the human immune system is not challenged. When this happens, the human body lacks the ability to fight off infections to one degree or another…
Pruitt flubbed the Fox interview.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/04/02/delingpole-epas-scott-pruitt-gets-eaten-alive-by-fox/
I didn’t get that impression and the transcript certainly doesn’t support Mr. Dellingpole’s view.
Here’s the transcript:
Pruitt could have gotten into a technical discussion of the satellite data and stated that 2015 was not the second warmest year on record and that 2016 was not statistically significantly warmer than 1998. He could have said that the CO2 claim is based on Antarctic ice cores, which cannot resolve century scale CO2 shifts over most of the past 400,000 years. He could have said that the IPCC’s claim of 95% confidence was pure arm-waving. And Wallace would have replied, “But, sir — NOAA said this is true. Are you saying they are lying?”
Wallace engaged in the standard litany of logical fallacies.
If Pruitt is smart (questionable), he will clear out the biased deadheads at the EPA and bring on some people who have some scientific rigour and integrity so he can be supported on his message and start to learn the details which have been very effectively smeared and obscured by the grant hounds that inhabit every nook and slimy cranny of academia on the subject of Global Warming/ Climate Change.
What if the tooth fairy really exists? What if aliens are among us?
What if such speculative questions are meaningless?
It is endlessly frustrating to watch persons of political power do such a poor job of responding to fat high in the strike zone questions which any decently educate skeptic could handle easily.
The proper response is “What if you are wrong? What if we drive up the price of food so high, like was done when Congress passed ethanol subsides that caused food riots in Asia, that it leads to wars and god forbid a nuclear war? How much pollution would be released then?”
He did.
I didn’t think Pruitt flopped in the interview. He didn’t answer Wallace’s question about asthma directly, but he gave a good enough general answer to get him out of the interview. Wallace was trying for a “gotcha” but he didn’t get him.
Chris Wallace was kind of creative with his question. That’s the first time I have heard the argument about how the Clean Power Plan being stopped would result in thousands of extra deaths. It is an effective argument, if it were thought to be true.
I’m very glad to see this article come out debunking all of Chris Wallace’s gotcha questions.
Next time Pruitt should say, Chris, let me fact check your gotcha question at WUWT, and then I’ll get back to you.
In his position he should not need coaching!
“n his position he should not need coaching!”
In an ideal world, maybe so. I, personally, couldn’t have given Wallace a good rebuttal of his question, and I keep up with the climate change issues pretty well, so I’m not surprised Pruitt didn’t have a good comeback. Noone can be an expert on every little nuance of every little thing.
I think some people want Pruitt to say CAGW is a hoax, and are a little frustrated that he has not. I don’t think it is necessary for him to say this, he just has to carry out the dismantling of the CAGW agenda. He seems to be doing that, so I’m happy with him up to this point.
Pruitt should have been prepared for the health numbers because they were provided in the EPA’s Fact Sheet: https://www.epa.gov/cleanpowerplan/fact-sheet-overview-clean-power-plan
The health numbers were used to sell the Clean Power Plan, but you had to dig pretty deep to discover that the supposed health improvements had nothing to do with carbon dioxide. These purported health improvements were to be the result of eliminating other real pollutants when shutting down coal plants to meet the CPP goals.
But take just one number and give it some context — eliminating 90,000 asthma attacks per year by 2030. There are roughly 20 million asthma sufferers in the U.S. (and there will probably be many more by 2030). How many attacks each year per person? I have no idea and a quick search did not turn up a number, but to keep the math simple let’s suppose the average is five per year. That’s 100 million attacks per year — so a reduction of 90,000 is not even one-tenth of a percent. Or you could say that 90,000 people would have one less attack per year but 19.9 million would see no change.
Does this kind of argument work? Not by itself, but it should have been part of a well-prepared response. The health argument helped to sell the plan to the public, so the opponents of the plan should be prepared to counter or at least fully expose the weaknesses of the argument.
With the EPS’s version of science, they have unilaterally repealed the law of diminishing returns –
With each smaller incremental improvement in air quality, there is an even greater incremental increase in health benefits.
With the EPA’s version of science, they have unilaterally repealed the law of diminishing returns –
With each smaller incremental improvement in air quality, there is an even greater incremental increase in health benefits.
Typo fixed
EPA makes up its numbers.
The clear and correct answer is “CO2 has nothing to do with asthma, Chris.”
+1 That’s all that needed to be said to shut down Wallace.
@hunter and markl: Exactly what I was thinking.
If we exhale 40,000 ppm of carbon dioxide (a.k.a. “carbon pollution”) out of our lungs and noses, I find it quite difficult to understand how inhaling 400 ppm and up is supposed to cause more asthma attacks and other health issues that will cause all those lost work and school days.
Things like this are going to keep happening until the Trump administration goes on the offense against climate alarmism. They need to put together a committee or panel of scientists to expose the scientific problems with CAGW and dispel the myths about carbon dioxide. Put them on national TV to present all the evidence.
Until they do this, they will always be on the defense against environmentalists, climate alarmists and their pals in the MSM. You don’t win football games when you spend most or all of your time on defense.
As an asthma sufferer since the age of three, I agree 100% with the publicity offensive idea.. In fact, my means of combating an asthma attack is to try and increase the CO2 held in my lungs up to around 4 – 5%. This is the optimum level for the blood chemistry involving hemoglobin to function in terms of the oxygen transferal and release by the blood around the body. So CO2 may be too low at present levels, and may be involved with asthma – but not in the way he meant.
Coincidentally, this is similar to CO2 levels when lungs first evolved on the planet.
SteveT
“Until they do this, they will always be on the defense against environmentalists, climate alarmists and their pals in the MSM. You don’t win football games when you spend most or all of your time on defense.”
I think Trump is on offense. The MSM makes it look like he is on defense because they are trying to put him on defense, but while the MSM waves their hands wildly, Trump continues along with his agenda, nattering MSM nabobs, or no nattering MSM nabobs.
The Trump/Russia connection is debunked, while the Obama administration investigation is just getting started. This is going to be fun. You know that when the entire MSM, with the exception of Fox News, ignores this story about the Obama administration spying on Trump, it has to be a very serious story.
The MSM wants to keep yelling about a fake Trump/Russia connection. They started out doing this to deligitimize Trump’s administration, and now it has become a vehicle which they can try to use to distract from the Obama administration spying on American citizens. But I don’t think they are going to be able to keep this under the table much longer especially since Susan Rice, Obama’s NSC advisor has been implicated as one of those who made American names public. Susan Rice doesn’t do things without her boss’s permission/order.
If the MSM is really fixated on Russia, they could look into the Clinton/Russian connection. There’s a lot more to find here if they care to look. Money, bribery, possibly treason.
It’s going to be interesting, and the MSM will be fighting this every step of the way, to no avail.
+1 Hiding deceit forever in an organization as big as the US government is impossible. The MSM claiming/fabricating deceit when the facts are not there is not enough to fool the people. Witness Trump. The MSM is on the road to earned illegitimacy and everyone knows it. We are at the beginning of the road to debunk CAGW and it will be a sweet victory for the people.
Hiding is easy when there is no one looking for you.
Now that Susan Rice’s name has come out, the Liberal News Media’s cable channels are starting to cover it, although the newspapers and broadcast networks are still downplaying the story or not running it at all. They will all be carrying it in the very near future.
As you might imagine, the MSM is trying to throw cold water on any allegations against the Obama administration. Methinks they do scoff too much. They looked a little shell-shocked on MSNBC and CNN this morning.
I hope this investigation into Obama’s handling of intelligence blossoms into an investigation of the entire Obama administration criminal enterprise. It can happen. No telling where a congressional investigation is going to end up, and it looks like the Obama administration didn’t cover their tracks very well so there are going to be lots of new revelations in the future.
The Democrats claim the unmasking of Trump’s people was related to spying on the Russian connection, but Rep. Nunes says the unmaskings he saw were *not* related to the Russian issue. Which brings up the question of what those particular unmaskings were related to. Is this sifting through the intelligence by Susan Rice just aimed at Trump or has this been going on for the last eight years with all of Obama’s political enemies as targets? Lots of interesting questions to be answered.
The bad thing for the Democrats is the Republicans are in charge now so government agencies are not going to be cooperating in stonewalling the congressional investigation like they did in the past. We will get answers this time. It will just take a while as congress grinds through the process and the Left does everything it can to obstruct the investigation.
According to a report on Drudge this morning, CNN has declared the Rice story to be a non-issue and instructed their anchors to ignore it.
“According to a report on Drudge this morning, CNN has declared the Rice story to be a non-issue and instructed their anchors to ignore it.”
I saw that, too. It just shows how out of touch with reality the folks at CNN really are. I predict CNN will not be able to ignore this issue. They just want to hide their heads in the sand but reality is going to intrude on them soon.
Wrong way round, the following paste shows how low levels of CO2 in the lungs can trigger asthma. Butyrko breathing works to increase the levels and relieve wheezing. I can personaly confirm this.
Quote:
Asthma and allergies
The Buteyko breathing method is medically proven, natural, drug-free, and very effective for asthma. It is recognized as an effective method for treating asthma by GINA (Global Initiative for Asthma).
See detailed explanation below.
Control your asthma!
Asthma
Asthmatics overbreathe. That means breathing heavily, rapidly or through the mouth when there is no need for it. Often overbreathing occurs unconsciously, resulting in irritation, inflammation and constriction of the airways.
Multiple studies have shown that on average, asthmatics breathe two to three times more air than people without asthma (Bowler et al, MJA Dec 98). Asthmatics tend to breathe through their mouths instead of their noses, and also at a higher than normal breathing rate. On average, asthmatics are breathing 12 to 14 liters of air per minute instead of the typical 4 to 6 liters of air per minute.
Over time, this excessive breathing pattern results in an abnormal loss of carbon dioxide (C02). CO2 is critical for regulation of many bodily functions such as the acid/alkaline balance of blood. To have optimum oxygenation of tissues and organs the body requires 5.5-6.5% C02 in the lungs. The body creates most of this amount as the atmosphere contains only 0.039%.
For asthmatics, the CO2 level is typically low, due to chronic overbreathing. When a “trigger” is encountered, it stresses the body and breathing increases even more. In an effort to prevent further C02 loss, extra mucus is secreted to clog airways which narrow and constrict – a defense mechanism called asthma. Airways are supposed to be reactive to protect us in situations such as toxic fumes or very hot/cold air.
Rhoda, You have explained it much better than I just above these comments, I should have read a bit further.
I practice the Buteyko method to increase my lung CO2 levels – and yes it does work. The only problem is my habit of reverting to my (rubbish) breathing habits as soon as I stop concentrating on the Buteyko method.
I wish I had known about this when younger as I probably could have retrained my breathing effectively. It’s particularly good for young children.
SteveT
Sounds like more CO2 in the air will alleviate the problem of low CO2 in the blood of asthmatics.
The same false science they use to make findings that appear to be a valid research – but like Asthma – proving the direct cause is next to impossible or we could cure it?
Unless, that is, you go to the fedgov National Institute of Health website and type in the search “cause of asthma” I did about a year or so ago and the synopsis reads “There is no known cause of asthma”
Unless, that is, you go to the fedgov National Institute of Health website and type in the search “cause of asthma” I did about a year or so ago and the synopsis reads “There is no known cause of asthma”
Which enables the EPA to regulate everything in the war against asthma.
To most modern environmentalists, there is no such thing as clean enough.
Especially when you can force someone else to pick up the tab.
“Justifaction” – Is that facts that justify? It’s so hard to keep up these days (<===insert otherjoke here)
And that headline is just a modifiable fill-in-the-blank template that works for just about anything:
The Misuse of [insert whatever here] as a Justification for Climate Change Spending.
Yes, Chris Wallace is definitely one of Fox’s Democrats. Or a RINO, which is arguably worse. Pruitt was trying too hard to not be confrontational. Sometimes the assumptions behind a question require challenging the question itself, as in trying to come up with a polite answer to the classic “have you stopped beating your wife?”.
“When did you stop beating your wife?” is the correct form. Big difference.
Chris Wallace was asking about ongoing actions, so I did get the verb tense right.
But that’s not the “classic” entrapment form of the question you alluded to.
No, it’s “Have you?” “Answer yes or no.” Most people misquote this.
Then the more common misquote is the de facto classic form. Usage trumps origin. I’ve never heard your version in use. (And it ain’t from Shakespeare after all.)
PS the word “gigabyte” is universally mispronounced. Should be \ˈji-gə-ˌbīt but since essentially everyone mispronounces it \ˈgi-gə-,bīt the latter has crept into dictionaries, often as the preferred pronunciation.
I bey you say ‘JIF’ rather than ‘GIF’.
Then Pruitt should have asked Wallace if he had stopped exhaling evil CO2 into the atmosphere yet.
When Wallace interviewed both Trump and Clinton before the election, he asked Trump if he would agree to accept the outcome. However, he failed to ask Clinton the same question. If you are not biased, why wouldn’t you ask that question of both candidates? As it turned out, the Democrats were the ones who questioned the results of the election and are still doing so. They are not embarrassed in the least by the fact that just before the election both Clinton and Obama emphatically stated that not accepting the outcome of an election “undermines our democracy.”
I had to turn off the TV.
It was sickening to hear those lies being spouted, and even worse that they were now instantly refuted.
Why cannot these people be prepared to counter the drivel?
Typo, should be “…not instantly refuted”.
The problem is that the simple lies generally require complex refutations.
I advocate for the direct and simple approach.
” Mr Wallace, I am surprised to hear you echoing left wing political propaganda as if it is true.”
And, as Hunter said:
“Carbon dioxide is the essential base of the entire food chain. It is not pollution and causes no diseases.”
Impossible to ever unwind this by engaging the falsehoods.
The “When did you stop beating you wife?” analogy is apt.
I agree that a point by point detailed refutation requires long and complex responses.
The entire idea has to be cut off at the knees.
Which only requires saying “That is not true”.
Repeatedly.
Save the detailed explanations for senate hearings.
But even there, the lies must be first called lies.
The wild exaggerations called what they are.
Say the words “Chicken Little”, and “Fearmongering”.
Scorn is richly deserved.
Scorn them.
Otherwise, to someone who does not know who to believe, it sounds like one are arguing over the tiny details.
Wallace would have countered with, “But sir– [NOAA, NASA or the EPA website] says [fill in the blank] Are you implying that they are lying?”
President Trump needs to take advantage of Congress’ upcoming recess and recess-appoint the rest of his administration. Then he can put NOAA, NASA, EPA and the rest of the alphabet soup on a mission to delete every last bit of Warmunist propaganda from their websites.
Maybe he could get John Christy and Judith Curry to write up accurate and truthful position statements on climate change.
Recess appointments are only good till the end of the current congress.
And for God’s sake, don’t send OK Sen. James Inhofe out to challenge these lies! In his dotage he’s become next to useless in this role. Please send OK Sen. Jim Lankford, he’s the sharpest tack in the box, and one of the finest communicators and most vigorous inquisitors in Congress.
All I could figure is that Pruitt has respect for the religion of others.
There is a reluctance to fight fire with fire that has gone beyond the merely puzzling.
Email Mr. Wallace at FOXNEWS.com under his show title FOX NEWS SUNDAY, as I did and remind him, maybe he should become educated on the topics before opening his mouth, or in other words “It is better to be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.” Thank you for the post Mr. Middleton.
Dan
Did you get a response?
As soon as the segment ended, I posted a comment but all I got back is an acknowledgement that it was relieved.
When I lived in Washington State, I sent a detailed with color graphics email concerning a local energy issue to my local congressmen, Doc Hastings, and the two senators. The response from Doc Hastings staff indicated my email was read and considered.
The response from the liberal democratic senators elected by large cities was what I expected. I got the partly line response indicating that my email was not even read.
Solutions to AGW that involve nuclear timber, or agriculture industries are not even considered. Those industries are very important to 90% Washington State.
Now thanks to city folks, Washington State has lots of wind farms but not near the big cities.
Asthma is an incorrect response of the body’s immune system to something benign in the general case. As the country has gotten “cleaner” kids are not having their immune systems challenged in the same way that they have had them challenged earlier. The immune system does not then differentiate between benign things and things it should raise an immune response to. The best way to reduce asthma in general is to take your kids and send them out to play in a mud puddle early and often.
I have had asthma off and on for close to 70 years so I do know something about what causes it and how it feels. There are also cases of asthma that can be caused by stress and or sudden severe temperature change. Both trigger stuff. But in the final analysis, you treat asthma with corticosteroids that reduce immune system response.
More Lysenkoism from the Escathological Cargo Cult of the CAGW.
Hey, I thought breathing into a paper bag could help asthma, and that would mean… CO2 fixes asthma!
It probably helps through cycling the same air, flushing and filtering out the triggering irritant.
I think it probably works because it relaxes you (hence also a solution for stress). I’ve no idea why it works, though.
Maybe those terrified of CO2 could use some more CO2 to reduce their stress?
It does, see comment above.
“I think it probably works because it relaxes you (hence also a solution for stress). I’ve no idea why it works, though.”
Deep breathing relaxes the body. A new study says deep breathing activates sensors in the brain and when you breath deeply for a while, the brain tells your body to relax.
I suppose breathing in and out of a paper bag could be considered deep breathing.
Part of the reason it helps could be the breathing in of a much richer CO2 air mixture in the bag.
Causes of asthma? In my family there is more than a hint of genetic predisposition involved.
How many diabetic asthmatics do you know? With the current high levels of both problems is it not strange that there is an almost total lack of cross-over between the two? There are a very, very tiny number of cases but they tend to be very rare and also only involve the very extreme examples.
SteveT
Pruitt has been eager to halt EPA’s overreach, and attack on fossil fuels, for sound economic reasons. But he has failed to go to the woodshed on EPA’s more subtle and insidious corruption of environmental science and health data. In that sense Pruitt is out of his depth. I worry about the quality of people he is staffing EPA with, I hope they’re not all just Big Oil legal eagles and economists. He needs astute engineers and scientists who understand the liberties EPA has been taking with the “science”.
Plus, it’s obvious Wallace truly believes the EPA endangerment hoax is valid. Did he go so far as to invoke “the 97%”?
Shockingly, he did not.
Nah! Pruitt is doing OK. All he needs to wait for is Japan to announce they will replace all their 30+ nuclear power stations with coal fired power stations by 2020, thanks to Fukishima. Surprise, Surprise, it’s been done.
Then he only has to wait for the Indian sub continent to declare they will find a brown coal source in the desert to exploit, Surprise, Surprise. Pakistan, the source of much poverty driven terrorism has declared it has found such a source and with China’s help, will exploit it. End to poverty in the region, end to terrorism as well.
Then he just needs to wait until orders for coal start rolling in from South Korea reviving the coal industry in the US, Surprise, Surprise, it’s happening.
Then he just needs to look at the global consensus on what people really care about in their lives and, Surprise, Surprise, no one gives a monkeys http://data.myworld2015.org
Does he need to be confrontational or aggressive towards these journalistic nonentities? Nope, just a voice of reason.
But he wasn’t a voice of reason, ha gave no reason at all for why the asthma narrative is invalid.
“Pakistan, the source of much poverty driven terrorism has declared it has found such a source and with China’s help, will exploit it. End to poverty in the region, end to terrorism as well.”
End of poverty for the plutocrats in Pakistan, not for the serfs who are 99% of the population. Have the oil riches of Mexico raised up a large middle class, and lifted millions out of poverty?
But your optimism is welcome.
A single source of energy in itself can’t lift an entire country out of poverty, but it can go a long way.
It will take generations before anything changes, but given a variety of resources, coal being just one, things in Pakistan will get better.
Mexico is fairly unique in that it straddles the gap between the drug cartels in South America and the biggest users of illegal drugs in the world, the USA with, at best, a tall fence separating them. Pakistan has access to the drugs from Afghanistan etc. but they don’t have the benefit of a wealthy customer, right on its doorstep.
The point being, however, is that denying them the opportunity to generate cheap energy by imposing initiatives like the Paris Accord on them and they will never have the opportunity to extract themselves from poverty.
And one of the reasons why this exists today is that we were stupid enough for over a century of gaslighting to work. At the turn of the 19th to the 20th century, illegal drugs were not a thing and intoxicated individuals were handled by drunk and disorderly ordinances. Just like outlawing guns results in only outlaws having guns, outlawing ‘drugs’ does the same thing. Many of the 1% of our population that are truly addicts are actually trying to cope with a poorly characterized set of behavioral maladaptations and poorly understood, but actual, mental illness. The ‘war on drugs’ actually was and is a war on free people.
@cdquarles,
I don’t mean to be rude, but I believe my last paragraph stated my point quite clearly, and drugs has nothing to do with the discussion. It was a point raised by me to illustrate what Mexico is up against in terms of their social malaise that restricts them from capitalising on their natural resources as a source of wealth.
Legislation free drug money is easy money, in their unique physical location, relative to that of others. There may never be a solution to that problem, other than, perhaps, easy money being made elsewhere, and I somehow doubt a hard days work in a coal mine will make up for an easy days work running drugs. And mining coal probably comes with more risk.
But back to my original point. If we deny Pakistan the right to mine coal and generate energy from it, there will be no chance, in generations to come, that they will emerge from poverty. That poverty breeds resentment and crime, and in the eye’s of radical Islamist’s, justifies targeting the wealthy west in pursuit of revenge.
Allow people to become wealthy, and many of the reasons for terrorism, and revenge violence, disappear.
Nor do I believe that sceptics and reasonable alarmists are actually far apart in their desires. None of us want to see cities polluted with particulates. We just differ on our opinions on the effects of increased atmospheric CO2.
“end to terrorism”
Speaking of optimism, that’s a good one.
Bullies speak one language. It’s a brutal language. But it’s the only language they speak.
Violence is rarely the best answer. Unfortunately, sometimes, it is the only answer.
Keep you powder dry.
typo. s/you/your/
“Legislation free drug money is easy money”
Concur that this topic is a step off of this thread. But, since you raised it…
In the US, we tried alcohol prohibition. It didn’t work.
Attempts to legislate inanimate objects is nothing but a path to abject failure.
Guns don’t shoot themselves, knives don’t stab themselves, and drugs don’t consume themselves.
Help the people, and the inanimate objects will take care of themselves.
Pruitt was just approved six weeks ago. He needs time to do his work. It’s taken many years for the department to get to its extreme state. He needs to properly get things done to ensure that it can’t return to the current condition. I suspect that his team is looking for the laws that authorized the work of the department and if a program can’t be traced to a law, then it’s gone.
Don’t forget, the EPA ran asthma ads out in Oregon and I think Washington a couple of years ago. They got in trouble for those ads. Why does the media have such a short memory about Gina McCartht’s EPA? Maybe, it is something atmospheric?
There’s no such thing as clean enough and no cost is to high. We must consider our most vulnerable communities and the imperative of environmental justice…. yap, yap, yap.
So every time a person with asthma drinks a carbonated soft drink they’re antagonizing their condition?
Since caffeine is a stimulant similar to that in asthma inhalers, drinking a Coke or Dr. Pepper can help with a mild asthma attack.
If beer caused asthma attacks, I would have been dead before finishing my freshman year of college.
When I first met my wife, 30+ years ago, we went hillwalking in Scotland. She suffered her first asthma attack, in the cleanest air you could possibly imagine. She had lived her life on the banks of the River Clyde, in some of the freshest air in the world.
We now live in the South East of England, at the junction of the M25/A2/M20 roads and have done so for the last 30 years. It is one of the most polluted parts of the planet in terms of air quality and is recognised as one of the worst places in the UK for asthma sufferers. By rights she should be crippled with it, yet she was an outstanding field hockey player into her 40’s and has a minimum of medication do deal with her condition.
Asthma bullshit. Severe sufferers will be victims in whatever environment they occupy. Nor is it ever acknowledged that few sufferers of asthma deal with their condition BEFORE it occurs by taking preventative steroids. They all wave their blue inhalers in front of their faces, rarely conforming to the methods that ensure effective administration, then blame their bad lifestyles on the medication they haven’t taken the time to learn to use properly.
Other than in a few severe cases, asthma is an entirely manageable condition with modern drugs and self administration techniques.
The original cause could have been anything, such as pollen or similar. It is real, I have it mildly, but mine is triggered by dust typically. My brother actually died from it aged 19, probably because he smoked, which also triggers it with me so I quit.
Some claim it is purely psychosomatic, but I dispute that based on my own experience.
“The original cause could have been anything, such as pollen or similar. It is real”
I agree. I never had allergies for the first 30 years of my life, and one summer I allowed my rather large yard to grow up way too high, and one day I got industrious and got out and mowed the whole area using a push mower and no face mask.
It took me about four hours to finish and all that time countless pieces of chopped up plant were in the air blowing in my face.
The next spring I had allergies so bad I thought I was going to die! My system had reacted to all that mowing by making me allergic when I had never been allergic before. It was really bad with the worst symptoms you can imagine and I thought it was going to be hell if I had to go through this every spring. I was not looking forward to that.
Happily, I did not have the same reaction the next year. I just get a few sneezes per season now. My body overreacted but seems to have reverted back to normal. Thank the Good Lord!
Be careful what you breath because it may come back to bite you.
Sorry for your loss Jerome.
If allergies were psychosomatic, then they would only strike upon knowing of the “trigger”.
I’m not allergic to poison ivy. I helped a friend pull down and burn big piles of the stuff. We almost killed his son, who triggered off of the smoke. His son did not know what we were burning. Thus, ipso facto, it wasn’t psychosomatic.
I’m allergic to other things, seasonal, when the dogwood pollen flies, I’m miserable.
It’s all courtroom expert witness selection bias, with media support.
The media is swayed with the prevailing political wind, and the wind of consensus is changing. Give it a few years.
Ratings will accomplish what no rule or regulation really can.
There is an opinion that the media is being driven by liberal infestation in the school systems, and that the media is in turn driving the left political wing.
The tail may be wagging the dog.
Pollution is not significantly reduced it’s moved to China. Trillions in compliance and lost income for Western firms. EPAs in Western countries (we have one equally bad in Australia) force many firms to relocate, sell or close. The major beneficiary is China. Our associates in China can’t believe how stupid we are with our overly harsh pollution regulations.
China has extreme pollution in many cities. Their Government is taking small steps to reduce pollution; however, they often falsely claim they’re doing so as action against climate change.
The EU in particular went feral with its directives killing many industries for little to no benefit. On the other hand, the EU did nothing about the rise of diesel cars (primarily German designed and made). DPFs are an after-thought that are still not working so well.
One of the few air pollutants that is shown to cause asthma attacks is small particulates from diesel engines. The EuroEcos are causing many asthma attacks by pushing diesel.
Perhaps so, but it’s largely prevalent in cities. The countryside has been living cheek by jowl with cheap diesel to deliver cheap food with no detrimental effect for generations.
But the city dwelling wealthy, liberal left elites simply must ensure their welfare is considered before anyone else’s. But they choose to live in a city. No one is forcing them to do so.
Rubbish. Two studies in Europe recently have shown that asthma is at least 30-50% over- diagnosed here. Both children and adults are told they have asthma because they are wheezing and the diagnosis sticks for life. When doctors went back and tested for actual asthma, they didn’t find it a sizeable number of cases.
So asthma is “increasing” because doctors are misdiagnosing.
Reference please. The EPA’s illegal experiments recently don’t seem to have had any impact in this regard so I suspect any “evidence” is from a model.
I used to live in London and had minor difficulties and the odd attack. Now I live in the French countryside my problems with my asthma are enormous.
Sadly very true, a friend’s boy aged ten had occasional bouts of “wheeziness” and was taken to the doctor where he was diagnosed with mild asthma. The fact he was close to being obese and performed no exercise normally was apparently disregarded.
Very true. When younger, I went skiing, but on leaving the hotel first thing I had to “acclimatise” for 5-10 minutes before doing anything remotely strenuous (like walking about!) thereafter I could ski up to my level of general fitness (and I was a club squash player up to age forty).
SteveT
Breathing into a paper bag ameliorates an asthma attack as it increases CO2 levels in the lungs. Increased CO2 levels would reduce asthmatic attacks. What other real pollutants do is another matter.
Oh yes our Doctor advised COLD AIR is the primary trigger for my son’s asthma; in particular cold air on his face. The irony!
I was told that, but only after taking a walk in very cold (below freezing) air to cure an attack based on my long-suffering brother’s advice. It worked.
I think every sufferer has different triggers and cures.
Cold air is the recommended treatment for whooping cough. Something to do with cold air reducing the swelling of air passages.
P.S. https://www.epa.gov/asthma/asthma-awareness-month-event-planning-kit
Any reasonable person could conclude from the science, that the reduction of pollutants may be the cause of increasing asthma. Maybe our bodies have evolved to deal with exposure to wood smoke and it’s removal is causing a reaction? Just sayin!
Expert opinion is the basis for EPA statements of increasing asthma from today’s ambient pollution levels. Expert opinion panels are assembled to address a specific question. Those who are invited to the expert panel are a select group whose published opinions are already known. The opinion coming out of the expert panel is then a fait accompli.
Two decades ago, inhaled corticosteroids were considered the gold standard for treatment of asthma. Other drugs like theophylline and chromolyn were considered toxic and antique. The studies that inhaled corticosteroids always had caveats which were ignored. There were animal studies almost 50 years old demonstrating that at least 1/3 were “steroid resistant” for a number of maladies. There was high dose steroid use in cancer treatments some of whom were asthmatic and yet, some of these cancer patients with asthma would have asthma exacerbations while on high dose corticosteroids.
Today it is recognized that at least 1/3 to maybe 45% of asthmatics are steroid resistant either altogether of transiently. FDA expert panels at the time of introduction of inhaled corticosteroids into treatment best practice protocols gave their blessings that corticosteroids were safe and effective admonishing families and some doctors reluctant to begin steroids as being steroid phobic.
How did we get to where we are today in asthma care and treatment? Expert panels convened to provide an answer that would confirm a position of some Government agency. Does this sound familiar.
The purported saving of 90,000 people from exacerbations is no more or no less than a Federal Government convened expert panel to give cover for an agenda. Again, the lessons learned 2,500 years ago by the Greeks, there is not one asthma, rather, there are multiple asthmas which, more likely than not require multiple approaches to mitigation.
My pet theory is that asthma is often triggered because we started living in ‘enclosed’ houses with fitted carpets. A buildup of dust & mites in these carpets (which are impossible to clean and beat like removable carpets) and all of the strange chemicals in the carpets and underlay are likely to cause an allergic reaction I reckon.
These days houses and offices are becoming hermetically sealed, making it worse. Once when I turned off AC in a hotel (because I don’t like AC or the noise), I woke up gasping for breath at about 2am. I was literally starting to suffocate because no air gets in at all except via the AC!
If we stated embracing fresh air again instead of being terrified of it, I’m sure asthma levels would go down. The windows in my house are never closed, except at night in the depths of winter, but I live in a warm climate.
A similar effect on many health problems may be caused by not being terrified of the sun, too.
The moment they utter ‘carbon pollution, that’s it.
There’s no point in listening to a word they say.
Strangely enough:
Asthma patients taught to habitually resist the urge to take deep breaths when experiencing symptoms were rewarded with fewer symptoms and healthier lung function, according to a new study from Southern Methodist University, Dallas.
For their study, one group of asthma patients used biofeedback to monitor their breathing for reassurance they were getting sufficient oxygen. The patients practiced shallower, shorter breaths to increase their intake of carbon dioxide, CO2. A second group also practiced slower breathing, but without biofeedback.
“This study goes to the heart of hyperventilation — which is deep, rapid breathing that causes a drop in CO2 gas in the blood. That makes a person feel dizzy and short of breath,” Ritz said. “Patients in our study increased CO2 and reduced their symptoms. And over a six-month period we saw in the biofeedback group an actual improvement in the physiology of their lungs.”
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/11/141104111631.htm
As I said, no point whatsoever.
This sounds exactly like the Buteyko method – but this was discovered about fifty to sixty years ago. It has been the standard basic treatment in Russia for a very long time.
SteveT
Of course people with asthma now have to cope with weaker inhalers because the old ones had CFC’s, and the government refused to allow a justifiable exemption to allow the better inhalers to continue to be used. All in the name of saving the environment.
This EPA inhaler rule is a regulation that Pruit/Trump should undo at once.
Quite possibly, my current problems began shortly after the changeover – not sure exactly how long after, but certainly the inhalers are far less effective now.
SteveT
What is it about this alarmist mumbo jumbo that turns otherwise intelligent and inquisitive newspeople like Chris Wallace into a quivering bowl of “OMG we are all going to die” lemmings. He has to be in on the hoax.
The press is built on OMG. Boring doesn’t sell.
An exhaled breath is roughly 4% CO2, in other words normal physiological concentration of CO2 in the fine structures of the lung is 40,000 ppm (half the time, anyway). The notion that an increase in atmospheric CO2 from 350 to 400 ppm could trigger asthma is patently ridiculous. Asthma has all kinds of triggers, mostly biologic in origin. Diesel exhaust particulates in a certain size range have been reported to be problematic in terms of triggering asthma attacks. Yet the regulations in question were justified on the basis of reducing CO2 emissions, as though the health benefits would flow from that. If you want to target particulates, then make the case on that basis. The projected health benefits from the regs are based on nothing more than hand-waving, and Pruitt should have said so.
IIRC, the EPA’s claim of health benefits from the CPP was not based on its reducing CO2 emissions, but on reducing the unhealthy by-products of coal combustion. (And liquid fuel combustion, to a minor extent.)
Remember that the incoming blood is going to be at a lower pH and contain more than 4% carbon dioxide, Most of it is carboxyhemoglobin, which the lower pH facilitates exchange at the alveolus. The now outgoing oxygenated blood has far less carbon dioxide in it (dissolved and protein bound) and far more oxygen, where the higher pH facilitates the exchange and has far more oxygen in it (dissolved and protein bound, primarily oxyhemoglobin).
If it hasn’t, this thread should be sent to Wallace.
“The real issue is how much we contribute to it and measuring that with precision.”
Exactly. If that precision shows that our contribution is negligible and our CO2 emissions are an insignificant amount of that, what’s the problem?
Typo in the headline, I think you mean “Justification.”
However, I first read it as “Justifiction” – which makes perfect sense.
American Lung Association Never Mentions CO2 as Harmful to Human Health
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/04/02/american-lung-association-never-mentions-co2-as-harmful/
Pruitt’s mistake was in not asking Wallace ‘Have you actually read these reports and surveys you are referring to or are you just regurgitating talking points that were handed to you? Did you check their sources and references? How do you know they are valid? Ohhh, so you haven’t read them yourself and you have not checked their references. Well, in that case I will have to look at those studies and reports, analyze them and then get back to you and your viewers, with an intelligent, reasoned response.” I would then issue a demand to any news outlet that wants to interview me. “If you are going to play ‘Gotcha’ by asking me about some report or study, etc. you must advise me or my staff in advance, and give us a copy of the report or study so that I can research the matter and give an informed opinion.” And let the public know that those are the conditions.
“But sir — NOAA says…”
Actually, asthma attacks are improved by breathing in moist humid air with a greater concentration of CO2 than in surrounding ambient air. Oxygen rich dry air can bring on an asthma attack at worst, and make it more difficult to recover from an attack at best. CO2 helps asthma, not worsens it.
David Middleton, your EPA link and quote are out of date: “the annual standard for PM2.5 is met whenever the 3 year average of the annual mean PM2.5 concentrations for designated monitoring sites in an area is less than or equal to 15.0 µg/m3.” The PM2.5 annual standard was lowered to 12.0 µg/m3 several years ago.
In 2015 I retired from a long career in air pollution analysis, forecasting, air monitoring data validation, and air monitoring quality assurance and I agree completely with your assessment. We are well past the point of diminishing returns and have reached the point of greatly diminishing returns when it comes to air pollution control. From what I recall reading, serious asthma is more correlated with respiratory illness in winter than anything else.
I think I copied that quote and link in 2012. I should have checked to see if it was still valid.
Eventually, all of the national standards will be out of date.
@oz4
I love contributions from experts. While I have training in ‘air pollution analysis’ I do not have much experience being in nuclear power.
“… have reached the point of greatly diminishing returns …”
I would say we have reached the point of no returns. During the Bush Admin standards were lowered to the level where dose response curves were flat. This was not costly because most (all?) of the US was in attainment or on the way because of advancement in pollution control technology.
POTUS Obsma lowered them some more, not based on science, but to show he was tough on the environment. For places not in attainment, very expensive.
One of the things I noticed about the debate many years ago about the health affects of coal power, is that coal plants were blamed even in places like California.
Can an ‘air pollution analysis’ explain what physical property causes pollutants to migrate from areas of ‘good air quality’ like around coal plants to places with ‘good air quality’ but lots of cars and increase pollution?
It is simple. Chris Wallace has a car. If I wanted to improve his air quality, I would take away his car. This solution also works for AGW.
I would also like to take away electricity from those who want to close coal and also nuke plants. This would be a futile since many are not smart enough to know where energy comes from other than pixie dust.
Retired Kit P, long-range air pollution transport is dominant for ozone and PM2.5 in the US. For a given metropolitan area, incoming background levels often account for as much as 80-90 percent of the peak design values for ozone. Likewise, for PM2.5 on an annual average basis, incoming background levels typically account for about 80-95 percent of the annual average. That doesn’t leave much room for lowering concentrations by adding local control measures.
Yes, though many do not realize that green plants, particularly when stressed, release significant amounts of VOCs, enough to make ground level ozone detectable by my nose. We are so far into the land of diminishing returns, with respect to ‘pollution’, that the natural background pollution will overwhelm our control technologies in most urban areas. Places like LA and the Great Smoky Mountains will remain pretty much as hazy as ever. We could revert all of these rules back to 1990/92 levels and not be able to detect it, again, for most of the USA.
It’s already forgotten that Obama gave the political advice to EPA to watch ‘most possible damage’.
So the EPA’s regulations were drawn out of thin air without any base at all.
Obama also thought a breathalyzer was a treatment for asthma
Sorry. Lost you at “Obama thought”.
The youtube clip [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxxxGUeZtno] is funny however. Shows his “thinking” process when the teleprompter fails.
EPA ‘science’:
https://www.google.at/search?q=children%27s+drawings&oq=children%27s+drawings&aqs=chrome.
I suspect that Pruitt had been instructed not to dispute matters relating to the Social Cost of Carbon, for some politics reason—presumably because Trump hasn’t decided whether to confront warmism head-on or not, or not yet. He may feel he’s taking enough flack already.
My wife suffers from asthma. I think one of the main factors driving her asthma, is that she is allergic to just about everything, except CO2. She is finally getting effective treatments — she has already gone through two series of allergen injections providing temporary relief, but with her allergies coming back worse than ever. She is receiving Xolair shots — effective, but very expensive.
Try therapies geared towards CO2 enhanced breathing treatments. It works. My family suffers from reactive airway disease that brings on asthma including unceasing coughing. I have gained relief just breathing in and out with a plastic bag. My own exhaled breath is moist and has CO2 in it.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/11/141104111631.htm
My wife and two of my children suffer from asthma. It’s too bad the US and UN banned the old inhalers (CFC based inhalers). The old CFC inhalers forced the medicine right into the lungs and the improvements were immediate. The new inhalers are much more expensive and do not do the job during an actual attack. We’ve had to use nebulizers or go to the emergency room to treat something, that 15 years ago, was easily treatable.
Indeed. I saw this with my mother, who after years of ‘mini-strokes’ got to the point where aspiration would trigger bronchitis. The inhaler she was given wouldn’t work well most of the time. In the office/hospital, where the meds were given via pre-moistened pressurized oxygen blown through the liquid containing the bronchial dilators worked virtually all of the time.
Hunter nailed it: ‘The clear and correct answer is “CO2 has nothing to do with asthma, Chris.” ‘.
However the paper above is flawed. Firstly it attempts to show a negative correlation with asthma PREVALENCE rather than the number of ATTACKS. Secondly it falls into the trap of confusing CORRELATION with CAUSATION.
Judging from two recent papers in Europe, asthma isn’t increasing – the misdiagnosis is though.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/03/15/half-a-million-children-with-asthma-may-not-actually-have-condit/
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/jan/28/1m-people-uk-wrongly-diagnosed-asthma
Both papers looked at children and adults who had been diagnosed and tested for the clinical symptoms rather than the classic wheezing. between 30 and 50% did not have actual asthma. GPs had simply heard wheezing and said “asthma”.
So now we have fictitious increases leading to unnecessary regulation whilst spending huge sums to alleviate the symptoms of diseases people don’t have.
Marvelous.
And… When the misdiagnosis of asthma is rectified, the EPA can claim that their regulatons reduced the incidence of asthma.
The “Harvard Six Cities” research was and is the basis for EPA’s “findings” about PMA 2.5. Asthma is related to ALLERGENS, not particulates.
“So it was a shock to Nolen —today the Lung Association’s assistant vice president of national policy and advocacy—when Harvard School of Public Health researchers highlighted still deadly air pollution in the small city of Harriman, Tennessee that was taking years from people’s lives.
“It was not one of those places you’d think of as having a pollution problem,” Nolen said. Nolen, who joined the Lung Association the year after the study was published and who authors its annual State of the Air report, has followed the far-reaching effects of the Harvard Six Cities Study, including a new suite of U.S. air pollution regulations that has seen the nation’s air grow cleaner, political controversy over those regulations that continues today, and a new generation of studies investigating avenues opened by Six Cities’ findings.
“It’s a landmark, no question about it,” Nolen said of the Harvard study. “[It has] just absolutely been fundamental to the work we’ve been doing over the last 20 years to reduce particle pollution across the country…Because of this work showing an association, it was easier to convince people that this wasn’t just an arbitrary health effect, it was lives lost.”
The Six Cities Study documented the health effects of air pollution over nearly two decades in Harriman; St. Louis, Missouri; Watertown, Massachusetts; Steubenville, Ohio; Portage, Wisconsin; and Topeka, Kansas. It broke new ground by highlighting for the first time the danger from the smallest particles, no bigger than 2.5 microns in diameter—one fourth the size in the air pollution standards at the time. It linked pollution from those particles not only to ill health, as other studies had before, but directly to deaths, which were 26 percent higher in the most polluted city—Steubenville—than in the least.”
I have been to Steubenville, lived through it, saw nothing untoward…
According to the “science”, these people should be dropping like flies. Yet they aren’t.
Obviously they are science deniers.
Another case of flawed modelling and bad theories.
By those who make a living out of fear mongering not fixing things.
If CO2 causes asthma, are asthmatics causing their own illness every time they breath out? When you put it that way, doesn’t it sound preposterous?
What Pruitt should have said was, “Chris, the CPP is about reducing CO2, but there is no evidence that CO2 causes asthma or makes it worse. There is simply no valid scientific basis for their 90,000 number. We would be much better off finding the real causes to asthma rather than chasing non-existent problems.”
As with many things, something preposterous may contain an element of truth. It is the way one breathes out that matters. If you lose too much CO2 (deep breathing and through the mouth) one can “blow off” a lot of CO2 which is a loss to the blood chemistry, this can lead to asthmatic problems.
SteveT
So why was Pruitt so ill prepared? The answers to Wallace’s question is clearly there but he was, like Pruitt, too lazy to find them. But then, he is a reporter so we expect ignorance from him.
So many times in the climate business, answers to questions are in the data, but the data are seldom used. Can’t these networks and government administrators find some Middleton’s out there to advise them?
The problem is that data-driven rebuttals to sound byte lies tend to be complex and work best with visual aids.
Who was it saying a lie travels around the world before the truth gets its socks on? It seems sound bytes sell soap and since our reporters are no longer interested in truth, but soap selling, we are in trouble.
haven’ t looked but wonder if the increase coincides with the push to over insulate buildings.
It is far more complicated than that, for instance per capita where are the highest asthma levels?
Certainly among the highest are New Zealand and Australia – go figure.
SteveT
So, a minuscule increase of a trace gas causes changes in asthma symptoms? CO2, is there anything it cannot do?
Are asthma rates increasing?
A few years before retiring I was diagnosed with asthma and given an inhaler by my doctor. I have never needed it.
This was based on an interview. When I was young I lived in a cold climate and ran to get from place to place. Sometimes after running hard when it was 30 below, my chest would tighten and it would hurt a little to breath.
For many years as an adult, I had an annual physical and a breathing test as part of the job requirement to wear emergency breathing equipment under arduous conditions.
Now I am a statistic as a asthma victim.
Ranks right up there with the misuse of fish-eating pregnant women and mercury-related IQ impacts to justify regulatory programs. And then they have the gall to wonder why we question their methods? Disgraceful.