What is often missing in the political debate over the environment is the direct cost of pollution on the health and lives of Americans. While the Bush Administration was attacking environmental regulations across the board, officials rarely acknowledged that the lower standard meant more children with asthma and earlier deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. Indeed, most citizens fail to understand that pollution shortens their lives. They need to read this week’s issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.
The study found that the average drop in pollution seen across 51 metropolitan areas between 1980 and 2000 appears to have added nearly five more months to people’s lives. For example, Pittsburgh’s clearer air meant people there could expect to live nearly 10 months longer.
Long-term exposure to dirty air — specifically, the tiny specks known as fine-particulate air pollution — shortens lives and contributes to cardiovascular and lung disease.
This study reinforces earlier estimates on the health impact of smog, truck emissions, and other environmental problems. Indeed, some studies have suggested that a nonsmoker living in a polluted city has about the same risk of dying of heart disease as a former smoker.
For the full story, click here.
‘The EPA is SUPPOSED to do a lot of things. Too bad they are a guard dog with no teeth. If you don’t punish the guilty, fascists never learn. I hate to say it, but maybe China does understand capitalism better than the West.’
—————-
EPA has a Regional Enforcement Divisions which employ assistant regional counsels to settle penalty matters, but eho are capable of brinng them before administrative law judges for trial, and who also have a Criminal Division which works with the FBI and the local US attorney for prosecution by the Justice Department when warranted.
These actions result in fines, abatement, clean-up costs, jail time and other remedies but do not include individual actions taken in the private sector.
Medical Study Finds Direct Link Between [Removing Melamine From Milk Products] and Extending Lives
http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01/22/asia/milk.3-413815.php
Medical Study Finds Direct Link Between [Reducing Blood Loss] and Extending Lives
yada, yada, yada
Gyges:
I agree with Jill, but I have people with your qualifications already under my employ.
Gyges,
Your posts prove you have a lot of skills! Job hunting is awful. I’d even being willing to pray for you on that one!! Good luck.
Mespo,
It was more interesting then looking for a job, which is what I was taking a break from. Plus I hate it when people argue science without doing their homework. By the way, if anyone wants to hire somebody with no particular skills, I’m available.
Gyges & Mike:
I am certainly enjoying your little repartee’ with bron98. How do you both have patience to deal with these kids? I will never know. Carry on!
My favorite “kids say the darndest things moment” so far:
“Men will be brothers only when they abandon altruism as their moral code and engage in free and open trade with their neighbors free from government compulsion (read point of a gun).
oh by the way I thought that Bush did not fight that war hard enough. We fire bombed German and Japanese civilians because they supported immoral regimes. When a country goes to war it must not engage in half measures.”
Perfectly twisted, but pretty good vocabulary for twelve year old thought patterns.
“you lefties are about the most ignorant bunch of nincompoops I have ever come across. Anti-life, anti-human, anti-mind and just about anti everything that encourages and promotes human life and well being.”
“Liberalism is an affront to the dignity of man. I live for the day when your philosophy is relegated to the dust bin of history, too many people have died for altruism in service to the state (read National Socialism in Germany, Communism in China and Russia and North Korea, Pol Pots Cambodia, Ho’s Vietnam, Somalia, Sudan). Man does not belong to the state, he is an end in himself. He owes allegiance to himself alone, his future, his happiness, his prosperity. My succes does not entitle you to the fruits of my labor.”
“and yes the left is vary intolerant of others world views as evidenced by your rant.”
Bron,
The left is intolerant? What about your screeds above. You sound like an objectivist in your rants. I’d read all of Ayn Rand and Nathaniel(early)Brandon’s stuff by the time I was eighteen. It had its appeal but ultimately even at that young age it was obvious how childish it was. Objectivism played out to its natural end will lead to the people with the best weapons running everything and enslaving everyone else. Sorry, I know this might come as a shock but sociopathy is real and the sociopaths and psychopaths are the ultimate winners of the Objectivists’ civilization sweepstakes. Your inability to understand that is immature at best and/or totally self-centered at the worst. In either event your propensity to cast aspersions really disqualifies you from being someone deserving of interesting discourse.
Bron,
I should mention that I especially expect someone who calls people who disagree with them “ignorant nincompoops” to do at least a little research before spouting off claims.
Bron,
I’m glad there’s a somewhat reasonable person under all that bluster. You should have started with that rather than your nonsensical rant attacking “the left” and comparing people who call for environmental regulations to Nazis. Just know that if you come in here making wild rhetorical statements, you will get called on them.
For instance your absurd rant on Stem cells. First, there are major differences between adult and embryonic stem cells: Adult stem cells can only become a limited number of cell types, but embryonic stem cells can become any cell in the body. Thus you can’t do a straight swap. Second, I would suggest you actually go to pub-med and look through the abstracts for studies involving human (or mice) embryonic stem cells and reconsider the statement “as far as I know there is no clear evidence at this point that indicate they even will work.” I don’t expect the general public to keep up on research, but I do expect people who try to talk about it to.
I think your argument about the need for deregulation is flawed based on one of its premises. I don’t think that human beings or businesses will always put their long term interests over their short term. While I have no problem letting businesses fail, I do have a problem with businesses seriously harming the health and well being of people because of their short-sightedness. I firmly believe that in order for a law to be a just law there needs to be a pressing need for it. I’d say that protecting the lives AND property of every one in the general area of the business is rises to that bar.
Gyges:
I agree that pollution and technology do not have to be connected, in fact the higher the technology the less pollution because you are able to make very efficient use of the fuel so most of it gets used.
All I am saying is that if it comes down to a little pollution or people having a lower standard of living people should come first and not be sacrificed for the spotted owl or mother earth or the snail darter.
the air is much improved since my grandfather was a young man, in the teens and twenties the snow was black with soot from coal burning stoves and boilers in any major city during the winter. So technology has greatly improved our air quality and will continue to do so. What people on the left do not understand is that businessmen are out to make a profit, they are not altuists they are in it for selfish reasons and this is not a bad thing. If I run a coal fired power plant my cost is the cost of coal and my output is megawatts of engergy. The more megawatts of energy I make from a ton of coal the more money I make so does it not benefit me to try and squeeze every ounce of heat from that ton of coal? The more of the coal I burn the less pollution and the cleaner the environment.
Next if we add in government regulations to the mix we can see that money spent on regulation compliance is money not spent on trying to improve my generating capacity which at some point can only come from improvements in combusiton technology. Therefore I submit that government and not the private sector is the cause of pollution and only when you eliminate government regulations and their associated costs will you have clean air and water.
This is a general principle and can be applied to any industry in our economy.
Bron,
A dichotomy is a division into two mutually exclusive groups or objects. A false dichotomy is a logical fallacy in which one presents two choices as the only options.
You seem to think that we either need pollution and technology or live in huts. Technology and clean air not mutually exclusive, and there are all sorts of options balancing production and pollution. You could look at ways to alter existing technologies to produce less pollution. You could research new technologies that produce less pollution. You could change production and consumption habits so that the technology still is used, but only the bare minimum. All of those options reduce pollution and none of them result in humanity returning to living in grass shacks.
Gyges/Mike:
no I am not a republican or a conservative. I have no problem with abortion although I do believe that human life begins at conception, I do not think that humans and dinosaurs lived at the same time, I dont believe that having national health care is for the children it is about power over peoples lives, socialized medicine is the biggest crock of ….. ever perpetrated on man. It leads to inadequate care for all but the dear leaders. OSHA has not done anything to make this country safer if the construction industry is any guide it shows us that when the freemarket gets involved by way of insurance premium refunds you get less lost time accidents because it becomes profitable to be safe (and you thought profit was a dirty word).
if you are talking about embryonic stem cells as far as I know there is no clear evidence at this point that indicate they even will work. much of that work is being done in government funded labs by liberal lackeys while the private sector is working with adult stem cells and coming up with solutions to diease processes.
and yes the left is vary intolerant of others world views as evidenced by your rant. Also by political correctness, by lack of academic freedom, by telling us what we can and cannot eat, that we cannot smoke, that we cannot drink, that we must drive cars that are made more expensive to squeeze out an additional couple of miles per gallon, that we cannot drill for oil, or mine coal, that animals have rights, that because someone makes more than someone else they are obligated to support that person. I could go on and on but even you get the point.
Men will be brothers only when they abandon altruism as their moral code and engage in free and open trade with their neighbors free from government compulsion (read point of a gun).
oh by the way I thought that Bush did not fight that war hard enough. We fire bombed German and Japanese civilians because they supported immoral regimes. When a country goes to war it must not engage in half measures.
Liberalism is an affront to the dignity of man. I live for the day when your philosophy is relegated to the dust bin of history, too many people have died for altruism in service to the state (read National Socialism in Germany, Communism in China and Russia and North Korea, Pol Pots Cambodia, Ho’s Vietnam, Somalia, Sudan). Man does not belong to the state, he is an end in himself. He owes allegiance to himself alone, his future, his happiness, his prosperity. My succes does not entitle you to the fruits of my labor.
and finaly what false dichotomy? do you even know what a dichotomy is?
Long live free market capitalism and liberty!
Poor, poor Bron98, where to begin when a person, in his/her mindless partisanship, spout propagandistic nonsense as if it were eternal truths.
1. Anti-Life: no doubt you refer to the anti-abortion movement that dares to declare itself pro-life. These ninnies dispute science and most religions when it comes to defining where life begins and are too stupid to know it. Besides they supported a murderous group of traitors that killed hundreds of thousands, thousands of our troops, opposed health care for children and tortured people. You call yourself pro-life and have no idea of the horrible irony of that stupid statement.
2. Anti-Human: See above and add all of the administrations policies, such as not enforcing OSHA, to see your boys were the most anti-human administration in US history.
3. Anti-Mind: See all the denial of science that you right wingers have supported through the last eight years. You probably the world is 5,000 years old.
4.Anti everything that encourages and promotes human life and well being: You total fool you’ve lived through the last eight years and you have the ignorance to make this statement?
5. The National Socialists of Germany were mystics too: You dare to imply Nazi tendencies to us? Moron, look at Dick Cheney, that’s a Nazi. You though, would lick his behind if you had a chance.
What a loser you are because no doubt you believe in the truth of your illogical and stupid notions. Your effrontery in calling others nincompoops is breathtaking in its lack of knowledge and general ignorance.
Bron,
I may be anti-life, anti-human, and anti-mind, but at least I don’t resort to false dichotomies to justify my dismissal of any idea that might make me reconsider my world view.
by this logic if we go back to preindustrial times we should live forever. what a crock, I would rather live a happy life and only 84.2 years vs a life of misery as did our ancestors in pre-industrial societies when the air was “pure” but life was short, hard and mean. life expectancy then was about 45-50 years.
you lefties are about the most ignorant bunch of nincompoops I have ever come across. Anti-life, anti-human, anti-mind and just about anti everything that encourages and promotes human life and well being.
By your half a… logic we should all live in mud huts and grass shacks and split wood or burn cow dung, basically living as animals. the great productive capacity of capitalism and individual liberty scare you much as primitive societies were freightened by thunder. what you dont understand you fear.
the National Socialists of Germany were mystics too.
I always get grim amusement when a story like this breaks. Could anyone really doubt that increased air pollutants would prove harmful to life? Yet we always seem to have industrial minions and their shills battling every step of the way against the obvious truths. I say this as someone who is iconoclastic about bandying around a word like truth. In some cases though, this being one of them, there really are obvious truths and the tragedy lies in the power of those who would deny them for greed and power.
Buddha,
I agree about the criminal charges and asset forfeiture. Nothing says, “don’t do this” like jail time and loss of “the precious”!!! These executives know very well the costs of their actions. Incentives like those will help them, “move forward”!
The EPA is SUPPOSED to do a lot of things. Too bad they are a guard dog with no teeth. If you don’t punish the guilty, fascists never learn. I hate to say it, but maybe China does understand capitalism better than the West.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28787126/
If we had done this to the senior execs at Halliburton when that pallet of cash went missing . . . well, you get the idea. Greed should carry a high price, and if that greed led to deaths, then death is an appropriate punishment. The days of “white collar crime” need to be gone. If you ruin lives with a gun or a pen makes no difference – a criminal is a criminal. You want the EPA to be effective? Let them have standing to bring criminal charges and the power to seize corporate assets and then make them USE it.
EPA is supposed to make a cost-benefit analysis of pollution allowance. This study should make it more difficult for them to duck the cost of health care (we won’t count human suffering and death) in their calculations.