HEALTH WARNING: Despite releasing a slew of reports on the negative health impacts of global warming, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will not regulate the greenhouse gas emissions causing it.
Image: ©UGUR EVIRGEN
Global warming is bad for your health, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The agency last week warned in a report that more people will die during heat waves, freshwater supplies will shrink, and diseases will spread in coming years, among other impacts of increasing global temperatures. Just weeks ago, it cautioned that a warming climate will also spawn more smog, which is linked to heart disease and respiratory ills.
The findings confirm earlier ones by international bodies, including the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
But do not expect the EPA to do anything to stave off the potential consequences—at least not under the current administration. The agency has no plans to adopt regulations to stem global warming until President Bush, who has routinely clashed with environmentalists, vacates the White House. Instead, the agency earlier this month released a draft proposal of guidelines for dealing with climate change–causing greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, even though EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson expressed skepticism that they would do any good.
"There is a very distressing disconnect between the research and the policy," says Kim Knowlton, a scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, who studies the health impacts of global warming. "This administration has spent eight years studying the science and now it needs to act."
The EPA did take one tiny step—among the Bush administration's only ones to date—toward tackling global warming last week when it released regs governing how companies may pump and store carbon dioxide underground (to limit climate change) without violating the Safe Drinking Water Act. This "paves the way for technologies that would protect public health and help reduce the effects of climate change," Johnson said in a statement, although the Bush administration canceled the largest planned demonstration of the technology, the so-called FutureGen power plant in Mattoon, Ill.
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15 Comments
Add CommentAs for the carbon dioxide storage--isn't that just a weak physical bond holding it ? What happens when it "burps" out? Local residents die?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen carbon dioxide is pumped into the ground isn't it just held there by a weak physical bond? What happens when it gets "burped" out? Will locals die?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe EPA's new SAP document does not attempt to confirm or deny anything about the IPCC's findings. The EPA's report starts from the presumption of continued global warming and attempts to analyze what consequences could happen. David Biello then leaps to political conclusions not supported by the offered evidence. { ... if people would actually bother to look at the references.} Once in awhile real science appears within Scientific American, but it is increasingly rare. The extraordinary claims of the AGW alarmists need to be accompanied by extraordinary evidence. Alarmist rhetoric isn't peer-reviewed, repeatable, evidence.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI will ask the Pope and George Bush to pray for some Global Cooling.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat will cause me to stop worrying about all the nasty things that the "Warming" is going to do.
I am however confused , as where I live , on the east coast of the North Island of New Zealand, the climate has become cooler and wetter.
Over the 70 years that I have lived in this town, I have noticed that the long hot summers have become milder.
Around 1950 we had a 7 month drought, and 3 - 4 months without rain was a normal summer the 40s and 50s.
I now have lichen growing on my Apricot tree, and it has been on my Plum tree for over 5 years.
This is more like the climate of an area about 1000 feet higher than here.
As all these predictions are based on computer models , they are very prone to uncertainties . Engineers doing water supply predictions don't go any more than 30 years, because that's the limit for any reasonable accuracy. We are all aware that climate changes, and we are now in the most benign period of climate for a million years or two.
I do not think we would enjoy even a little Ice Age.
Sorry about double posting. I have developed a twitch.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThanks, it's always refreshing to read credible sources supporting the cause to help the environment.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think it is important for individuals to find creative ways to help the environment. I came across a neat website that reduces your postal junk mail and benefits the environment. Check it out http://www.simplestop.net
The news heard everywhere these days mentions "Global Warming", sometimes more than once per telecast. Our top environmental scientists are in agreement that the earth is experiencing a warming period. Are they forgetting a key point ?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIs Global Warming, or Global Pollution the Issue?
bfreewithrp, I tried that link - Got error, page not found. \
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBugger!
Not much "scientific" about this short piece of news. Hold on... it's not really news reporting because it's full of the reporter's political opinion. And yet it's much too shallow to qualify as an opinion piece or editorial. Let's see... just announce the release of an EPA report, do a little Bush bashing, quote one scientist from a lefty NGO (nothing "scientific", just some more Bush bashing), then finish it off with a little more Bush bashing. Well, anyway, there's nothing in the Constitution giving EPA any coercive power to regulate, so the less they do of that, the better.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn the underneath of earth crust Where lime or other related minerals or rocks found mostly depth more than 600metre.CO2 pumped which under pressure combines & also enters into pores of the rock. some time brine solution also injected to help the absorption process.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisrcdohare25@yahoo.co.in
Somehow Sciam is placed in front of the link. I hope this connects o.k.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIs Global Warming or Global Pollution the Issue?
it has been proven that cold fusion can produce an inexhaustible source of clean energy that can provide the world with non pollutant power for millions ( not thousands ) of years and it can be produced from sea water...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisnow when it was proven by the scientist ( and he was nominated for noble prize)all of a sudden it was proven not to work ?
why do we let the oil companies pay these scientists out and fuck our world up for their own financial benefit..it wont effect you and me but it will affect our grandkids and when will it end ???????
thats true mate the earth has apparently gone through many climate changes and this is just another one so stop blaming humans
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRE: global warming. What about the impact of all those icebreaker ships on the Arctic Ocean, North Atlantic & in Canada -- breaking up ice into smaller chunks???? was an environmental impact study ever done on this? Do an experiment at home breaking up a solid mass of ice and not let it re-freeze consistently. So you can't measure the micro differences in degrees -- use your eyes to tell you what happens.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI submit that the constant use of icebreaker ships is the major contributing factor to the break-up of the arctic ice cap.
Global Warming is a theory designed to keep paychecks coming to certain scientists and for Al Gore to look smart and raise money for his wife's foundations and the Bilderburgers & the New World Order etc, etc.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHas anyone considered the impact of icebreaker ships used in the Arctic Oceans by the USA, Canada, Russia, Norway etc ...was an environmental impact study ever done on this?
I submit that the constant use of icebreaker ships in the Arctic Oceans are the cause of the break up of the polar ice cap.
Do an experiment at home with a pan of water of which the top 1/2 is frozen. Break it up, refreeze it and endlessly repeat it and if you have eyes to see, you'll note a significant change in the thickness, density & shape of the ice molecules.
Every time an icebreaker ship penetrates the frozen ocean, it leaves behind minute traces of the materials on the bow of the ship used to break the ice. Thus the ice is contaminated with molecules of minerals, paint, plastic and who knows what else. The ice and the water is polluted and thus the formation of pure ice molecules is altered drastically.