HEALTH RISK: Climate change may exacerbate air pollution and air quality concerns, increasing the incidence of respiratory and heart diseases
Image: iStockPhoto
Congress should allow U.S. EPA to proceed with plans to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, a coalition of public health groups said yesterday.
"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is responsible for protecting the public's health from climate change, and we urge you to fully support the EPA in fulfilling its responsibilities," reads a letter the coalition sent yesterday to Congress and the White House. "We also urge opposition to any efforts to weaken, delay or block the EPA from protecting the public's health from these risks."
Eighteen national public health organizations signed the letter, along with 66 state-level groups and public health experts in 36 states.
Republicans and some Democrats, including Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), have sought to block or delay EPA climate regulations set to take effect on Jan. 2, 2011. Industry groups and a handful of states also oppose the EPA rules, which would affect factories, power plants, refineries and other large industrial sources of heat-trapping emissions.
"I think that the pushback is, 'This is not really what we in Congress had intended when we wrote the Clean Air Act,'" said Jerome Paulson, a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics' Council on Environmental Health and a physician at Children's National Medical center in Washington, D.C.
But the pediatrician said he rejects that logic.
Children, elderly and poor at most risk
"I think that my response to that is, the Clean Air Act actually does cover this," Paulson said. "The Supreme Court has said that the Clean Air Act does cover this and that the EPA needs to respond. ... Every moment that we wait to start to get a better handle on the situation delays any mitigation."
Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, said it "just makes good common sense" to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, calling climate change "one of the greatest public health challenges of our time."
Benjamin and others who signed the letter said they believe climate change's health effects will be far-reaching, citing a recent federal report that concludes climate change will have "direct health impacts."
Rising temperatures will exacerbate air pollution and air quality concerns, increasing the incidence of respiratory and cardiac illnesses, the report predicts. Climate change is also expected to alter the frequency of extreme weather events like droughts and floods, alter the distribution of infectious diseases and increase the risk of food and water shortages.
The world's most vulnerable groups, including children, the elderly and the poor, are expected to suffer the most from climate-related disease, experts said yesterday.
"Climate change makes air pollution worse, and therefore, more children will have bronchitis and pneumonia," said Paulson, discussing one potential health impact of rising temperatures. "More children will visit hospitals and be admitted to hospitals because of asthma. Air pollution permanently injures the lungs of children and causes asthma in children."
Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. www.eenews.net, 202-628-6500
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17 Comments
Add CommentThis proposal might make perfect sense, except that even if the U.S. eliminated all CO2 emissions the rest of the world's activities could still degrade our citizen's health.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI won't have any dogs barking all night in my back yard, but all my neighbors do...
CO2 emissions harm human health about as much as water vapor emissions do. Humans produce CO2 and breath out a far greater concentration of CO2 than will ever be reached in the atmosphere. This claim is silly. Congress never intended to regulate CO2 through the Clean Air Act. Perhaps the next Congress can clear up this issue.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMany real people are harmed by these proposals - jobs lost, stress increased, reduced standard of living and all that entails. When implementing massive changes, those in favor cite tiny improvements * huge numbers affected.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo truly evaluate a proposal we also need to count the (moderate or major harm) * smaller numbers of people. Overlooking that side of the equation indicates an agenda-driven proposal.
Besides, I like a warmer climate. If we can control the Earth's climate, when do we vote for the preferred setting?
@ soccerdad go sit in a room full of water vapor (a sauna) and then go sit in a room full of CO2,let us know how that turns out for you. it's not as though anyone has ever died from carbon dioxide poisoning, right? The build up of CO2 has never been an issue on the ISS or the space shuttle for NASA, right?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@CBargainer the condition of the environment doesn't just effect a small number of people--it effects everyone. you may not agree with a particular method but to say we shouldn't be more careful about maintaining the health of our environment is wreckless--the really unfortunate thing is, you will not have to pay the price, your children and grandchildren will. Industry will adapt and remain profitable in spite of the changes in regulation and if they can't or won't then they aren't fit to continue doing business. The environment effects our health and quality of life, when it goes bad our health goes bad. asthma, heart and lung disease, and cancer rates, among other things, go up. did you consider those stresses on our health care and economic systems in your analysis?
It is not surprising that Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) voted against the clean air act. He will, and their soon to be new Senator 'Governor Joe Manchin', will vote against anything that has the word 'green' or 'clean' in front of it. West Virginia is #1 in the nation in Chronic Child Disease caused by the pollution of coal and natural gas fracking. West Virginia is also #1 in the nation in Child Abuse Deaths - caused by the mental retardation brought on by breathing too much coal smoke and then allowing these mentally retarded children to marry when they reach 12 years-old. So is it rally surprising that Rockefeller would vote against anything that has the words 'green' or 'clean' in it? West Virginia puts profit ahead of the health and life of their children. In West Virginia they believe that you can always make other children but you cannot make another job.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTonio18,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe dose makes the poison, and the dose of CO2 will never get high enough in the atmosphere to get anywhere close to that required to negatively affect human health. You can burn all the coal in the earth and the resulting atmosphere will not affect human health.
So, this entire line of reasoning that CO2 is hazardous to human health is bogus. But it's the only way to bend the Clean Air Act to apply to the situation. That's why these misguided souls are making the argument.
Especially since CO2 is plant food and is continuously metabolized at a tremendous rate. Oh, no! We might actually see crop yields go up by increasing atmospheric CO2 levels. Horrors.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs a scientific magazine, SA, should be at the forefront debunking this junk science. CO2 is a trace gas in our atmosphere. In order to even begin posing a risk to human health, it's concentration would have to increase from a few parts per million to 5% of the total atmosphere. In other words, greater than the average amount of water vapor across the entire planet.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPut yourself in China's shoes. The US has gotten rich through industry fueled on carbon-based energy. On average, China is still poor. Per capita, the US emits several times what China does. China's agriculture is threatened by climate change. So, on the one hand, they are seriously interested in reducing CO2 output, but on the other hand, they'll be danged if they will agree to any commitments which slow their march toward the kind of prosperity the US enjoys, prior to the US making some commitment of their own.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's a shame the EPA has to be brought in to do what needs to be done, but too many Americans are living in an alternate reality where climate zones aren't shifting and plants don't need water or specific temperature ranges to grow well.
@FGrough,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Especially since CO2 is plant food and is continuously metabolized at a tremendous rate."
This makes as much sense as saying that oxygen is a plant food. That is none at all.
.". no! We might actually see crop yields go up by increasing atmospheric CO2 levels. Horrors."
Sarcasm from the pig ignorant has never been amusing. Tell me, Fgrough, have you ever gave a thought to the fact that plants may not invest in those portions of it that humans consume? Has it ever occurred to you that weeds will also you use the same elevated CO2 levels or that you may make the plant more yummy for insects as is the case with Soy Beans?
Why is it that you clowns who pontificate about increased plant yields have never ever seemed to have heard of Liebig's Law of the Minimum?
I guess in sum what I want to know is how do you sceptics manage to be so willfully ignorant about subjects you clearly have no clue about?
@CBargainer,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Many real people are harmed by these proposals - jobs lost, stress increased, reduced standard of living and all that entails. When implementing massive changes, those in favor cite tiny improvements * huge numbers affected."
Please: Everyone note CBargainer does not consider children, the elderly and the poor as real people.
So I guess since the public wont buy into this junk science you are going to have to force it down our throats. Take a plastic ball and fill one up with CO2 and one with regular air. Let them sit in the sun and you tell me which one is warmer in two hours of direct sunlight. DING DING DING!!! The one with regular air wins everytime! I have a few questions for anyone truly concerned about warming(including Al Gore): Do you still drive a gasoline/electric powered vehicle? Do you still use any type of plastic product? Do you use electricity? Answer is yes, and that means you don't really give a rats ass about it, it just makes you feel better to spout nonsense and demonize CO2 for the profit of your local tree hugging club. It is what it is.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@Pabsyloud,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"I guess since the public wont buy into this junk science you are going to have to force it down our throats."
Who is this "our" Pabsy? You and the fossil fuel industry? When will you stop repeating, like a concussed parrot, fossil fuel sponsored talking points?
"Take a plastic ball and fill one up with CO2 and one with regular air."
When you say regular air? Do you mean the air that you find at say sea level in the tropics or air that you find at say 30,000 feet regular air? Inquiring minds want to know because I wonder if you know that after a certain altitude and the atmosphere becomes bone dry? Yet, CO2 is a well mixed gas THROUGH OUT the atmosphere.
"DING DING DING!!"
I think you mean to say "DING DONG!"
"I have a few questions for anyone truly concerned about warming(including Al Gore): Do you still drive a gasoline/electric powered vehicle?"
No, but if I did would it mean that the physics is somehow debunked?
"Do you still use any type of plastic product?"
Let me try this line of reasoning for say around the mid-19th century: Have you ever used a sugar product when consuming food? Have you ever worn clothes that were made of cotton? Smoked or chewed tobacco? If you answer yes to any of these then you are a hypocrite in your opposition to slavery.
Does it ever bother you Loudmouth that you are using the same sort of recycled arguments that the slave masters were using over a century and a half ago?
"Do you use electricity?"
News Flash: Electricity does care how it produced: Whether it is via hydroelectric, nuclear, solar PV, Windmill, geothermal, or tidal. Hell even in this country electricity via coal burning is less than half.
Correction:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis: News Flash: Electricity does care how it produced:
Should say: News Flash: Electricity does NOT care how it produced:
One more time. This: News Flash: Electricity does NOT care how it produced:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisShould say: Electricity does NOT care how it is produced:
Sigh.
The nation's fleet of over 100 coal plants is responsible for 57 percent of the electricity generated in the U.S., more than any other single electricity fuel source.http://www.powerscorecard.org/tech_detail.cfm?resource_id=2 LOL Please come up with better stuff. Electricity may not care where it comes from but the people that have to pay for it do, and it is cheapest by coal. CO2 cannot trap heat, that is not the cause. We have been warming since the last ice age, why all of a sudden in the past ten years has it become vital to pass legislation now to stop something that has been happening for 10,000 years? And as for slavery I bet you have a dog at home in a cage, or a bird. Hypocrite.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@Pabsy Loud Mouth,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"The nation's fleet of over 100 coal plants is responsible for 57 percent of the electricity generated in the U.S., more than any other single electricity fuel."
Wrong. According to the Energy Information Agency (EIA) coal produces 48.2 percent of energy in the USA. That information is current as of January 2010
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/figes1.html
The website you cited dates from the year 2000. How about trying something a little more current? Coals share of electricity production has fallen by nearly 10% over the past ten years.
"Electricity may not care where it comes from but the people that have to pay for it do, and it is cheapest by coal"
Wrong. Have you considered the cost of the dead miners? Where do they fit into your analysis? How about destroyed streams, deaths from smog production and the destruction of ecosystems from acid rain. Oh, I forgot if you do not see the subsidized price on your electric bill then the death and destruction does not matter.
"CO2 cannot trap heat, that is not the cause."
Sorry but that is dead wrong. You can observe CO2 heat trapping characteristics: Take a CO2, IR camera, a candle and a vertical piece of glass tubing. Place the camera on one side of the tube outside of it and put a candle on the other side of the tube outside of the tube. Light the candle and look through the IR camera. Note what you see. Now fill the tube with CO2, watch how the CO2 appears to snuff out the flame on the camera.
Of course you could just watch the whole experiment on YOU TUBE:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeYfl45X1wo
There are other ways of demonstrating the heat catching capacity of CO2 such as was demonstrated by John Tyndall back in 1859.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Tyndall/
Then of course we can observe the same thing happen on a planetary scale with IR cameras mounted on satellites observing the the falling amount of IR failing to escape the atmosphere decade over decade.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v410/n6826/abs/410355a0.html
Why is Pabsty that you are so ignorant of science that has been around for over a century?