Monday, March 30, 2009

QOTD

Though linked a few days ago, here's another quote from an editorial in Tuesday's Investor's Business Daily (links added):
Environmentalists celebrated a victory on Monday when the White House acknowledged that the Environmental Protection Agency had transmitted its proposed finding that global warming is a public health threat. The U.S. Supreme Court directed the EPA two years ago to decide that question, ruling that if it found warming to be a threat, it must under the law regulate CO2 and other greenhouse gases.

The EPA's dire finding echoes last month's testimony by Howard Franklin, who directs the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Environmental Health, before a Senate Committee. Franklin said the CDC "considers climate change a serious public health concern" that could accelerate illnesses and deaths from heat waves, air pollution, and food- and water-borne diseases.

But warming may actually save lives. Warmer weather means longer growing seasons for both food and the raw materials for biofuels. Ironically, the push to biofuels has caused hunger and food riots around the world as crops are diverted and food prices rise. The environment is harmed due to increased biofuel cultivation and agricultural runoff.

A recent BBC report noted that 20,000 deaths are linked to the cold each year in the U.K. and that those deaths fell 3% a year from 1971 through 2003. Thomas Gale Moore, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution who has studied and written extensively about global warming, believes as many as 40,000 American lives would be spared each year.

5 comments:

OBloodyHell said...

> A recent BBC report noted that 20,000 deaths are linked to the cold each year in the U.K. and that those deaths fell 3% a year from 1971 through 2003. Thomas Gale Moore, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution who has studied and written extensively about global warming, believes as many as 40,000 American lives would be spared each year.

And it's a fact that far fewer people die from heat prostration than from exposure to cold.

And this doesn't even consider the difference caused by more flus and colds among older people.

Bob Cosmos said...

I'm not sure about all of this, but,I do understand that there is an inverse relationship between pirate attacks and rising temperature. Could this be why Obama has refrained from interjecting in Somalia? [He asks in a quite serious tone.]

bobn said...

M_O_M has explained previously how dire this is. We Are So Screwed.

OBloodyHell said...

I've noted that there is a strong correlation between Cranio-Rectal Insertion Syndrome and Belief in Anthropogenic Global Warming.

Considering the dire state of research on solving CRIS, perhaps we need to institute a program to submit for special study those who believe in AGW. I think we should fund a nationwide set of "special clinics" which will collect together and help examine those with serious belief in AGW. It might help lead to a solution with regards to CRIS.

More critically, I've heard there's a massive correlation between multiple trepaning and reduced belief in/concern over AGW. More efforts might be done in this regard to see if this isn't a viable solution to CRIS.


I mean, all I'm sayin' is... maybe there's something to all these correlations.

:op

OBloodyHell said...

Anyone thinking I should change my name to O Bloody Swift, btw?

LOL.

The verif word, btw: "bleak"