Bfgrn
Gold Member
- Apr 4, 2009
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Jeff Schweitzer: Warning: Drinking Tea Party Rhetoric May Cause Cancer
That the Grand Old Party is hostile to environmental regulation is no grand revelation. But the most recent assault on the EPA is, even for Republicans and Tea Party enthusiasts, an unusually reckless and irresponsible attack on reasonable attempts to clean our air. We are talking coal ash. Nothing like taking in some lead, cadmium and mercury with each breath and every sip of water to brighten one's day. That is just the price we must pay to reduce government interference into our private affairs.
But coal is particularly nasty. Yes, the attraction to coal is powerful and obvious because the United States sits on a reserve of nearly 250 billion tons of coal, 112 billion of which are high-quality bituminous and anthracite coals; the remainder mainly being lower-energy and dirtier lignite. With such abundance the siren song of energy independence is difficult to resist. However, burning even the highest quality anthracite is dirty business. One 500 MW power plant generates about 3 million tons of carbon dioxide every year. Other toxic byproducts include fine-grain particulates, heavy metals like mercury, lead, chromium and nickel, trace elements such as arsenic and selenium, and various organics like dichloroethane, benzene, carbon tetrachloride, chloroform, and trichloroethylene. Oxides of nitrogen and sulfur are common pollutants from coal, and are found at higher levels in anthracite than in bituminous coal. The known health consequences of this toxic brew of air and water pollution are many, and include nervous system problems in infants and children, asthma, chronic bronchitis, lung cancer, a suite of cardiovascular problems and kidney disease. The environmental impacts are well documented, and not pretty.
But all of those inconvenient truths are just part of a liberal conspiracy if you believe the GOP.
And one wonders just why anybody believes anything the GOP has to say anymore. Talk about some nasty agendas.
This one wonders why you accept without question the opinion of a blogger on a left wing site.
If you had researched his credentials, you would know Dr. Schweitzer is a scientist. If you had researched his claims, you would know he is telling the truth...but you didn't, did you Cali Girl? You just 'know'...emotions are your guide, not intelligence.
Picking up some more of Dr. Schweitzer's article from the last sentence posted in the OP:
But all of those inconvenient truths are just part of a liberal conspiracy if you believe the GOP. Republicans in the House of Representatives have voted 169 times to weaken environmental laws on the notion that such regulations slow economic growth. The argument is that regulatory compliance is too costly to industry. What is forgotten in that logic is that exposing our children to toxic chemicals in our water and air cost the United States $76.6 billion in health expenses in 2008 (the number is certainly bigger now). And that figure does not include economic losses resulting from workers taking sick leave due to illnesses caused directly from exposure to pollutants. Nor do these figures take into account the positive impact on job creation when investing in clean water and air. Even without those adjustments, by any measure the economic impact of pollution greatly exceeds the total estimate annual cost of complying with environmental regulations: about $25 billion. To put these numbers in perspective, Exxon earned a profit of $10.7 billion in the second quarter of this year. The Clean Air Act Amendments (1990) are estimated to create $2 trillion (with a "t") in economic benefits in the 30 years following passage; compared to the total cost of complying with those amendments over that same period coming in around $65 billion. That is a cost/benefit ratio of 1:30. Any good businessman would look at that balance sheet and draw the obvious conclusion.
The GOP's assault on the EPA is an ideological attack with no foundation in fact, a political temper tantrum. Take away the theatrics, and the idea that growth suffers under environmental regulation is dangerously misguided in the short term and tragic when seen decades out. The idea is wrong because history has shown clearly enough that environmental regulations do not cost a net loss of jobs; and that the lack of such regulations leads to unrecoverable losses, costly clean ups and irreversible health consequences. We can look at both more closely.
Reading without reflecting is like eating without digesting.
Edmund Burke
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