farmfriend
04-10-2005, 12:00 AM
http://techcentralstation.com/040805B.html
Polluted Climate
By Joel Schwartz
Climate change is one environmental issue that hasn't had much traction at the federal level. Congress has refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, while the Bush administration has opposed explicit carbon dioxide reduction requirements. Thus, it should come as no surprise that activists have tried to stir up political support for legislated carbon dioxide (CO<SUB>2</SUB>) reductions by trying to tie climate change to matters of more immediate public concern, such as air pollution.
For example, activists, scientists, and government officials have claimed that global warming will cause ozone to rise in the future. This claim is false. Upcoming large reductions in emissions of ozone-forming pollutants will reduce future ozone levels, regardless of climate change. Even more important, higher temperatures will decrease levels of airborne particulate matter. Thus, to the extent temperatures do rise in the future, the net result will be a decrease in air pollution health risks.[1] (http://www.techcentralstation.com/040805B.html#_edn1)
Last year the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) published Heat Advisory: How Global Warming Causes More Bad Air Days. The report claimed that by 2050 increasing temperatures would cause a 50 percent rise in days exceeding the federal 8-hour ozone standard each year.[2] (http://www.techcentralstation.com/040805B.html#_edn2) The federal government's 2002 Climate Action Report also cited potential increases in air pollution due to higher temperatures.[3] (http://www.techcentralstation.com/040805B.html#_edn3) And the Massachusetts Attorney General, whose bid to force EPA to regulate CO<SUB>2</SUB> as an air pollutant will be argued today in federal court, puts ozone increases near the top of his list of harms from global warming.[4] (http://www.techcentralstation.com/040805B.html#_edn4) Even academic and government scientists have entered the debate as activists -- NRDC's Heat Advisory was written by public health professors from Johns Hopkins and Columbia, and atmospheric and environmental scientists from Yale, the State University of New York at Albany, the University of Wisconsin, NASA, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Some of these scientists also published their Heat Advisory results in the prestigious refereed journal Environmental Health Perspectives.[5] (http://www.techcentralstation.com/040805B.html#_edn5)<O:p></O:p>
Polluted Climate
By Joel Schwartz
Climate change is one environmental issue that hasn't had much traction at the federal level. Congress has refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, while the Bush administration has opposed explicit carbon dioxide reduction requirements. Thus, it should come as no surprise that activists have tried to stir up political support for legislated carbon dioxide (CO<SUB>2</SUB>) reductions by trying to tie climate change to matters of more immediate public concern, such as air pollution.
For example, activists, scientists, and government officials have claimed that global warming will cause ozone to rise in the future. This claim is false. Upcoming large reductions in emissions of ozone-forming pollutants will reduce future ozone levels, regardless of climate change. Even more important, higher temperatures will decrease levels of airborne particulate matter. Thus, to the extent temperatures do rise in the future, the net result will be a decrease in air pollution health risks.[1] (http://www.techcentralstation.com/040805B.html#_edn1)
Last year the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) published Heat Advisory: How Global Warming Causes More Bad Air Days. The report claimed that by 2050 increasing temperatures would cause a 50 percent rise in days exceeding the federal 8-hour ozone standard each year.[2] (http://www.techcentralstation.com/040805B.html#_edn2) The federal government's 2002 Climate Action Report also cited potential increases in air pollution due to higher temperatures.[3] (http://www.techcentralstation.com/040805B.html#_edn3) And the Massachusetts Attorney General, whose bid to force EPA to regulate CO<SUB>2</SUB> as an air pollutant will be argued today in federal court, puts ozone increases near the top of his list of harms from global warming.[4] (http://www.techcentralstation.com/040805B.html#_edn4) Even academic and government scientists have entered the debate as activists -- NRDC's Heat Advisory was written by public health professors from Johns Hopkins and Columbia, and atmospheric and environmental scientists from Yale, the State University of New York at Albany, the University of Wisconsin, NASA, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Some of these scientists also published their Heat Advisory results in the prestigious refereed journal Environmental Health Perspectives.[5] (http://www.techcentralstation.com/040805B.html#_edn5)<O:p></O:p>