Posted on 05/14/2003 7:27:53 AM PDT by Hegewisch Dupa
It’s no surprise that the American Lung Association’s annual State of the Air Report, released last month, paid no note of all of the massive reductions in air pollution that have been achieved in this country over the last thirty three years. When contributions are at stake, spin is the most important part of any message.
ALA President John Kirkwood sniffed that the only reason the air seemed to get cleaner last year is because of unusually cool weather that inhibited ozone formation.
No kidding? So much for global warming. But even if we accept Kirkwood’s self-serving claim, one has to wonder how he explains the massive reductions in emissions and improvements in air quality that have been achieved over the previous 32 years.
USEPA has documented the numbers very well, as Kirkwood surely knows. The nation has reduced the amounts of the “big six” criteria pollutants in its air by 11 to 94 % since 1982 alone, in spite of the fact that energy use, economic activity, population and automobile travel have all vastly increased over the same time period. The data is available at EPA’s website: http://www.epa.gov/airtrends/sixpoll.html.
Going back as far as 1970, to the beginning of the Clean Air Act, the reductions are even more impressive, amounting to over 95% in cases like total particulate matter and lead emissions.
Kirkwood and his pals in the environmental-fright industry don’t ever quote those kind of numbers. A complete picture does nothing to meet their fund-raising goals. They prefer to issue dire warnings about how cities have yet to meet ever-tightening standards, conveniently ignoring the progress most of those cities have made and the vast differences in air quality among them.
ALA’s broad brush leaves out any of the revealing details. For example, the troubled Los Angeles and Houston metropolitan areas average over 25 days per year with unhealthy air, according to EPA statistics, while Atlanta and Sacramento now average only three or four per year. Yet, in Kirkwood’s classroom, all of these cities deserve an equal grade: F.
How will ALA reconcile the fact that this President Bush will continue this progress, by implementing the biggest smog-reduction program in history, a program begun by his father?
Starting in 2004, utilities across the eastern half of the nation will cut emissions of smog producing nitrogen oxides by over a million tons per year, further improving air quality and giving lie to the claim that coal-burning plants are somehow being given a free pass by the current administration.
As these companies install the billions of dollars in equipment needed to cut emissions and the air continues to get cleaner, what excuse will John Kirkwood come up with next? One can only imagine he’ll find the weather very, very cold indeed for the next few summers.
But it would have to be a much colder day, in a far darker place, before an environmental group finally admits to all of the progress we have made.
Kirkwood and his pals in the environmental-fright industry don’t ever quote those kind of numbers. A complete picture does nothing to meet their fund-raising goals. They prefer to issue dire warnings about how cities have yet to meet ever-tightening standards, conveniently ignoring the progress most of those cities have made and the vast differences in air quality among them.
Environmental-Fright .... accurate description.
HD, you've got a winner there with your brother. He knows that they don't care about facts, facts get in the way of emotional blackmail.
environmental wackos will never admit to progress. they would then fear for their very relevance!
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