Whites more to blame for 'global warming'?

Whites more to blame for 'global warming'?
WorldnetDaily ^ | July 22, 2004 | Joe Kovac

Posted on 07/22/2004 8:51:40 AM PDT by the_daug

ENVIRONETDAILY Whites more to blame for 'global warming'? New study claims blacks at greater risk, but less responsible for climate change Posted: July 22, 2004 1:00 a.m. Eastern

A new study released by the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation suggests rising temperatures will kill more black citizens than whites in the U.S., while claiming African-Americans are less responsible than others for causing so-called "global warming."

The research, conducted by Oakland, Calif.-based group Redefining Progress, is being billed as the first-ever comprehensive examination of the health and economic impact of climate change on the black population.

"We are long past the point where global warming is considered a myth," said U.S. Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., chairman of the CBCF. "We are seeing its effects all around us."

The new report for the CBCF has three main findings:

1. America's black population will be disproportionately burdened by the health effects of global warming;

2. Blacks are less responsible for contributing to global warming than other Americans; and

3. Policies designed to mitigate global warming can generate large health and economic benefits for blacks, depending on their implementation.

Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson

"Time and again, the world's leading atmospheric scientists have warned us about the devastating impact of climate change," said Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Texas. "We now have irrefutable proof of its impact on our economy, our way of life, our health and our children."

The study alleges responsibility for the problem does not lie primarily with blacks, stating, "African-American households emit 20 percent less carbon dioxide than white households. Historically, this difference was even higher."

It claims more than 160,000 deaths annually can already be attributed to climate change across the world, and that figure is likely to increase unless action is taken to try to stop any further heat-up.

More than 70 percent of blacks live in urban areas which are in violation of federal air pollution standards, according to the report. Thus, more blacks than whites would likely be affected by higher concentrations of toxins in the air.

"African-Americans are nearly three times as likely to be hospitalized or killed by asthma as whites, with climate change expected to increase the incidence of asthma in the general population," the study says.

The research also says at the present time, blacks are more likely to die during extreme heat events.

Miami residents open water hydrants to keep cool (courtesy CNN)

"The most direct health effect of climate change will be intensifying heat waves that selectively impact poor and urban populations," according to the study, noting cities like New York, Detroit, Chicago and Philadelphia have large concentrations of blacks.

Despite the study's claims, the idea the Earth is heating up is hardly a universal belief.

Four months ago, a NASA-funded study reported some climate forecasts might be exaggerating estimations of global warming.

The U.S. space agency said the models possibly are overestimating the amount of water vapor entering the atmosphere as the Earth warms.

The theory many scientists work with says the Earth warms in response to human emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, causing more water to evaporate from the ocean into the atmosphere.

WorldNetDaily has also reported that Dr. Fred Singer, professor emeritus of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, maintains there has been little or no warming since about 1940.

"Any warming from the growth of greenhouse gases is likely to be minor, difficult to detect above the natural fluctuations of the climate, and therefore inconsequential," Singer wrote in a climate-change essay. "In addition, the impacts of warming and of higher CO2 levels are likely to be beneficial for human activities and especially for agriculture.

Just this week, the London Telegraph reported on a study by Swiss and German scientists suggesting increased radiation from the sun –not human activity – was to blame for climate changes.

"The sun is in a changed state," said Dr. Sami Solanki of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Gottingen, Germany. "It is brighter than it was a few hundred years ago and this brightening started relatively recently – in the last 100 to 150 years."

The research adds credence to the beliefs of British professor David Bellamy, president of the London-based Conservation Foundation.

"Global warming – at least the modern nightmare version – is a myth," Bellamy told the Telegraph. "I am sure of it and so are a growing number of scientists. But what is really worrying is that the world's politicians and policy-makers are not.

"Instead, they have an unshakeable faith in what has, unfortunately, become one of the central credos of the environmental movement: humans burn fossil fuels, which release increased levels of carbon dioxide – the principal so-called greenhouse gas – into the atmosphere, causing the atmosphere to heat up. They say this is global warming, I say this is poppycock."

Editor's note: The new CBCF report on climate change can be read here in PDF format.