On Jul 17, 6:13*pm, JR North wrote:
What's this got to do with boating?
JR





HK wrote:
EPA document ties public health problems to global warming; White House
tried to bury analysis
By DINA CAPPIELLO , Associated Press

July 14, 2008

WASHINGTON - Government scientists detailed a rising death toll from heat
waves, wildfires, disease and smog caused by global warming in an analysis
the White House buried so it could avoid regulating greenhouse gases.

In a 149-page document released Monday, the experts laid out for the first
time the scientific case for the grave risks that global warming poses to
people, and to the food, energy and water on which society depends.

"Risk (to human health, society and the environment) increases with
increases in both the rate and magnitude of climate change," scientists at
the Environmental Protection Agency said. Global warming, they wrote, is
"unequivocal" and humans are to blame.

The document suggests that extreme weather events and diseases carried by
ticks and other organisms could kill more people as temperatures rise.

Allergies could worsen because climate change could produce more pollen..
Smog, a leading cause of respiratory illness and lung disease, could become
more severe in many parts of the country. At the same time, global warming
could mean fewer illnesses and deaths due to cold.

"This document inescapably, unmistakably shows that global warming
pollution
not only threatens human health and welfare, but it is adversely impacting
human health and welfare today," said Vickie Patton, deputy general counsel
for the Environmental Defense Fund. "What this document demonstrates is
that
the imperative for action is now."

While the science pointed to a link between public health and climate
change, the Bush administration has worked to discourage such a connection.

To acknowledge one would compel the government to regulate greenhouse
gases.

The administration on Friday dismissed the scientists' findings when it
made
clear that the Clean Air Act was the wrong tool to control global warming
pollution. Instead, the administration asked for public comment on a range
of ways to reduce greenhouse gases from cars, airplanes, trains and
smokestacks under the 1970 law.

A better solution, the EPA said, would have Congress writing a law aimed
just at global warming.

Jonathan Shradar, a spokesman for EPA chief Stephen Johnson, said that
while
the administrator knows that "the science is clear and that climate change
is a significant issue", Johnson did not want to make a "rash decision
under
the wrong law."

"Once there is an endangerment finding, then the Clean Air Act is activated
and regulation may begin," Shradar said.

In December, the White House refused to open an e-mail from the EPA that
included the finding that climate change endangered public welfare. The
determination was based on an earlier, and similar version of the document
released Monday. At the time, the White House insisted on removing all
references to the science, according to Jason K. Burnett, a former adviser
to Johnson on climate issues.

Burnett, a Democrat, has charged that Vice President Dick Cheney's office
deleted portions of congressional testimony last October prepared by the
head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that made similar
assertions on the health effects of global warming. The White House
contends
the testimony was changed because of doubts about the science.

After the release of the EPA analysis, industry representatives suggested
the link between climate change and health was weak.

"The question is not a scientific one. It is a legal and political
question,
of how much impact justifies the extraordinary use of the Clean Air Act,"
said Scott Segal, director of the Electric Reliability Coordinating
Council,
a coalition of power companies.

While no one doubts that more people die in a heat wave, the question is
whether that death is "related to manmade greenhouse gas emissions," he
said.

--
--------------------------------------------------------------
* * * * Home Page:http://www.seanet.com/~jasonrnorth- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Nuttin' but the weak and shortminded will play his game... We almost
had it, never thought I would be the only one to be able to hold out..
So much for a missed opportunity..