The Competitive Enterprise Institute Wants You to Think That They Care About People LOL

I’ve been meaning to get around to writing this post for a while, ever since September of this year, when I blogged about the 50^th anniversary of the publication of Silent Spring. In the googling I did to research for that blog post, I ran across the site Rachel Was Wrong. Go ahead, click around the site if you like.

This site claims that, in pointing out the environmental and health consequences from the overuse of many pesticides, particularly DDT, Carson and Silent Spring “generated a culture of fear, resulting in policies have (sic) deprived many people access to life-saving chemicals. In particular, many nations curbed the use of the pesticide DDT for malaria control because Carson created unfounded fears about the chemical.”

The site suggests that millions of deaths from malaria might be avoided had the US not banned DDT and the rest of the world restricted its use. Malaria is a serious health concern. Each year, worldwide, more than 200 million people contact malaria, and more than half a million people die each year from the mosquito borne disease, with more than 90 percent of these cases and deaths occurring in Africa. That Africa suffers the most from malaria is reflected in the logo of Rachel Was Wrong, a mosquito biting into the African continent.

DDT or other pesticides are not necessary for malaria eradication. As has been shown with the U.S. construction of the Panama Canal and the eradication of malaria from the South through the U.S. Public Health Service and the Tennessee Valley Authority, malaria is best fought through organized government efforts, efforts that sometimes span decades. DDT is still used in many parts of the world for malarial control. Its use is complicated, with demonstrated health consequences for humans and environmental damage, while it can be successful in stemming the occurrence of malaria or can serve as a part of a program for the disease’s eradication.[i]

Rachel Was Wrong is a website placed upon the Internet by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). CEI has been around since 1984. That they would attack Rachel Carson and her work is unsurprising. This organization has a track record of anti-environmentalism. In 2003 the institute worked to quash a report on global warming that had been published in 2000. In 2005 they supported a bill that would have severely weakened the Endangered Species Act. They are loath to credit environmental regulation with any success. In May of 1998, during a fairly upbeat time when more than 20 imperiled plants and animals had recovered so well that they were about to be delisted as endangered, Brian Seashole, a CEI spokesman, said that the eagle, peregrine, and other species, “have recovered despite the ESA, not because of it.”[ii]

On the Rachel Was Wrong website photographs of children, all of them African, give the impression that CEI is a compassionate organization, trying to right the wrongs of misguided environmentalists. But this organization’s positions have not been ones to enhance health or well-being. They have supported the tobacco industry, on one occasion trying to obfuscate the findings of a 1994 study that found that as many as 3000 American lives are shortened each year from the passive inhalation of tobacco smoke.

Just this year CEI published an op-ed in USA Today opposing increased inspection of slaughterhouses and farms and the adoption of risk prevention controls in food production to stem the incidence of food borne diseases. A 1997 study found that hundreds of thousands of premature deaths could be prevented each year by curbing the emission of greenhouse gasses and particulate matter into the atmosphere. CEI dismissed the findings, saying, “effect of particulates on health is controversial.”[iii]

So is CEI helping Africa? The cigarette companies that they support are opening markets in Africa, with some health organizations predicting a "tobacco epidemic" on the horizon there. The oil companies that back the CEI are causing great environmental damage in Africa, with corresponding human suffering and loss of life.

Like the beggars in Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame, who are shown to be faking their lameness and blindness to gain the alms of their fellow Parisians, Rachel Was Wrong is a similar dishonest ruse, giving us the impression that CEI cares about suffering children, when they don’t care in the slightest.

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[i] Bouwman, Hindrik, Henk van den Berg, and Henrik Kylin. "DDT And Malaria Prevention: Addressing The Paradox." Environmental Health Perspectives 119.6 (2011): 744-747. Environment Complete. Web. 25 Dec. 2012.

[ii] Hebert, Josef. “Bald eagle, peregrine, and others leaving endangered list.” Ludington Daily News May 6, 1998 page 6 print

[iii] “Study: Emission curbs would save lives” The Tuscaloosa News November 7, 1997 page 8A print

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[i] Bouwman, Hindrik, Henk van den Berg, and Henrik Kylin. "DDT And Malaria Prevention: Addressing The Paradox." Environmental Health Perspectives 119.6 (2011): 744-747. Environment Complete. Web. 25 Dec. 2012.

[ii] Hebert, Josef. “Bald eagle, peregrine, and others leaving endangered list.” Ludington Daily News May 6, 1998 page 6 print

Alec Rawls Leaks IPCC Report: But How Did He Get the Document in the First Place?

There is a bit of a twitter, figuratively and literally, about a leak of a draft report of the Intergovern-mental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The final report is due out next year, but this draft was leaked yesterday.

The leaker is a man named Alec Rawls, who is the son of the prominent American philosopher John Rawls. The way he got a hold of the document was to sign up to be one of the 800 expert reviewers of the document.

To be an expert reviewer for an IPCC report, don’t you have to be an expert? How was Rawls vetted to be one of the select persons entrusted to work on this report? As far as I can tell, he isn’t a scientist or someone who has worked on climate issues. On his Linkedin account he says of himself that he is an “Independent Writing and Editing Professional.” (The bit of writer and editor in me wants to correct this to “Independent Writer and Editor,” but that’s another matter.)

            He also lists himself as being self-employed at Rawls Industries, which he says he has owned for over 57 years. If his photo is any indication of his age, he’s had his nose to the grindstone since he was in diapers. I didn’t look long in Google, but I found no trace of a company named Rawls Industries that has been in business for over 50 years.

            He wrote a book, Crescent of Betrayal, that is, well, a little loony. I haven’t read the book, but the summary on Amazon indicates that it is about the memorial in Pennsylvania for the persons who died on flight 93 in September of 2001 and describes the book as showing “how every major element of the proposed ‘Crescent of Embrace’ memorial design is in fact a typical mosque feature, built on an epic scale.” I imagine that I’ll get around to reading it while Elvis flies me around area 51 in a black helicopter.

            As many are pointing out, Rawls, as well as others on the attack the climate science bandwagon, is pinning his hopes of bringing down climate science, or at least the IPCC, on a single sentence that might be construed as implying a greater contribution to global warming from solar flares. The science of climate change and the work of the IPCC stand on their own, and I don’t need to go into that here and now.

            But holy guacamole! Before you’re allowed on a prestigious panel to review a very important document, shouldn’t somebody at least take a look at your Linkedin account and figure out whether or not you have any qualifications to review drafts? Maybe check to see if you have any degrees? See if you’ve ever done any work that would qualify you as somebody competent to work on the IPCC’s report? Maybe just a brief check to see that you haven’t written an entire book that should be shelved in the fantasy section of the library?

Love Pasta? Love Skiing? Become an Environmentalist

The amount of concern over global warming, at least as far as it goes for the countries around the world, has been divided along geographic and economic lines. Countries that are islands or whose boundaries are dominated by low-lying coastal plains—and who are already seeing the effects of rising tides—are most certainly concerned. Wealthy countries who have the resources for adaptations are less concerned about the consequences of climate change than are countries that are poor. Bangladesh, the Netherlands, and the Maldives are freaked out by global warming; Russia, Canada, and the US not so much.

            Reading the accounts of climate negotiations, those are the things that have been dominating the headlines. And there are the headlines that reflect the concerns of scientists and environmentalists: the loss of wetlands, water availability, increased numbers of wildfires, and other environmental calamities.

            Just recently, I’ve noticed a few different sorts of stories about global warming, the concerns that industries and individuals have over how a warming planet will affect their livelihoods and pastimes. Farmers are now figuring out that rising temperatures can affect their crops. As wheat is the one grain that is quite sensitive to higher temperatures, wheat farmers, as well as the folks who make bread and pasta, are anticipating a drop of about 25% in yield of their crop.

            Their current strategy is adaptation. Agronomists are developing and farmers are testing wheat strains that can handle hotter and drier temperatures. I guess that is their smartest move. It is probably easier to pay a few scientists their salaries and perform some trial runs of crops than it is to lobby Congress and other governing bodies for a carbon tax and other climate legislation.

            Folks who ski have noticed that ski seasons are shorter and there is in general less snow on the slopes than their used to be. These skiers and others who enjoy winter sports are lobbying Congress and putting the ski industry on notice that they need to be more involved in keeping the planet cool. Interestingly, just as the oil and coal industries have lobbied and done what they could to keep climate change legislation off the agenda, corporations who have a financial interest in seeing the ski industry thrive, such as The North Face and Patagonia, are sponsoring the efforts of the ski organization.

            Maybe we can think of the ski slope operators and wheat farmers as the poor coastal countries of the economy, the ones who are the first to feel the pains of a warming world. As weather patterns change and the world becomes for the most part hotter and drier, other crops besides wheat will be affected. Orchards may produce fewer apples, and we may not get as many grapes from vineyards that have produced grapes for generations. Other folks besides skiers and ski slope operators could see their pastimes and livelihoods melt away.

As the term is global warming, it’s hard to think of anyone who isn’t going to be affected by a warmer planet. As with the farmers and skiers, however, they only took action once they saw how climate change had already affected their crops and slopes. I guess that explains why so few others are ready and willing to take action. Though we are cognizant of the skiers and wheat farmers, we don’t see how climate change affects us just yet. We are like coal miners who see the canaries getting sick and dying, but we just figure that it’s the birds’ problem and go on digging ourselves deeper into the mine.

Forget the Fiscal Cliff. We Are Approaching a Climate Cliff

At a time when we have the knowledge and ability to curb greenhouse gas emissions, this is more bad news. It seems that, instead of taking note of the evidence and heeding the warnings from scientists, we have been pumping ever more CO2 into the atmosphere.

            To no great credit of our own, the greenhouse gas emissions of the United States dropped by two percent. This is not so much because we are building windmills and installing solar panels on our rooftops, but more because the recession is still strangling the economy. Unemployed folks are not commuting to jobs; fewer products being built and shipped; construction of houses and buildings has been curtailed. All these things create carbon dioxide.

            But while we have been stuck in a recession other countries like India and China are growing richer. They are increasing industrial production, and more and more of their citizens are doing things that Americans take for granted—buying lots of stuff, eating more meat, and driving cars—that increase global warming. China’s output of greenhouse gasses is up by ten percent.

            We are now making more than 1,200 tons of greenhouse gasses every second. It is almost a certainty that the target of keeping global warming to two degrees centigrade will be impossible. It runs against my gut feelings of how to work with this problem, because it is treating the symptom of the disease rather than the causes, but we really have to start working on geoengineering projects. I don’t believe we have any other choice right now.