Table of Contents

III. Air and Water Issues

Overview

Global Warming

     As most people now know, the greenhouse effect is a phenomenon by which incoming solar radiation passes through our atmosphere, is absorbed by the earth, re-emitted as heat, and then trapped by what are called “greenhouse gases”. In fact, the survival of all life depends on this phenomenon. Without it, earth would be far to cold to support life.

    Greenhouse gases include water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, and several very minor gases such as methane, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), and others. Of the total, nearly 97 percent is water vapor and only 1.9 percent is carbon dioxide (CO₂).¹ It is generally acknowledged that there has been increasing concentrations of CO₂ during the industrial age, and especially since World War II. But one important question is, “when CO₂ makes up only 1.6 percent of the greenhouse gases, just how important can it be compared to water vapor which makes up 97 percent of the total primary gases and is constantly fluctuating?’ Another is whether rising CO₂ or rising temperatures comes first?

The Science of Climate Change. Most scientists recognize that we have had increasing temperatures for the past 150 years or more. Yet, in spite of UN and EPA proclamations to the contrary, there is no evidence supporting any of the tragic consequences that are supposed to accompany global warming, such as increased number and strength of hurricanes, super hot summers, and Antarctic icecap melting. Most of the peer-reviewed scientific literature states that, contrary to global warming theory:

There has been a decline in Atlantic hurricanes from 1896 to 1990.²

•            Tropical cyclone (hurricane) activity in the Australian region has declined over the past three decades.³

•            “…there is no sign of an increase of hurricane frequency or intensity in the Gulf of Mexico at this time.”⁴

•            “…overall, it seems unlikely that tropical cyclones will increase significantly on a global scale.”⁵

•            “There are no discernible global trends in tropical cyclone number, intensity, or location from historical data analyses.”⁶

•            There is no warming trend in the U.S. summer temperatures over the last 80 years.⁷

•            Rather than warming as previously thought, Antarctica has been dramatically cooling by 1.2^oF per decade for the past 20 years.⁸

•            Contrary to global warming theory, the Antarctic ice-sheet is not melting, but there exists “strong evidence of ice-sheet growth.”⁹

•            Over the course of the next 100 years the amount of water the Antarctic ice-sheet holds should increase, producing a sealevel drop of 3.54 inches.¹⁰

      Obviously, peer-reviewed science shows that global warming is not having the predicted affects. Hurricanes and other storms are not becoming more numerous or violent, summers are not becoming hotter, and the Antarctic ice cap is not melting, thereby flooding coastal cities and Pacific Islands. All-in-all, global climate is not showing signs of impending catastrophe. Further, even if man is causing slight warming, NASA reports that “the rate of growth of greenhouse gas emissions has slowed since its peak in 1980.” Although the authors cite the control of CFCs as explaining much of the reduction, the good news is that; “The climate warming projected by the Goddard Institute study is about half as large as typical increases cited by the report of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).”¹¹ But the vast majority of scientists disagree that there is even sufficient evidence to show that man-caused increases in CO₂ is even causing what little warming there is. Seventeen thousand scientists in the United States have signed a petition stating:

We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.

There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.¹²

      Of the seventeen thousand that have signed the petition, over two-thirds have advanced degrees.  They include 2,660 physicists, geophysicists, climat­ologists, meteorologists, oceanographers, and environmental scientists who are especially well qualified to evaluate the effects of carbon dioxide on the Earth's atmosphere and climate.

    While the disagreement comes from hundreds of different and often-conflicting research studies, the controversy focuses on two sets of data; ground-based measured temperatures and satellite measured temperatures. The ground-based data include thousands of temperature sources recorded in meteorological stations around the world — mostly at airports. The ground-based data show a somewhat significant increase in global temperatures. The satellite data originate from geostationary satellites that have been in orbit since 1979 and show no significant increase in global temperatures. (See graph)

     Why the discrepancy? The satellite-based data have been shown to be accurate to within 0.01^oC and correlate very well with radiosonde balloon temperature measurements.¹³ While ground-based temperatures are subject to a host of errors, most errors are of a random nature that would be expected to cancel out in a large data pool. All except one. It’s called the “heat island effect.” Most meteorological stations were constructed at airports when they were in the country, outside the city they served. Since then the cities have grown up around the measuring stations. What was once green fields and forests surrounding the measuring station is now paved roads, black asphalt roofs, furnaces, air conditioners and automobiles. Because of this, ambient temperatures can increase by several degrees creating a large error in the long-term temperature trend line. When United States data is adjusted for this error using best-guess estimates, the ground and satellite data nearly merge; with the ground data showing only a slightly higher warming trend than the satellite data.¹⁴

        The other primary “proof” of man-caused global warming comes from a number of climate change models. Even though these models are very complex and run on super computers, they still cannot accurately predict past climate change. Consequently, their future scenarios are surrounded by a cloud of skepticism. Nonetheless, the most recent five-year report, the UN International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) picked the worst possible scenarios to represent “possible” future conditions from global warming. Robert Watson, head of the IPCC, paints a very bleak picture of the future by predicting water shortages, disease, and agricultural damage. As reported by the January 23, 2001, Washington Post, Watson claimed that “Earth's average temperature could rise by as much as 10.4 degrees over the next 100 years” — the most rapid change in 10 millennia and more than 60 percent higher than the same group predicted less than six years ago.¹⁵ (Italics added)

        Yet, Dr. John Christy, one of the world’s leading climatology expert and head author of the IPCC summary report, strongly disagrees. In response to the media’s clamor over the reports and Watson's wild assertions, Christy contended that “the world is in much better shape than this doomsday scenario paints. There were 245 different results in that report, and this was the worst-case scenario,” he says. “It’s the one that’s not going to happen. It was the extreme case of all the different things that can make the world warm.”¹⁶ (Italics added) Christy is a professor of Atmospheric Science and is director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama.

        MIT's Dr. Richard Lindzen goes so far as to describe the UN-IPCC report as “absurd.” In a recent interview, Dr. Lindzen agreed with Dr. Christy, claiming the latest report of the UN-IPCC, “was very much a children's exercise of what might possibly happen” in a worse-case scenario prepared by a “peculiar group” with “no technical competence.”¹⁷ Yet the press reports it as certainty. (Italics added for emphasis). “You should approach climate models with a degree of awe and a sense of humour,” claimed Christy. “They are incredible accomplishments in code-writing, but they are not the real world.” Christy went on to point out that: “evidence shows we are living in a climate of natural variability. Variations of climate have always occurred, even when humans could not have had an impact!” Because “even with all our cars, factories, and cities, man’s impact on the powerful energy force we call the weather is too small to measure.”

        Some other narrowly focused research tends to support the man-caused global warming theory, but either the studies are accompanied by more questions than they solve, or suffer from the problem that they may represent isolated examples. It summary, while few people question that there is global warming, there still remains sharp debate in the scientific community whether the warming is man-caused. What is not in doubt, however, is the demonstrated fact that there is a willingness on the part of the UN and other international players to grossly distort the data of climate change to create a conclusion that will support an extreme political agenda.

The Kyoto Protocol. Even if there is man-caused global warming, the Kyoto Protocol is not designed to stop it, let alone reverse it. In fact, even the United Nations recognizes that over the next 50 years (at a cost of trillions of dollars) the treaty would only reduce warming by 0.15^oC at best. Why? Because only the developed nations would be bound by the treaty, and almost all the future increases in CO₂ emissions are expected to take place in the developing nations. To accomplish even this pitiful reduction would require the United States to reduce its CO₂ emissions by 30 percent! Since there is nearly a one to one ratio between emissions and energy consumption, the U.S. would have to be forced to reduce its energy consumption by 30 percent by 2012. Such a strategy would have devastating effects on the U.S. economy.

        The only alternative is to “buy” pollution credits from the developing nations to keep U.S. industry at home while the developing nations continued to escalate their own CO₂ emissions. Since buying pollution credits will do nothing to stop or reverse the warming, the plan is nothing more than a global income redistribution plan. In summary then, there is tremendous uncertainty whether man-caused global warming is even occurring. Even if it is, the Kyoto Protocol would do almost nothing to stop it, and merely represents an enormous global income redistrib­ution plan.

      For instance, spring wheat growth is increased by 30 percent when CO₂ is doubled. The CO₂ fertilization effect is even more dramatic when the crops are stressed. Drought stressed, CO₂ enriched spring wheat has a 37 percent gain in productivity over drought stressed crops not having had increased CO₂. Doubling CO₂ will also increase productivity of phosphorous deficient soils by 20 percent and will increase growth by an incredible 72 percent above what would be expected if wheat is stressed by ozone and wheat rust at the same time! The improved growth with elevated CO₂ levels is so pronounced that Drs. Craig and Keith Idso, senior scientists in the Center state, “In summation, the ongoing rise in the air’s CO₂ content should continue to enhance plant growth and development, particularly in the face of resource limitations and environmental stresses that tend to do just the opposite. In a nutshell, when it’s needed most, elevated CO₂ helps the most.”¹⁸ Best of all, it is free to the developing nations!

     The Idso’s are two of the world’s recognized leaders on carbon dioxide research. They calculate that over the next half-century, the aerial fertil­ization effect of atmospheric CO₂ enrichment will boost world agricultural output by about half as much as will the expected advances in agricultural technology and expertise. Taken together, these two effects should augment food production just enough to sup­ply the dietary requirements of the projected hu­man population of the world in the year 2050.”¹⁹ They strong­ly warn, however, that “if pro­posed regulations restricting anthropogenic CO₂ emis­sions (which are designed to remedy the potential climate problem) are enacted, they will exacer­bate the future food problem by reducing the CO₂-induced stimulation of crop product­ivity needed to supply future world food requirements not provided by expected advances in agricultural technology and expertise.”²⁰ The benefits of CO₂ fertilization to both humanity and the environment are so strong; while the potential threat of CO₂ induced global warming is so tenuous, that the continued all-out attempt to reduce CO₂ emissions is unwarranted.

      As noted in the above disc­ussion on population, the only way that poverty and overpopulation can effect­ively be neutralized is by creating the opportunity for wealth for all — which means more CO₂ emissions using today’s technology. This would benefit food production tremendously. Even if there is man-caused global warming, the Kyoto Protocol attempts to do this through income redistribution, which will do nothing to reduce CO₂ emissions. America’s success has always been rooted in the free market approach to finding a better way to do something when a crisis was imminent. Instead of billions of dollars being spent on reducing CO₂ emissions, far more effective means of addressing global warming is to find inexpensive alternative energy sources that do not emit greenhouse gases.

      This appears to be the intent of President Bush’s new Climate Action Report released on June 1, 2002. Although the report incorrectly states that there is man-caused global warming,  the United States correctly “seeks an environmentally sound approach that will not harm the U.S. economy, which remains a critically important engine of global prosperity. We believe that economic development is key to protecting the global environment.”²¹ The report states the obvious truth: “no one will forgo meeting basic family needs to protect the global commons.” Environmental protection and sustainability has to be linked to continued development and increasing prosperity to be successful. The report lays out a plan to expand “nuclear power generation; improved energy efficiency for vehicles, buildings, appliances, and industry; development of hydrogen fuels and renewable technologies; increased access to federal lands and expedited licensing practices; and expanded use of cleaner fuels, including initiatives for coal and natural gas.”²²

      It can be argued that the science pointing to man-caused global warming is so weak that no policy is needed. At least the U.S. plan appears to be applying the free market approach — not the heavy hand of regulation that stifles creativity and problem solving. Incentives will be used to promote alternative fuels and production efficiencies. And, the go-slow-to-be-sure policy of the U.S. is prudent when CO₂ has the potential for doing so much good for mankind.

Ozone Depletion

Like global warming, the ozone depletion theory is burdened with much uncertainty. Accord­ing to environmentalists, freon for refrigeration and Halon for fire extinguishers are the primary chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) causing the oxidation of ozone in the stratosphere. However, both are heav­ier than air – which begs the question of how they get into the strato­sphere to do their damage while naturally occurring oxidizing chlorine compound fluorine compounds do not.

Then there is also the fact that Mr. Erbus, an Antarctic volcano has been emitting chlorine and fluorine gases since 1972. Some of these make it into the very low polar stratosphere where the ozone thinning occurs every late winter at the South Pole. Another problem is that only minor thinning of the ozone layer has occurred in the Northern Hemisphere, where most of the CFC’s are made and used; most of the thinning occurs at the South Pole. Various explanations have attempted to provide reasons for these anomalies, but natural ozone thinning caused by the continuous eruption of Mt. Erbus since 1972 still provides the most logical explanation.

Even if manmade CFCs are causing ozone to thin at the South Pole, a number of scientists have raised the question, “so-what?” The most the ozone layer is predicted to thin is less than 10 percent, but the natural annual variation between the hemispheric summer and winter is 50 percent!²³ This natural variation is caused by temperature and sunlight. The colder the temperature and the less the sunlight there is, the thicker the ozone layer. So the ozone layer becomes very thick in the Antarctic during its winter (the arctic summer) then thins — naturally — every spring. It is naturally thinnest when all the crops are being grown and the sun worshipers are laying on the beach soaking up the damaging rays — ultraviolet-B (UV-B) rays. Even this is not a real problem, however. The reason: Because any thinning caused by CFCs occurs in the late winter, when the ozone layer is already at its thickest. So the ozone depletion occurs in late winter for either pole when there are not any crops being grown, nor sunbathers on the beach in mid-latitudes. When the seed is finally planted and the beach-goers migrate to their favorite strip of sand, the ozone layer is already much thinner — naturally — than the CFC-caused thinning months before.

 But there’s more. Because extreme cold and sunlight cause ozone thickening, the ozone layer is naturally much thicker at the poles than the equator — by 130 percent. This works out to be a variation of 5000 percent in actual UV radiation between the poles and the equator.²⁴ In fact, because the poles have much more ozone than the equator, a New York family vacationing in Florida during March would have 7% less ozone protecting them, thereby exposing them to 270 percent more UV radiation, than if they had stayed in New York!²⁵ Of course, it is unlikely they would be sunbathing in New York in March. How much further south would one have to move to be equivalent to the increased UV-B resulting from current ozone thinning? About 200 km (124 miles) closer to the equator — “a move smaller than that from Manchester to London, Chicago to Indianapolis, Albany to New York, Lyons to Marseilles, Trento to Florence, Stuttgart to Dusseldorf or Christchurch to Wellington.²⁶

 Why do many scientists ignore contradictory evidence when the stakes are so high?  Some, no doubt, have honest disagreements respecting the evidence.  Others, perhaps, have other motives. Melvyn Shapiro, an atmospheric scientist at NOAA offered this sobering comment:

…This is about money. If there were no dollars attached to this game, you’d see it played in a very different way. It would be played on intellect and integrity. When you say that the ozone threat is a scam, you’re not only attacking people’s scientific integrity, you’re going after their pocketbook, as well. It’s money, purely money.²⁷

 In summary, the Montreal Protocol that bans Freon and other important CFCs from the market lacks a scientific basis, and denies mankind of one of the safest, most important chemicals used for refrigeration, fire extinguishers and many other products.

Air Pollution

Of all the pollution affecting human health, indoor and outdoor air pollution is by far the most important. According to the EPA, 86 - 96 percent of all social benefits come from the regulation of air pollution.²⁸Air pollution has always been a problem in cities because of waste. In the 1660s,  London was a foul place in which to live:

The city ditches, now often filled with stagnant water, were commonly used as latrines; butchers killed animals in their shops and threw the offal of the carcasses into the streets; dead animals were left to decay and fester where they lay;…²⁹

The stench from burning coal was so bad that in 1257 the Queen of England cut short a visit to Nottingham because the smell of smoke from burning coal was so intolerable she feared for her life. Lead poisoning from smelting was also very serious around smelting facilities. People got sick and mysteriously died. As late as 1952, 4,000 Londoners died in seven days because of severe smog.³⁰ All this pollution represents a classic illustration of the Tragedy of the Commons. No one owned the streets or air, so the easiest way to get rid of waste was to throw it out on the common areas.

 The good news is that air pollution plummeted during the last half of the twentieth century and is now lower than before the industrial revolution. Of the many sources of air pollution, smoke and soot particles are found in highest concentrations, followed by sulfur dioxide (SO₂), ozone (O₃), lead, nitrogen oxides (NO, NO₂, NO₃), and carbon monoxide (CO).³¹ These are the only air pollutants for which the U.S. EPA has established National Air Quality Standards.³² According to the National Air Quality: 2000 Status and Trends report by the EPA:

Since 1970, aggregate emissions of six principal pollutants tracked nationally have been cut 29 percent. During that same time period, U.S. Gross Domestic Product increased 158 percent, energy consumption increased 45 percent, and vehicle miles traveled have increased 143 percent. National air quality levels measured at thousands of monitoring stations across the country have shown improvements over the past 20 years for all six principal pollutants.³³

 Since 1970, the United States has reduced emissions of lead by 98 percent, particulate matter (PM) by 88 percent, sulfur dioxide by 44 percent, volatile organic compounds by 43 percent, carbon monoxide by 25 percent. Although tremendous progress has been made over the past thirty years, the EPA report warns, “over 160 million tons of pollution are emitted into the air each year in the United States, and approximately 121 million people live in areas where monitored air was unhealthy because of high levels of the six principal air pollutants.”³⁴ Although this sounds bad, just what defines an area to be “unhealthy?”

 Taking just one example from hundreds, an EPA funded study from1982 to1989 of some 550,000 adults in 151 metropolitan areas found a 17 percent increase in mortality among inhabitants of the most polluted areas in the country. The EPA assumed that these increased deaths were caused by particulates and ozone. It arbitrarily proposed new clean air national standards in 1996 by dropping the maximum particle size from 10 to 2.5:m (micrometer) and maximum ground level ozone levels from 0.12 to 0.08 parts per million.

 The announcement for the new standards stunned cities, counties and even research scientists. The natural summer background levels of ozone in the eastern third of the United States is typically about .075 to .08 parts per million from natural sources! This ozone is formed from volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in normal transpiration of the hardwood and softwood forests of the east. It creates the haze that is typical of eastern forests in the summer and gave the Southern Appalachian Mountain Range the name, the Smoky Mountains. That means many eastern cities will never be able to achieve the new attainment standards because the forest is often out of compliance. Likewise, the natural calcium loaded dust from the dry western states is often below 10:m in size, putting many Western cities at risk of being unable to comply because nature exceeds the new EPA standards!

 Just as most counties in the United States were coming into attainment with the old standards, the new standards threw hundreds of counties and most large cities out of attainment – but provided new justification for the existence of the Air Projects and Programs Division of the EPA. Since most emissions in the 2.5 to 10:m range are from combustion products, the new standards would permit the EPA to directly control automobiles, lawnmowers and barbeques. The EPA’s cost/benefit analysis showed that the program would save $100-120 billion in medical costs and some 15,000-20,000 lives annually, and would only cost American cites $6-$10 billion. Few accepted these numbers, however. Independent analysis showed it would at best only save 840 lives³⁵ and cost at least $60 billion (up to $120 billion).³⁶ That’s over $610-$1,200 per family.

 The EPA’s new standards represent a constantly changing goal that simply can not be justified. First, although the most polluted communities in a 1995 EPA-funded research project may have had a 17 percent higher death rate than the least polluted areas,³⁷ this coincidence does not, by itself, demonstrate a cause-and-effect relationship between air-particulate pollution and death rates. Second, researchers did not measure how much air pollution exposure even one study subject received. Instead, they made assumptions, or guessed, how much pollution these individuals might have encountered. Third, study subjects undoubtedly differ in many behavioral, occupational, environmental and genetic factors – factors that were inadequately considered by the epidemiologists. For example, the researchers did not look at variances in the subjects' diet, income, health history, exercise habits, stress level or migration characteristics. Any one of these factors, or a combination thereof, could explain the difference in death rates.³⁸

 EPA's own panel of scientific experts, the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) stressed the need for more research to fill the "obvious gaps in our knowledge," because there are "... many unanswered questions and uncertainties" in the search for a possible link between fine particles and health effects. EPA has acknowledged this gap by requesting $27 million for research into the effects of PM. But this research was not even scheduled to begin until after the rules become law, and the results not known until well into the 21^st Century.³⁹

 The EPA’s argument was so weak, in fact, that a U.S. Court of Appeals panel in Washington, D.C. decided unanimously in May, 1999 that EPA had used science selectively. The panel also ruled 2-to-1 that EPA overstepped its constitutional authority by setting (extremely tight) standards on urban ozone and fine particulates in an arbitrary way. However, when the panel’s decision was appealed to the Supreme Court by the EPA, the Court reversed the decision of the Court of Appeals on February 28, 2001 saying the Clean Air Act “instructs the EPA to set primary ambient air quality standards ‘the attainment and maintenance of which… are requisite to protect the public health’ with ‘an adequate margin of safety.’” Justice Scalia, while voting with the majority, nonetheless was highly critical of the Clean Air Act for allowing the use of such pseudoscience. Although he sharply disagreed with the EPA’s abuse of science, Scalia said the language of the law “is absolute,” and he had to vote with the majority.

 When government bureaucrats can deny citizens their civil liberties, abuse is inevitable. There is no incentive for the EPA to apply hard science to justify its arbitrary and capricious regulations. On May 12, 1998, the National Wilderness Institute issued a scathing report on the corruption and abuse of power by the EPA.⁴⁰ On May 18, EPA scientist Dr. David L. Lewis held a press conference with the National Wilderness Society exposing the blatant corruption of science within the EPA: “Science has become an impediment to an imperious environmental agenda aimed at crafting and enforcing far-reaching regulations of historic proportions. Disturbingly, [Director Browner’s] actions have lacked scientific merit.”⁴¹

 Risking their jobs and reputation, nineteen additional EPA scientists and managers published a letter on June 8, 1998, accusing the EPA of the same flagrant abuse of power: “EPA employees are harassed, even fired,” claimed the whistleblowers, “for protesting illegal or irresponsible behavior by managers who jeopardize the proper enforcement of the law under Superfund, the Clean Air Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, and other environmental statutes.” Tragically, such bureaucratic abuses are only met with a hand slap – even if they are found to have created arbitrary regulations.

 There is a better way to administer and enforce federal environmental law than the highly politicized, heavy-handed bureaucratic system administered by the EPA. The temptation for bureaucratic abuse is too high when the power to promulgate and enforce regulations exists three or four levels of government distant from the average citizen. Promulgation and enforcement at the national level also encourages a one-size fits all approach which under-regulates the real problem areas and over-regulates other ones. The only way to resolve this issue is to shift promulgation and enforcement to the individual states, permitting states and local governments to be subject to the same common law concepts of harm and nuisance as private landowners. It would stimulate local creativity to find solutions for the real problems faced by that state or county. In such an approach the EPA could serve as a well trained advisory and investigative resource not unlike that of the Center for Disease Control.

Notes and Citations