Posted on 02/01/2020 8:37:44 PM PST by Pining_4_TX
It’s been 50 years since cleaning up the air in the United States began in earnest. Skies are much clearer now than in the mid-20th century. Leaded gasoline is gone, power plants have been abandoning coal and sulfur dioxide has dropped by 91%. Despite these growing improvements, why have epidemiologists been unable to show the demonstrable public health benefits that their computer models predict?
(Excerpt) Read more at acsh.org ...
Anyone who spends any time outdoors knows the advances in air quality have been significant over the last 50 years.
And if epidemiological studies do not measure the right stuff, few care. Nobody, and I mean nobody wants to go back.
I want my 100 octane leaded fuel back!
How much value do we get from the EPA and their ever-more-restrictive regulations?
When formed, they were needed. For much of what they do now, are they?
Agreed. But I believe it’s time to acknowledge that we have passed the point of diminishing returns with increasingly stringent regulations.
fine on cleaned up air.
but the remaining bureaucrapppy and extra taxes, fees...
smog checks on cars with only 1200 miles?
smog checks on cars that have passed many times before and only get driven 2000 miles a year?
tons of expensive bureaucraps for us taxpayers to support, too?
a little rationality would sure help garner some support
Bingo!
Check lead levels. Since leaded gasoline has been outlawed levels have gone back down .
Europe has followed the U.S. example.
That's not the full quote usually ascribed to Box. The version I've used is: “Remember that all models are wrong, though SOME are useful; the practical question is how wrong do they have to be to not be useful.”
To me, the most important first step in evaluating the output of a model involves determining how good it must be to be useful, not how bad it must be to be useless. The former is much more difficult since it involves looking at known parameters that are not included in the model. The output of a model must NEVER be used for important decisions if this step is not taken.
Yep. Those of us who saw —and tried to breathe in— the Los Angeles basin in the late 1960’s can attest. As a kid, family went to visit friends in Whittier. We kids headed to park/playground. Usual horsing around for 20 minutes led to stinging throat, eyes, and a ripping headache for all four of us. Quite different today. Current hysteria/activism at over extremely fine particulate matter is, however, over the top, and the returns on the cost of the bureaucrats’ efforts are nil.
You sound like the author of the book, The Rational Optimist. It’s an interesting book.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.