Posted on 11/13/2008 6:59:26 AM PST by twistedwrench
FRESNO, Calif. (AP) - Lowering air pollution in Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley would save more lives annually than ending all motor vehicle fatalities in the two regions, according to a new study.
The study, which examined the costs of air pollution in two areas with the worst levels in the country, also said meeting federal ozone and fine particulate standards could save $28 billion annually in health care costs, school absences, missed work and lost income potential from premature deaths.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.myway.com ...
Any numbers on lost income potential from abortion deaths?
What a load of hooey. The air is pristine compared to the early 60’s. This is a tax grab.
I found how the World had been misled by prostitute Writers,
to ascribe the greatest Exploits in War to Cowards,
the wisest Counsel to Fools,
Sincerity to Flatterers,
Roman Virtue to Betrayers of their Country,
Piety to Atheists,
Chastity to Sodomites,
Truth to Informers.
Jonathan Swift (III:8;5)
BAN BREATHING!!
If air of that quality killed people, there would be nobody left alive in China or India.
What horse manure.
Years ago, cars were more deadly. Ralph Nader and others got the industry to install seat belts, and air bags, and stronger structural components, and anti-lock brakes -- and cars became significantly safer. Yeah!
But now we look at air pollution and say that it kills more people than cars. So let's spend $28B solving that problem.
And at some point in the future we will (once again) be able to say that cars kill more people than air pollution -- so we will spend $1.5T making cars invulnerable! But at that point, air pollution will kill more people than cars, and so ...
We've got to get off the merry-go-round. I don't WANT society to solve all the problems. I want my freedom back.
So? The fact that more children die each year from suction hoses than from accidents or gun violence combined doesn’t seem to faze the left.
Native Americans that lived in southern CA in the 1400s to 1700s gave some of the valleys names that implied "dirty air." Sometimes you just can't fix nature!
Abandon California, obviously if so many deaths are ocurring we must abandon the site. /s
When yokel politicians get green religion, watch out.
The air up here in the Bay Area is very clean compared to the 70s and 80s. There were many days in the summer you couldn’t see across the bay for the huge brown haze cloud. Now that is very rare. They just banned wood burning on “Spare the Air Days” in winter, too.
I understand the Central Valley is still really filthy, though.
What they don’t say is it will cost $100 billion in pollution controls to save that $28 billion in health care costs.
I don’t believe this at all.
But, if true, our illegal alien problem is far more expensive so that should be taken care of first.
There is HUGE potential for a state that will go against the socialist flow and choose to be business friendly in a BIG way, a radical way:
- Ignore any and all environmental horseshit.
- Provide tax breaks early and often.
- Simply the administrative overhead of starting up and maintainining a business.
- And much more
Huge potential.
Call it Galtylvania.
Dear California:
The means to back this up would be to produce a Death Certificate listing the cause of death as “polluted air”. Just one would be good.
Anyone?...anyone?...Bueller?
“yokel politicians”
Hey! Watch it with them insults.
All I know is I was in Buena Vista in January, ‘94. I looked out my hotel window and said to my husband, “I didn’t remember a mountain out there.” He looked out also, “That’s not a mountain.” It was just smog.
You are so correct on that. “Valley of Smoke” was the translation, but at this moment I write this response I cannot remember the Indian/Native American name for the valleys that the name covered. This was as you say hundreds of years ago, and I recall it was even presented as fact in an episode of “Bonanza” as “Hoss” was riding in a stagecoach into Los Angeles for some business he had to attend for the “Ponderosa”.
Another thought too is that we have been told this doom and gloom about air quality, and that we have to do something about it over and over again the past fifty plus years. Air Quality Management Districts have been around now for almost half a Century, Air Resources board and so on, but after all the time, and all the great expense, the limiting of our options to purchase motorized equipment, assaults upon the fuels we burn, assaults on trash burning, assaults on Dry Cleaning, assaults on businesses forcing some to leave the State etc., etc. we still have to assault more such as Barbecues in the backyard, restaurateurs, and the unique Southern California lifestyle in general.
Actually IMO the whole of it is BS to a degree, and IMO the assaults to produce quality air were possibly with good intent as Liberals are famous for, but have lost track of that intent as usual, and the whole thing has become the perpetuation of the Environmentalists extravagant lifestyle at the expense of ours.
The mountain ranges inland from the coast cause the retention of water vapors which trap the particulates that the alleged saviours of our Air, thus our lives target. Has been the problem forever. Blow up the mountains, and the problem will cease to exist.
Thanks for the excellent information. What makes for great wine in Northern and Central CA, makes for lousy air quality in Southern CA.
Obviously they should evacuate the Valley. It’s simply too dangerous for people to live there. The breathing hazards are just simply ovewhelming and the valley must be closed for the good of everyone. They all need to move to sanfrancisco and bunk in with gavin and the boys. After all whats theirs is ours or so they like to say. Lets see if the really mean it.
There are only two air pollution studies readily available on Google linking air pollution to early deaths, both focus on postneonatal cohorts in the 2000-2006 time frame; these deaths are primarily due (supposedly) to <2.5mcg particulate matter indoors.
As far as air quality in the basin is concerned, it is informative to note that in 1970-72 there were an average of 123 days per year of high-ozone concentration by the then standard that is ten times higher than the current alert threshold; in 2006 there were 12 days at the much lower standard now used.
In the same period the mortality rate from all causes dropped from 8.8 per 100,000 in 1972 to 6.1/100,000 in 2006.
I wonder why this is never addressed and made headline material?
California’s Jinxed Air Quality Measures and the Power of the Aesthetic
By Wayne Lusvardi
From GreenieWatch.com - Jan. 23, 2007
This week U.S. District Judge Anthony Ishii held the California Air Resources Board in abeyance from enforcing new vehicular tail-pipe emission standards for greenhouse gases until the U.S. Supreme Court rules on a related global warming case. The issue catapulted into Judge Ishii’s court after a California Central Valley auto dealership and the Association of International Automobile Manufacturers sued the state. At issue is whether the rule is a de facto mandate on fuel-economy standards, which must be set by the federal government. See here.
Like the phrase from the movie and novel “Love Story,” judges and bureaucratic agencies “never seem have to say they’re sorry” in California for the disastrous consequences after issuing their imperious air quality rulings. Let’s consider the regulation of air emission standards under the Clean Air Act starting in the 1970’s. Starting in 1975 car manufacturers had to install catalytic converters. And the EPA banned the use of leaded gasoline. MTBE replaced lead as an oxygenating agent in gasoline.
But MTBE, an additive intended to produce cleaner-burning gasoline, was found to contribute to both air and groundwater pollution. Underground gasoline storage tanks had to be removed statewide afterwards and many small independent gas stations went out of business due to the prohibitive cost. The price of gasoline spiked because of mandated seasonal changes to the blend of gasoline and the lack of competition from small, independent gas stations. The clean up cost to water agencies and gasoline station owners was in the billions.
Title 24: Energy Tight Buildings (Fresh air phobia)
Or consider California Title 24 Building Energy Efficiency Standards enacted in 1978. Title 24 came into being after the “Energy Crises” of the late 1970’s from the Mid-East oil embargo of 1973. Title 24 required that all new commercial office buildings be made “energy-tight” with sealed windows and re-circulating air and heat systems and modular office furniture which allowed indoor air to re-circulate over work cubicles.
Most agree that Title 24 saves energy, but it also makes people sick. Legionnaire’s disease and “sick building syndrome” cases exploded after Title 24 was enacted. And billions of dollars have been spent ridding commercial and governmental building ventilation systems of (harmless) asbestos insulation (which was a factor in the disaster following the World Trade Center attacks). Other indoor air quality contaminants such as radon, formaldehyde in carpets, mold and more recently anthrax have also emerged as hazards mostly as a result of trapped air in buildings. This is also the source of the “second-hand smoke” health bogeyman.
The origin of all these toxic indoor air quality problems was not the toxic substances per se but the requirement to re-circulate indoor air with little exchange of fresh outdoor air. It violated the first law of toxicology: “the dose makes the poison.” And concentrating nearly any substance indoors resulted in toxic and/or irritating exposures and sick days from epidemics of influenza.
State Energy Crisis of 2001
In 1996 the Federal EPA mandated that California reduce smog or it would impose fees on air and ship traffic, no-drive days and one-stop truck deliveries. See here. The fastest way to reduce smog was to mothball all its old, polluting power plants, which was called “energy deregulation.” The problem of how to pay off the old mortgages (stranded debts) on the mothballed power plants was the real “crisis” behind the scenes of government. Regulatory agencies enacted price controls, tacked surcharges (”transition fees”) on energy purchases, and erected inter-state trading barriers (spawning Enron’s infamous energy congestion games such as “Fat Boy,” “Death Star,” and “Get Shorty”).
The government hoped to induce an energy pricing fever to pay off the debts instead of having to raise taxes and risk politicians getting thrown out of office. This scheme obviously failed and the unpaid debts and unpaid electricity bills during the crisis were eventually rolled into a $12 billion bond issue. Water and utility districts, the U.C. system, public school districts, and industry were left with huge electricity bills. The three large Investor-Owned Utilities (IOU’s) in California were forced to sell power at a loss nearly going bankrupt.
High Costs, Only Aesthetic Benefits
All of the above cases of draconian environmental regulatory failure wouldn’t sound like something out of a Greek tragedy if they had accomplished healthier air quality as advertised. However, asthma and other respiratory maladies have continued to increase despite a 70% or more decrease in air pollutants in the past few decades. See here
The more recent effort in California to reduce greenhouse gases and pollution from a “dirty coal” plant in Utah is another example of chasing green power windmills. The apparent concern about the Utah power plant in question is not real health impacts, but wealth and aesthetic impacts on the tourist economy due to the haze around Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, Zion, Canyonlands and Arches national parks. See here.
California Jinx
All great empires have used the power of aesthetics, such as the Mayan pyramids as depicted in the current movie Apocalypto, and more recently in the architecture and public works of fascists Hitler and Mussolini (see: Frederic Spotts, Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics). Apparently what drives California environmental policies is the sheer power of aesthetics and public spectacle extended to the visible environment. While proven health benefits never seem to materialize from such aesthetic environmental policies the costs are great and the side effects are paradoxically dangerous to human health.
It’s as if California were jinxed. However, California’s record of environmental regulatory jinxes reminds us that no one person or organization, is smart enough to foresee the unintended consequences of coercive actions far removed from where people live and work. As sociologist Peter L. Berger has written: “Policies that ignore the indigenous definitions of a situation are prone to fail.”
Power of Aesthetics
Judges, government policy makers, and regulatory enforcement agencies aren’t inclined to spend resources listening or modifying their rules: they think they know what’s best already. This is especially the case of the “knowledge class” in academia, the legal and regulatory systems, advocacy organizations and the media which continue to make scapegoats of oil and energy companies for the misguided policies of government environmental agencies. Politicians aren’t about to take a realistic look at the disasters such policies wrought because the power of aesthetics hold sway over crucial voting constituencies. California even has a governor whose career has been in producing such powerful aesthetic images.
When the U.S. Supreme Court or the Federal U.S. District Court convenes to consider another round of clean air regulations for California let’s hope they realize that such are not the rational response to a body of evidence. They are an act of faith driven not only by vested interests but by sophisticated vested ideas fueled by a secularized invisible religion in a utopian rationally planned life.
Oh, forgot to mention that there is no current technology to make a whole house filter that will extract particles below 5mcg/cu. meter.
Because of this fact, the current approach is to abate their production which means curtailing the operations that produce it - other than wetting down dry areas prior to windstorms caused entirely by natural processes.
If it is of any comfort, it is hopeful to note that these fine particles mostly affect the mouth-breathers. :)
“California dirty air kills more than car crashes”....
And California politicians can’t find their own asses with both hands!
I disagree. Car Crash deaths will easily pass dirty air deaths when more of these “shoe boxes” are on the road. Actually, these roller skates are a twofer....When you get killed in one, they can simply bury you in it because I serously doubt they could seperate you from it.....
uh...that was the point I was making...lol. Guess I didn’t make it very well.
Increase car crashes!
Criminalizing all cars would fix both problems right now. Do it, SoCal.
Yeah, this kind of disconnect of propaganda with reality is extreme. Here is a view including LA on the date of the picture in the article, July 15, 2003. ( scroll to below center vertical, left of center .) However smoggy the day might have been, the smog is not thick enough to be apparent at all in the satellite view.
Compare this with eastern China yesterday. The whole bottom right of the view is completely obscured by THICK gray haze. Beijing is north of this ( above in the image ) and covered by a white cloud layer, presumably over the haze. Beijing's pollution problem is produced by the regional industrial pollution drifting north along the bounding mountains to the west. Notice a smaller crescent shaped valley to the west of the coastal area which is also completely obscured. This valley is at 3000' elevation.
The level of pollution over this whole region, which is the heavily populated area of China, is astounding. It does get mention in the press, but these space views show that condition is many times worse than the public is allowed to appreciate. This "dirty air" article is nothing but "carbon cap" propaganda trying to soften up public opinion for draconian measures, while the dire situation in China gets a passing nod.
I grew up in Southern California, and the air was horrible back in the 50’s, days and days of nasty pollution alerts where we had to stay indoors, but through the 80’s and into the 90’s when we moved to Arizona the air was great by comparison. That area is never going to have perfect air because the way the Los Angeles Basin is laid out with the mountains trapping the air on the West side of the mountains. I’ve read stories about when the valleys were settled how smoky it was from the campfires.
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