Free Republic

Just two hours of exposure to diesel exhaust is enough to cause significant damage to the human body, a new UBC study concludes. The study, led by Dr. Chris Carlsten, looked at how pollution particles affect the way genes are expressed in the body. Sixteen non-smoking adult volunteers with asthma were put in an enclosed booth about the size of a standard bathroom, and made to breathe diluted and aged exhaust fumes equal to the air quality along a Beijing highway, or a busy port in British Columbia. Carlsten says the impact of the pollution "exceeded our expectations." "Quite rapidly,...

Sales of natural-gas powered big rigs could jump as much as fivefold this year as falling prices for both natural gas and the carbon fuel tanks required for such trucks come down, the Wall Street Journal says. Lowe's, Procter & Gamble, UPS and PepsiCo are among the major US companies that have gone on record saying they're expanding their fleet of trucks that can run on either compressed natural gas (CNG) or liquefied natural gas (LNG). For instance, UPS is buying 1,000 natural-gas trucks by year-end, and P&G, whose fleet is about seven percent natural gas, is looking to boost...

After accumulating evidence via the Freedom of Information Act that showed theEnvironmental Protection Agency conducted disturbing experiments that exposed humans to inhalable particulates the agency has said are deadly, sound science advocate Steven Milloy has sued the federal government. The trials, which were carried out at EPA’s Human Studies Facility at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, exposed subjects to fine particulate matter (called “PM2.5”) at extremely elevated levels for up to two hours at a time. EPA’s Web site on particulate matter and its 2009 “Summary of PM2.5 Risk Estimates,” stated, “an examination of cause-specific risk...

[snip]...On first blush, I simply could not believe Mr. Milloy. Then I looked carefully at the facts and at the law. This case involves the intentional exposure of human subjects to “fine particulate” matter, also known as PM2.5. EPA obtained their PM2.5 from a diesel truck. It is difficult to overstate the atrocity of this research. EPA parked a truck’s exhaust pipe directly beneath an intake pipe on the side of a building. The exhaust was sucked into the pipe, mixed with some additional air and then piped directly into the lungs of the human subjects. EPA actually has pictures...