We reported last week on new research indicating that the pesticide DDT may
not have been the "Silent Spring" disaster environmental activists have long
claimed. Last week new research out of Canada and published in the New England
Journal of Medicine says asbestos fears may also be going down the drain.
According to an article in the Washington Post ("Study Questions Cancer Threat
>From Asbestos," May 28, 1998) Montreal epidemiologist Michel Camus and two
colleagues tracked the lung cancer rate among thousands of women in a cluster
of Canadian towns near asbestos mines or factories. In the 1940s and 1950s,
before pollution controls were put in place, the air in such towns was so
thick
with asbestos fibers that women had to regularly sweep it off balconies and
people left footprints in it on the sidewalks.
Yet the Canadian scientists found no measurable increased risk of death from
lung cancer in such towns. Said co-author Jack Siemiatycki, professor of
epidemiology at the University of Quebec, "If these people didn't experience
excess rates of cancer, it's hard to understand the meaning of all the risk
projections being done for schools and buildings where people are panicking
because they're being exposed to small amounts."
Scientists who criticized the study, most notably Dr. Philip Landrigan, an
advisor to the U.S. EPA on the asbestos issue, found fault not with the
Canadians' data but with their "interpretation." Actually, the EPA has for
some time recommended that the best policy with asbestos in buildings is often
just to seal it up and leave it alone. Of course, the EPA kept mum on that
point in September 1993, when New York City school officials delayed school
openings while they spent millions ripping asbestos out of school buildings.
School officials took some heat when a few of the kiddies, idling on the
sidewalks for weeks, were hit by cars.
Another report out of Canada (UPI, May 26) says Commissioner of the
Environment
Brian Emmet has slammed the Canadian government for failing to put its
enthusiasm for the Global Climate Treaty into action. The government doesn't
have a real plan, complains Emmet. Over the past decade, he says, greenhouse
gas emissions have been going up not down, and by the year 2000 will be 11
percent above the government's stated target.
Meanwhile, here in Washington, D.C., the Pew Center on Global Climate Change,
one of several organizations now funded by Pew Charitable Trusts to package
global warming for the press and the public, has completed the first round of
its ongoing global warming ad campaign with spreads in the Washington Post,
Wall
Street Journal, New York Times, and Business Week, and television spots
aired in
the Washington area. Given that money is no object at the Pew Center, we
wondered if advertising revenue directed toward such media outlets (full page
in the Washington Post, $41,000; Wall Street Journal, $142,861; New York
Times,
$75,978; Business Week, $81,000) doesn't give their reporters an appearance of
conflict of interest. Well, probably not.
Elsewhere, Enron Renewable Energy Corporation, which had produced 90 wind
turbines before 1998, is set to ramp up production to 548 this year.
According
to an item on the Dow Jones Wire May 15, Enron Renewable is on the hunt for
strategic acquisitions, looking for deals similar to its October 1997
buyout of
Germany's Tacke Windtechnik. Thomas White, chairman and CEO of Enron
Renewable, says if consumers do show an inclination to pay a premium for green
power, Enron may one day have a renewable-energy desk as part of its massive
trading operation.
Speaking of trading, Michael Marvin, executive director of the Business
Council
for Sustainable Energy, in a March 13 letter to Dirk Forrister, chairman of
the
White House Climate Change Task Force, said that "many of the Council's
members
have been eager to help create a trading institution, and have been working
with the United Nations Framework Convention and officials within the U.S.
government to provide input on design criteria." The only corporate BCSE
member copied on the letter was John Palmisano of Enron.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency this week issued and then quickly
downplayed a report that catalytic converters installed on U.S. automobiles to
cut air pollution may be generating nitrous oxide, a form of laughing gas
thought to contribute to a putative global warming. This prompted a Maryland
colleague to speculate that, if true, nitrous oxide might have a tranquilizing
effect on cranky, gridlocked commuters, a kind of mobile Prozac.
Drivers might need a little Prozac if the Sierra Club has its way and forces
them into compact cars whether they want them or not. Responding to a study
that claimed most Americans now driving big, comfortable cars and trucks
wouldn't dump them unless gasoline prices doubled (three out of 10 wouldn't
switch no matter what the gasoline cost), Dan Becker, director of the Sierra
Club's "Global Warming and Energy Program" said it's time to unleash the
regulators. "The political will doesn't exist to raise gas taxes by 80
percent or 100 percent," he said, Becker called on federal lawmakers to raise the
Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, which would force automakers
to manufacture more small, ultra-fuel-efficient cars.
The Competitive Enterprise Institute has already documented how current CAFE
standards, by pushing Americans into small cars, have resulted in thousands of
additional auto accident deaths each year. SEPP President Fred Singer has
noted that higher fuel efficiency, combined with cheap gasoline, actually
encourages Americans to drive instead of, say, taking the train. This
increases traffic congestion. Cars stuck in traffic, says Singer, emit
infinite amounts of pollution (and CO2) per mile at zero miles to the
gallon.
Finally, in the Norwegian Sea a Greenpeace activist is reportedly holed up on
an oil rig operated by the Norwegian division of Shell Oil, proof that cozying
up to Green activists does not necessarily rid you of those who wish to be a
nuisance. Perhaps Greenpeace is lobbying for a seat on the Shell Board of
Directors.
Until next week.
TW2 is compiled by SEPP research associate Candace Crandall (crandall@sepp.org). See the SEPP web site
(www.sepp.org) for more new articles and commentary.
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