CEI Daily Update
Issues in the News
1. HEALTH
California officials issue a West Nile virus public health alert.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Director of Risk & Environmental Policy Angela Logomasini on the regulatory barriers to fighting diseases like West Nile:
For decades, environmentalists have been trying to scare the public about pesticides, when in fact pesticides pose little risk when used properly and they are a critical part of controlling disease outbreaks. Pesticides meet very stringent federal safety standards and are applied at such low levels that the public has little need to worry about them. Unfortunately, many communities chose not to use pesticides because of environmentalist hype. We may be seeing more deaths as a result.
2. SCIENCE
New research questions the forecasting methods scientists have been using to predict future global warming
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Senior Fellow Iain Murray on the implications of this new research:
Another interesting thing raised by this critique is that, for all the ballyhoo about 2500 scientists being involved, the IPCC seems to be an enormous echo chamber operating outside of mainstream scientific thought. Last year, when the chairman of the National Academy of Science’s panel on Applied Statistics looked at the statistical methodology of the paleoclimatologists he found serious drawbacks (PDF link). He was, of course, dismissed for not being part of the echo chamber.
3. POLITICS
Political observers debate the implications of the virtual world known as “Second Life.”
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Technology Policy Analyst Cord Blomquist on the difference between moral choices in the real and virtual worlds:
[Michael] Gerson describes Second Life as ‘large-scale experiment in libertarianism,’ citing the game’s lack of community structure and long-term consequences. He describes this ‘libertarian’ world as one in which there is not human nature, only human choices. This doesn’t describe a libertarian world, but one of fantasy. Libertarianism, as envisioned by the founding fathers or Friedrich Hayek, is predicated on an understanding of the world that’s very different from Second Life. Common sense agrees with this libertarian understanding–the world is one of consequences, community institutions are vital to human life, and human beings have an innate nature that we should harness, not deny.
Blog feature: For more news and analysis, updated throughout the day, visit CEI’s blog, Open Market.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
To contact a CEI expert for comment or interviews, please call the CEI communications department at 202-331-2273 or email to [email protected].