CEI Daily Update
Issues in the News
1. Environment
The Washington Post reports on the positive impact of global warming on residents of Greenland.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Director of Energy & Global Warming Policy Myron Ebell on why a warmer world could be a safer world:
“…cold winter storms kill a lot of people. More people die from blizzards and cold spells than from heat waves. Increased death rates usually persist for weeks after the unusually cold temperatures have passed, which suggests that the cold is killing people who would otherwise live into another season at least. Mortality rates during heat waves are just the reverse. The increase ends and often the rate drops below normal as soon as temperatures cool, which suggests that the higher temperatures are killing people who are likely to die soon anyway. It is true that mortality rates from both cold and hot weather have been declining in rich countries for a long time. That’s because wealthier societies can adapt and protect themselves better from temperature extremes. But it also appears that deaths from hot weather have been declining more rapidly than those from cold.”
2. Health
New York Times science columnist John Tierney takes on Rachel Carson’s legacy and defends the use of DDT to combat disease.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Director of Risk & Environmental Policy Angela Logomasini on the DDT controversy:
“The critiques of [John] Tierney’s piece offer little more than speculation about unverified public health risks and rationalizations about DDT bans. The suggestions that DDT is too dangerous for life-saving uses because it is classified as “possibly carcinogenic to humans” by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), for example, are silly. Coffee has the same classification! Moreover, the IARC monograph on DDT notes: “there is inadequate evidence in humans for the carcinogenicity of DDT.” And given the massive human exposures to DDT over decades, The Lancet has reported that the “record for human beings is extremely good.”
3. Congress
House Republicans clash with Natural Resources Committee chairman Nick Rahall (D-WV) over energy policy.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Director of Energy & Global Warming Policy Myron Ebell on the flaws of the Rahall proposal:
“The bill would have the effect of reducing access to domestic energy sources at a time of high international prices and increasing demand. Restricting sources of new oil and gas supplies means higher costs for both consumers and business, which will raise prices throughout the economy and amount to a stealth tax on energy use.”
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