CEI Daily Update
Issues in the News
1. SCIENCE
Sen. John Kerry blames global warming for recent tornadoes in the Southeast U.S.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Senior Fellow Marlo Lewis on what Al Gore said about global warming and tornados in An Inconvenient Truth:
“[Gore] claims that 2004 set an all-time record for the number of tornadoes in the United States. Tornado frequency has not increased; rather, the detection of smaller tornadoes has increased. If we consider the tornadoes that have been detectable for many decades (F-3 or greater), there is actually a downward trend since 1950.”
2. INTERNATIONAL
Bill Gates attacks traditional capitalism as not doing enough to help people in the poorest countries of the world.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Special Projects Counsel Hans Bader on why foreign aid is not an effective replacement for economic development:
“Even relatively transparent forms of Western aid, such as anti-AIDS assistance, have sometimes backfired, resulting in increased child death rates and harm to countries’ health-care systems through brain-drain from critical primary care areas. Foreign aid also has distorting macroeconomic effects even on the few countries that make good use of it, like Uganda, where it resulted in increased inflation and interest rates, harm to its export industry from changes in exchange rates, and other economic problems. In many African countries, aid agencies siphon off so much of the country’s scarce skilled manpower that industrial development cannot take off.”
3. ENERGY
A new study suggests that increasing the use of biofuels like ethanol in the name of combating global warming may actually make the situation worse.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Senior Fellow Marlo Lewis on how the research is stacking up:
“Biofuels from corn, sugar cane, and soy perform poorly in many environmental contexts, concludes a January 7, 2008 Science magazine review of a study commissioned by the Swiss government. For example, due to nitrous oxide emissions from fertilizer use, biofuel from corn or canola may be worse for global warming than simply burning fossil fuels.”
Blog feature: For more news and analysis, updated throughout the day, visit CEI’s blog, Open Market.
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