The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update
Issues in the News
1. ENVIRONMENT
The number of tropical storms for the 2006 season falls below average, countering predictions of increased storm activity caused by global warming.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Senior Fellow Marlo Lewis, Jr. on the debate over natural disasters and climate change:
“Disasters have always hit hard and frequently. The difference is not in the state of the climate but in our perceptions, which are shaped by the media’s non-stop coverage of natural disasters all over the world. Hurricanes and drought have been around for millennia, but there was a time when most Americans would never see an image of hurricane devastation in Australia or hear reports of fires in Indonesia. Time [magazine] implies that the destruction wrought by Katrina was somehow due to global warming. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), on the other hand, attributes the recent upsurge in Atlantic basin hurricane activity to a natural multi-decadal cycle.”
2. HEALTH
A Canadian study finds that parents are unrealistically optimistic about obesity in their own children.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Senior Fellow Iain Murray on the positive social trends behind the worries about obesity:
“Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson recently designated obesity a disease, with all the negative implications that entails. Our society, crippled, it seems, by obesity, is sick. Yet new research suggests this interpretation has got everything about face. Obesity is not a symptom of a sick society, but a sign of a very healthy one.”
3. SCIENCE
A new study suggests that nearly one in five combat veterans experiences post-traumatic stress disorder.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Adjunct Analyst Steven Milloy on why politicized science produces bad public policy:
“In a rational world devoid of politics, Congress might reasonably restrict benefits to the small minority of veterans whose PTSD claims can be verified against their combat experiences. But in our very different — sometimes surreal — world, powerful veterans’ lobbies pressure Congress to increase benefits with few if any restrictions, regardless of the relevant facts and science. Not many politicians are willing to be seen as saying ‘no’ to veterans.”
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