The thesis of your article is an excellent point and I wish there was a way to get it in front of more people.
On social media I often hear the lament about how the environment is full of toxins (MAHA) or we're killing the Earth. These people have been listening to NGOs too much without looking for data.
I feel like half the SF films available to stream start with the premise that the Earth was destroyed by pollution. I can't even stand to watch that genre of film anymore. It creates too much discord in my mind knowing that it's probably planting that idea in some impressionable watcher who won't bother to check the data.
BTW, please do not take my lack of subscribing as any statement on how much I admire your work. It's simply not in my budget right now. If I had the money I'd add you, Bryce, Doomberg and the other Blackmon substack I don't have right now.
Yes, sci-fi is endlessly annoying, recently the idiotic Last of Us series, mushrooms taking us over as we warmed things up even though we are in the coolest warm period in the last 12,000 years and we are still free of mushroom zombies, except for progressives, of course
Great stuff! But, one of the things you missed for all Otto cycle engines, both on road an off road. That is tech, we now have per cylinder timing control and per cylinder direct injection that makes engines far cleaner and efficient than the old carburetor days. Diesel also has benefited from electronic controls that make the engines run far cleaner than in the past.
Performance wise we used to think one hp per cubic inch was a really high performance engine. Now the family van does better than that without breaking a sweat.
Great news, EBB! The US travels the path all countries like to travel as they develop. Take China, where PM2.5 and SO2 are also down substantially since about 2013.
Great point. Here is my supporting anecdote. Since I joined the utility business in 1981 until my retirement I was responsible for reporting emissions. When I started one of the coal-fired plants emitted SO2 and NOx than the whole state emits now. If the claims of air quality impacts of fossil fuel use are true, then asthma and all the other impacts should have improved a lot. Show me that evidence and I will stop being a skeptic about the claims of benefits for incremental mprovements below the air quality standards.
So many EPA rules to further lower emissions standards were based on bad assumption that further lowering emissions would reduce asthma. The problem with that assumption is that U.S. air quality got so much better, asthma rates increased. How can that be?
My Dr. wife and her OB friend made two very important points 15 - 20 ago.
1. Part of the reason asthma rates are up today is that premature babies born at 25 - 32 weeks or so today (and since the late 1990's) have 95%B or better survival rate but most have asthma. In 1970's a baby born at 25 weeks would only have a ~5% survival rate.
2. In the 1970's most children lived outside where according to EPA's own data is far better air quality. Today most children stay inside which much worse air quality especially as we have tightened up homes and allow limited air exchange.
No surprise asthma goes up in the U.S. even though outdoor air quality is significantly better. Contrary to EPA's old assumptions, furtherer tighten the air regs in the U.S. will have minimum to no impact on U.S. health.
To be fair, when it comes to asthma the problem is the rise in obesity. Since 1980 asthma cases in the US have doubled. The problem is that obesity rates have grown 4 - 5 times during that time.
My understanding is that there is a lot of evidence between the link of obesity and asthma.
Great article. Absolutely true U.S. air quality now one of the top 5 best in the world for industrialized countries over 5 million. 3 of the 4 other better air quality countries you better bring your parka, Canada, Norway and Finland. The U.S. has truly great air quality except for CA which has no coal plants and wants to reduce most of the gas plant. We in FL have 4 or 5 of the best air quality metro areas in the U.S. and 75% of our power is produced using natural gas which these areas all having significant natural gas plants in those metro areas.
So many EPA rules to further lower emissions standards were based on bad assumption that further lowering emissions would reduce asthma. The problem with that assumption is that U.S. air quality got so much better, asthma rates increased. How can that be?
My Dr. wife and her OB friend made two very important points 15 - 20 years ago.
1. Part of the reason asthma rates are up today is that premature babies born at 25 - 32 weeks or so today (and since the late 1990's) have 95%B or better survival rate but most have asthma. In 1970's a baby born at 25 weeks would only have a ~5% survival rate.
2. In the 1970's most children lived outside where according to EPA's own data is far better air quality. Today most children stay inside which much worse air quality especially as we have tightened up homes and allow limited air exchange.
No surprise asthma goes up in the U.S. even though outdoor air quality is significantly better. Contrary to EPA's old assumptions, furtherer tighten the air regs in the U.S. will have minimum to no impact on U.S. health.
Recommendation.... The first two links at the bottom of your article are behind paywalls. You should note that so folks don't waste their time checking the article(s) out.
GREAT job and with the UN admitting that they lied about the Climate Crisis, how much money has been paid to misrepresent the wins of the cleaner environment - GREAT job guys.
I don't know where Tony Heller is blogging these days, but a good ten years ago when he was living in Colorado he remarked that he could see the Rockies from where he lived, and a bare twenty years previous he would not have been able to. The air quality in Beijing is good today, while at the time of the 2008 Olympics it was toxic. There are fish in the rivers of what was East Germany, and I don't believe the Cuyahonga River has caught fire once in the last few decades. Globally the environment is getting cleaner.
The Sheeple will believe most everything if it can become a fixture in the legacy media or trend high enough on social media. You guys know America is a dirty capitalist country right 🤦 and industry is bad and all the products we get from dirty fossil fuels and reliable electricity from fossil fuels will be replaced by clean energy 🤪🕵️ I read that on the internet….. must be true
These poll numbers are the result of narrative control, especially with people identifying as Democrat intoning “the science”, which is mostly nonsense.
Same reason that in a poll some years ago on questions regarding COVID, climate and some other items, Fox viewers were much more likely to know the right answers compared to viewers of cnn or msnbs.
Democrats believe in climate emergency even tho the data shows it currently does not exist, as per many posts by Pielkie on The Honest Broker regarding the actual data collected by the IPCC.
Nothing can be truly fixed until narrative control is eliminated.
Like "hate has no home here" except those maga we want to kill
or
"There are no illegals on stolen land", but why are you dropping off illegals in my neighborhood and why are these native people showing up to take my house?
I wrote an AI prompt which asked, based on current and available data and extrapolating forward, what level of CO2 would be optimal for human prosperity and flourishing. The only additional stipulation was that it should also consider cold deaths and CO2 impacts on agricultural yields. It couldn't come up with a precise figure, but it stated that the probably range for optimal human flourishing and prosperity would probably be somewhere in the range of 450 ppm and 550 ppm.
Not something anyone in media is keen on propagating, given their business model relies upon catastrophe and outrage porn.
The introduction “According to Gallup” explains it all. A biased and should be discredited organization. The false rhetoric and hype of the left only has appeal to those who don’t have the wherewithal to review the data. The entire green movement has hijacked the efforts to support conservation.
Fantastic summary and work, as always! It becomes clear why the Left must redefine and label CO2 as "pollution" in order to push their agenda. The intent of the 1970 Clean Air Act was to identify and reduce true pollutants that have a negative physiological impact on human health. CO2 was hardly mentioned, but the law left the door open to consider other materials as harmful. This small crack in the door and a cascade of absurdly expansive legal interpretations lead to the Climate Change Industrial Complex that generates trillions of dollars of capital, consulting fees, operating expenses, etc, all of which have no discernable benefit to society. Thus, the need to for generating fear through massive and coordinated propaganda campaign showing endless pictures of smokestacks emitting invisible CO2 as an ominous black cloud. All to the benefit of special interests rather than society as a whole.
So disingenuous, since independents and democrats see climate and the environment as inextricably linked, while republicans don’t think about climate at all.
You are incorrect. I am a Republican, and I do think about climate. After reading over 50 books on the subject, hundreds of articles, doing my own models for GHG and radiation balances, and studying the issue for 9 years, I can most assuredly convey to you that I think about climate. My conclusion is that the observed 1C rise in average global temperatures over the last 100 years was 80-85% a result of natural cycles, and the remainder was caused by anthropogenic CO2 emissions. This equates to about 0.2-0.3C in 100 years and is no biggie. There is literally no evidence (data) for Extreme Weather Events being driven by fossil fuel consumption. My conclusion: "Climate Change" is a well-coordinated scam used to serve special interests. The "environment" and "climate change" are mostly unrelated but intentionally conflated in order to drive the alarmist's narrative. We can take care of the environment and meet society's need for energy at the same time.
In other words, you would have voted like the republicans in this story, having convinced yourself that you can produce and consumer co2 to your little heart’s content and nobody including you will be harmed by it. You’re gonna love 2027!
That is correct. CO2 actually has net benefits including improved crop yields, greening of the earth (per NASA's data), and plants' increased drought resistance. The use of fossil fuels and resulting lower energy costs have been a massive benefit to society. Energy poverty is a huge problem for regions of the planet, especially sub-Saharan Africa. Women are burdened with carrying water and cooking with animal dung and the resulting pollution is a health issue.
The thesis of your article is an excellent point and I wish there was a way to get it in front of more people.
On social media I often hear the lament about how the environment is full of toxins (MAHA) or we're killing the Earth. These people have been listening to NGOs too much without looking for data.
I feel like half the SF films available to stream start with the premise that the Earth was destroyed by pollution. I can't even stand to watch that genre of film anymore. It creates too much discord in my mind knowing that it's probably planting that idea in some impressionable watcher who won't bother to check the data.
BTW, please do not take my lack of subscribing as any statement on how much I admire your work. It's simply not in my budget right now. If I had the money I'd add you, Bryce, Doomberg and the other Blackmon substack I don't have right now.
Yes, sci-fi is endlessly annoying, recently the idiotic Last of Us series, mushrooms taking us over as we warmed things up even though we are in the coolest warm period in the last 12,000 years and we are still free of mushroom zombies, except for progressives, of course
Great stuff! But, one of the things you missed for all Otto cycle engines, both on road an off road. That is tech, we now have per cylinder timing control and per cylinder direct injection that makes engines far cleaner and efficient than the old carburetor days. Diesel also has benefited from electronic controls that make the engines run far cleaner than in the past.
Performance wise we used to think one hp per cubic inch was a really high performance engine. Now the family van does better than that without breaking a sweat.
Great news, EBB! The US travels the path all countries like to travel as they develop. Take China, where PM2.5 and SO2 are also down substantially since about 2013.
It is a natural progression for development. People in energy poverty prefer dirty energy over no energy. As societies get richer they become cleaner: https://wirescrossed.substack.com/p/human-energy-systems-a-primer-2?utm_source=app-post-stats-page&r=1r9eeo&utm_medium=ios
Great point. Here is my supporting anecdote. Since I joined the utility business in 1981 until my retirement I was responsible for reporting emissions. When I started one of the coal-fired plants emitted SO2 and NOx than the whole state emits now. If the claims of air quality impacts of fossil fuel use are true, then asthma and all the other impacts should have improved a lot. Show me that evidence and I will stop being a skeptic about the claims of benefits for incremental mprovements below the air quality standards.
So many EPA rules to further lower emissions standards were based on bad assumption that further lowering emissions would reduce asthma. The problem with that assumption is that U.S. air quality got so much better, asthma rates increased. How can that be?
My Dr. wife and her OB friend made two very important points 15 - 20 ago.
1. Part of the reason asthma rates are up today is that premature babies born at 25 - 32 weeks or so today (and since the late 1990's) have 95%B or better survival rate but most have asthma. In 1970's a baby born at 25 weeks would only have a ~5% survival rate.
2. In the 1970's most children lived outside where according to EPA's own data is far better air quality. Today most children stay inside which much worse air quality especially as we have tightened up homes and allow limited air exchange.
No surprise asthma goes up in the U.S. even though outdoor air quality is significantly better. Contrary to EPA's old assumptions, furtherer tighten the air regs in the U.S. will have minimum to no impact on U.S. health.
Thank you for that insight.
To be fair, when it comes to asthma the problem is the rise in obesity. Since 1980 asthma cases in the US have doubled. The problem is that obesity rates have grown 4 - 5 times during that time.
My understanding is that there is a lot of evidence between the link of obesity and asthma.
Condense this into a 15 second TikTok video and our attention-challenged generations might start to get it. But probably not.
Great article. Absolutely true U.S. air quality now one of the top 5 best in the world for industrialized countries over 5 million. 3 of the 4 other better air quality countries you better bring your parka, Canada, Norway and Finland. The U.S. has truly great air quality except for CA which has no coal plants and wants to reduce most of the gas plant. We in FL have 4 or 5 of the best air quality metro areas in the U.S. and 75% of our power is produced using natural gas which these areas all having significant natural gas plants in those metro areas.
So many EPA rules to further lower emissions standards were based on bad assumption that further lowering emissions would reduce asthma. The problem with that assumption is that U.S. air quality got so much better, asthma rates increased. How can that be?
My Dr. wife and her OB friend made two very important points 15 - 20 years ago.
1. Part of the reason asthma rates are up today is that premature babies born at 25 - 32 weeks or so today (and since the late 1990's) have 95%B or better survival rate but most have asthma. In 1970's a baby born at 25 weeks would only have a ~5% survival rate.
2. In the 1970's most children lived outside where according to EPA's own data is far better air quality. Today most children stay inside which much worse air quality especially as we have tightened up homes and allow limited air exchange.
No surprise asthma goes up in the U.S. even though outdoor air quality is significantly better. Contrary to EPA's old assumptions, furtherer tighten the air regs in the U.S. will have minimum to no impact on U.S. health.
That weird jump in NOx emissions for highway vehicles makes me question that data set. What is the explanation for the jump?
It’s definitely weird. Has to be a data reporting issue
Recommendation.... The first two links at the bottom of your article are behind paywalls. You should note that so folks don't waste their time checking the article(s) out.
Yep that's a really good call.
GREAT job and with the UN admitting that they lied about the Climate Crisis, how much money has been paid to misrepresent the wins of the cleaner environment - GREAT job guys.
I don't know where Tony Heller is blogging these days, but a good ten years ago when he was living in Colorado he remarked that he could see the Rockies from where he lived, and a bare twenty years previous he would not have been able to. The air quality in Beijing is good today, while at the time of the 2008 Olympics it was toxic. There are fish in the rivers of what was East Germany, and I don't believe the Cuyahonga River has caught fire once in the last few decades. Globally the environment is getting cleaner.
The Sheeple will believe most everything if it can become a fixture in the legacy media or trend high enough on social media. You guys know America is a dirty capitalist country right 🤦 and industry is bad and all the products we get from dirty fossil fuels and reliable electricity from fossil fuels will be replaced by clean energy 🤪🕵️ I read that on the internet….. must be true
These poll numbers are the result of narrative control, especially with people identifying as Democrat intoning “the science”, which is mostly nonsense.
Same reason that in a poll some years ago on questions regarding COVID, climate and some other items, Fox viewers were much more likely to know the right answers compared to viewers of cnn or msnbs.
Democrats believe in climate emergency even tho the data shows it currently does not exist, as per many posts by Pielkie on The Honest Broker regarding the actual data collected by the IPCC.
Nothing can be truly fixed until narrative control is eliminated.
If you have a sign in your front yard declaring that you believe in science, chances are you don't know what the scientific method is.
Its a recitation of faith.
Like "hate has no home here" except those maga we want to kill
or
"There are no illegals on stolen land", but why are you dropping off illegals in my neighborhood and why are these native people showing up to take my house?
I wrote an AI prompt which asked, based on current and available data and extrapolating forward, what level of CO2 would be optimal for human prosperity and flourishing. The only additional stipulation was that it should also consider cold deaths and CO2 impacts on agricultural yields. It couldn't come up with a precise figure, but it stated that the probably range for optimal human flourishing and prosperity would probably be somewhere in the range of 450 ppm and 550 ppm.
Not something anyone in media is keen on propagating, given their business model relies upon catastrophe and outrage porn.
The introduction “According to Gallup” explains it all. A biased and should be discredited organization. The false rhetoric and hype of the left only has appeal to those who don’t have the wherewithal to review the data. The entire green movement has hijacked the efforts to support conservation.
Fantastic summary and work, as always! It becomes clear why the Left must redefine and label CO2 as "pollution" in order to push their agenda. The intent of the 1970 Clean Air Act was to identify and reduce true pollutants that have a negative physiological impact on human health. CO2 was hardly mentioned, but the law left the door open to consider other materials as harmful. This small crack in the door and a cascade of absurdly expansive legal interpretations lead to the Climate Change Industrial Complex that generates trillions of dollars of capital, consulting fees, operating expenses, etc, all of which have no discernable benefit to society. Thus, the need to for generating fear through massive and coordinated propaganda campaign showing endless pictures of smokestacks emitting invisible CO2 as an ominous black cloud. All to the benefit of special interests rather than society as a whole.
So disingenuous, since independents and democrats see climate and the environment as inextricably linked, while republicans don’t think about climate at all.
You are incorrect. I am a Republican, and I do think about climate. After reading over 50 books on the subject, hundreds of articles, doing my own models for GHG and radiation balances, and studying the issue for 9 years, I can most assuredly convey to you that I think about climate. My conclusion is that the observed 1C rise in average global temperatures over the last 100 years was 80-85% a result of natural cycles, and the remainder was caused by anthropogenic CO2 emissions. This equates to about 0.2-0.3C in 100 years and is no biggie. There is literally no evidence (data) for Extreme Weather Events being driven by fossil fuel consumption. My conclusion: "Climate Change" is a well-coordinated scam used to serve special interests. The "environment" and "climate change" are mostly unrelated but intentionally conflated in order to drive the alarmist's narrative. We can take care of the environment and meet society's need for energy at the same time.
In other words, you would have voted like the republicans in this story, having convinced yourself that you can produce and consumer co2 to your little heart’s content and nobody including you will be harmed by it. You’re gonna love 2027!
That is correct. CO2 actually has net benefits including improved crop yields, greening of the earth (per NASA's data), and plants' increased drought resistance. The use of fossil fuels and resulting lower energy costs have been a massive benefit to society. Energy poverty is a huge problem for regions of the planet, especially sub-Saharan Africa. Women are burdened with carrying water and cooking with animal dung and the resulting pollution is a health issue.
You belie your name. Good day to you sir.