Climate 411

Part 2 of 5: Drinking Water and Disease

By Bill Chameides / Published: April 12, 2007

The second installment of the IPCC’s 4th Assessment on Climate Change, titled “Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability”, was released on April 6, 2007. In recognition of this report, I’m doing a weekly series called “Climate Dangers You May Not Know About“.

1. More Acidic Oceans
2. Drinking Water and Disease
3. Shifts in Lifecycle Timing
4. Drought and Violence
5. Melting of the North Pole

The recently released second report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) talks about the many ways that global warming will affect people’s health. Their list includes malnutrition, heat exhaustion, diarrhea from water-borne disease, cardio-respiratory problems from air pollution, and more.

People think of these as third world problems, but the U.S. is by no means immune. Heat waves in urban areas cause dangerously bad air quality, both from pollutants and ozone (see our article for details). Plus increased precipitation and flooding (see report [PDF]) can cause dangerous water pollution problems. Here’s why.

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Posted in Health / Read 4 Responses

Lindzen's Lame Claims

By Bill Chameides / Published: April 10, 2007

ignoratio elenchi n.
A logical fallacy of presenting an argument that may in itself be valid, but has nothing to do with the proposition it purports to prove. Also known as “irrelevant conclusion”. [Lat. ignorance of refutation.]

Richard Lindzen, MIT’s most famous (infamous?) science denier, receives our Ignoratio Elenchi award this week for his article "No Such Thing as Perfect Temperature" in Newsweek International. Before critiquing the article’s logical fallacies, it’s worth noting what Lindzen concedes:

"There has been a net warming of the earth over the last century and a half, and our greenhouse gas emissions are contributing at some level. Both of these statements are almost certainly true."

Even Lindzen no longer questions that greenhouse gas emissions are causing global warming. Now let’s examine his other claims.

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Posted in News / Comments are closed

Supreme Court Reverberations

By Bill Chameides / Published: April 9, 2007

Last week’s Supreme Court ruling on Massachusetts versus EPA was a landmark victory for Planet Earth, but there’s still much work to be done. The ruling doesn’t demand any specific action – it just sets the stage for future rulings. Case in point: California’s petition to EPA to use its own, stricter emissions standards rather than federal emissions standards.

In light of this ruling, will the EPA grant California’s petition? On April 5th, a couple of news outlets reported that EPA had approved California’s request. Unfortunately, they got it wrong. EPA simply agreed to take the next to step in considering the California waiver – holding public hearings. We won’t know for months how EPA will rule.

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Posted in Cars and Pollution, Greenhouse Gas Emissions / Read 4 Responses

Tune In…

By Bill Chameides / Published: April 9, 2007

Tomorrow (Tuesday, April 10th) from 8:00-9:00am EDT, I will be on the Michael Smerconish Show. If you live in the Pennsylvania, New Jersey, or Delaware area, you can listen to it on AM 1210. It will also be available on the web.

Listeners will be calling in with questions – here’s a sampling of what I’ll be talking about [MP3]. It should be interesting!

Posted in News / Read 1 Response

Quote of the Week

By Bill Chameides / Published: April 6, 2007

“EPA has refused to comply with this clear statutory command. Instead, it has offered a laundry list of reasons not to regulate.”

From Supreme Court ruling [PDF] on Massachusetts vs. EPA, Opinion of the Court, page 31.

Posted in What Others are Saying / Comments are closed

Part 1 of 5: More Acidic Oceans

By Bill Chameides / Published: April 5, 2007

The second installment of the IPCC’s 4th Assessment on Climate Change, titled “Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability”, will be released on April 6, 2007. In recognition of this report, I’m doing a weekly series called “Climate Dangers You May Not Know About“.

1. More Acidic Oceans
2. Drinking Water and Disease
3. Shifts in Lifecycle Timing
4. Drought and Violence
5. Melting of the North Pole

Everyone knows that carbon dioxide (CO2) warms the globe. But many people don’t know about its other dangerous effect. The build-up of CO2 is undermining ocean life through “ocean acidification”. I’ll start by explaining why our oceans are becoming more acidic, and then illustrate why this is so dangerous to ocean life and our entire food chain.

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Posted in Oceans / Read 5 Responses