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De Omnibus Dubitandum - Lux Veritas

Tuesday, July 30, 2019

The world faces ‘pollinator collapse’? How and why the media get the science wrong time and again

| July 30, 2019

There’s a saying among lawyers that goes, “If the facts aren’t on your side, argue the law. If the law isn’t on your side, argue the facts. If neither the facts nor the law are on your side, pound the table.”
Substitute the word “science” for “law” and the same would apply to many environmental advocacy groups and even some politicians campaigning to ban various pesticides on the grounds that they’re contributing to a dangerous collapse in our pollinator population.

With neither the facts nor the science on their side, they’ve been doing a lot of table pounding lately.
As I and others have detailed in the Genetic Literacy Project and as other news organizations such as the Washington Post and Slate have outlined, the pollinator-collapse narrative has been relentless and mostly wrong for more than seven years now.

It germinated with Colony Collapse Disorder that began in 2006 and lasted for a few years—a freaky die off of bees that killed almost a quarter of the US honey bee population, but its cause remains unknown. Versions of CCD have been occurring periodically for hundreds of years, according to entomologists........To Read More....

Monday, July 29, 2019

Energy & Environmental Newsletter: July 29, 2019

By -- July 29, 2019

The Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions (AWED) is an informal coalition of individuals and organizations interested in improving national, state, and local energy and environmental policies. Our premise is that technical matters like these should be addressed by using Real Science (please consult WiseEnergy.org for more information).

A key element of AWED’s efforts is public education. Towards that end, every three weeks we put together a newsletter to balance what is found in the mainstream media about energy and the environment. We appreciate MasterResource for their assistance in publishing this information.
Some of the more important articles in this issue are:
Greed Energy Economics:
Turbine Health Matters:
Renewable Energy Destroying Ecosystems:
Miscellaneous Energy News:
Miscellaneous–Offshore Wind
US Energy Policy and Presidential Politics:
Manmade Global Warming Articles:
Science, Education, Politics, and Misc Related Articles:
See Prior AWED Newsletters

Monday, July 22, 2019

Dr. Aric Hausknecht Responds to SG Jerome Adams' Tylenol Recommendation

By Josh Bloom — July 12, 2019 @ American Council on Science and Health

#Special to ACSH.

ACSH friend Dr. Aric Hausknecht, a New York neurologist and pain management physician, has taken issue with the July 4th advice tweeted by Surgeon General Jerome Adams, M.D., which recommended the use of IV Tylenol for post-op pain.

Dr. Hausknecht gave us exclusive permission to print his response to Dr. Adams.

I am writing in response to recent comments made by the U.S. Surgeon General, Jerome Adams, regarding the use of intravenous acetaminophen for anesthesia and post-operative pain relief. The Surgeon General implies that acetaminophen (Tylenol) is equally efficacious to intravenous (IV) opioids for pain relief. Apparently, his comments are based upon, Comparison of the Analgesic Effect of Intravenous Acetaminophen and Morphine Sulfate in Rib Fracture; a Randomized Double-Blind Clinical Trial,  Emerg (Tehran). 2015 Summer; 3(3): 99–102. The authors of this paper concluded, "The findings of the present study showed that IV acetaminophen and morphine have the same therapeutic value in relieving the pain of rib fracture."

However, this study was carried out on a limited population group, 54 patients in total, and the statistical analysis is of questionable validity. At best, this study establishes a need for further inquiry, but in no way does this study provide adequate evidence to use IV acetaminophen as a substitute for IV opioids.

In another related paper, Intravenous versus Oral Acetaminophen for Pain: Systematic Review of Current Evidence to Support Clinical Decision-MakingCan J Hosp Pharm. 2015 May-Jun; 68(3): 238–247, the authors performed a literature review from 1948-2014 and "summarized and evaluated the available published literature describing efficacy, safety, and pharmacokinetic outcomes of randomized studies assessing oral versus IV dosage forms of acetaminophen." The authors concluded, "For patients who can take an oral dosage form, no clear indication exists for preferential prescribing of IV acetaminophen." On the basis of this comprehensive review, the authors concluded, "Therefore, on the basis of current evidence, if a patient has a functioning gastrointestinal tract and is able to take oral formulations, IV formulations (of acetaminophen) are not indicated."

Additionally, IV acetaminophen is FDA approved for use in the management of mild-to-moderate pain and moderate-to-severe pain with adjunctive opioid analgesics. It is not clear why a physician who is in a position to shape public policy would recommend  standards of care that suggest that IV acetaminophen is equally efficacious to IV opioids when: 1) that premise is unproven, 2) there is strong evidence that oral acetaminophen is equally efficacious to IV acetaminophen,  3) IV acetaminophen should probably not be administered to a patient that can tolerate oral administration, 4) IV acetaminophen is not FDA approved as a stand-alone analgesic agent for mild-to-moderate pain and moderate-to-severe pain, and, 5) it is contrary to good and accepted medical practice that has established that opioids are more efficacious than acetaminophen for postoperative pain and for moderate-severe pain.
I remain,

Aric Hausknecht, MD
Diplomate American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology
 
 
And then to follow up

US Surgeon Gen. Backpedals on Flawed Tylenol Study. Cause of ACSH.
Dr. Jerome Adams celebrated Independence Day by trumpeting a study which concluded that Tylenol worked as well as morphine for controlling the pain from a broken rib. But the study was complete nonsense. ACSH caught the Surgeon General and now he's backpedaling like the woman in the bicycle scene from The Wizard of Oz (played backward of course)..............To Read More.....

Please Help Fund Our Work - If you follow our work, you know that we here at ACSH go after the fraudsters, the hucksters and the snake-oil peddlers. And when we're not debunking their misleading or dangerous junk science, we're always aiming to give you the most accurate and dependable health news. But we can only continue to do that with support from our readers and friends who value what we do. So if you can ... Please Donate. Thank you.

How Toxic Is Sumithrin (Anvil) Mosquito Spray?

By Josh Bloom — July 17, 2019 @ American Council on Science and Health

It's mosquito season in the Northeast and we had a very wet spring. Which means there are going to be 1) a whole bunch of mosquitoes, and 2) a whole bunch of people arguing about whether to spray them or not. The purpose of this article is to examine the toxicology of Sumithrin – the active ingredient in the commonly used insecticide Anvil – and come up with a realistic picture of whether Sumithrin is a deadly poison, a non-toxic chemical, or something in between.

Sumithrin, aka d-phenothrin, is a commonly used insecticide which belongs to the pyrethroid family of chemicals – synthetic analogs of the chemicals that are found in chrysanthemum flowers that the plant makes for self-protection against insects (1). Sumithrin is a general-purpose insecticide; it is used to kill or control fleas, scabies, and head lice. It also kills ticks—a benefit I’ll discuss later.

There are a number of standard methods used to determine the risk of chemicals. Here are some of the most widely used.

1. ACUTE TOXICITY

One way to gauge the toxicity of a chemical is to determine the amount of it required to kill 50% of a group of lab animals (usually rats and mice) with a single dose. This measurement is called the LD50, which is short for Lethal Dose 50%. The LD50 is expressed in milligrams per kilogram (mpk) of body weight of the animal. For example, if Chemical X has an LD50  of 10 milligrams per kilogram, then the dose of the X required to kill half the rats would be 5 milligrams (an average rat weighs 0.5 kilograms). If Chemical Y has an LD50 of 2,000 mpk this means that it would take 100 mg of Y - about 20% of the body weight of the animal - to kill half the rats. This is an enormous dose for a rat or any other mammal.

So, a high LD50 means that the chemical in question has low toxicity. Conversely, a low LD50  indicates that the chemical has significant toxicity. Although LD50 values in rodents cannot be directly converted to a lethal dose in humans, they serve as a rough approximation of human toxicity, especially when these values are consistent across a number of different animal species. So, it would be incorrect to say that the lethal dose of Chemical X, which is 5 mg in rats, would be 700 mg in humans (average weight 70 kilograms). But it would be fairly safe to conclude that Chemical X will be more toxic to people than Chemical Y, and probably by a lot.

LD50 VALUES OF SOME CHEMICALS AND DRUGS

The scientific literature contains an enormous amount of data on the toxicity chemicals. One especially useful source is TOXNET, an NIH website which contains toxicity and carcinogenicity data, etc. on 400,000 chemical compounds. All of the toxicity data contained in this article is derived from the TOXNET database.

Figure 1 contains rat LD50 values for selected chemicals and drugs.

Figure 1. LD50  values of sumithrin and other representative chemicals and drugs. Strychnine (top) is the most toxic chemical in the group. Toxicity decreases from top to bottom.

* The value for aspirin is the average of two peer-reviewed studies.

** The LD50 values of sumithrin and aspartame (NutraSweet) are not 10,000 mpk; they are higher than that. No lethal dose in rats could be identified for either chemical, so the value is usually written as >10,000. When something has an LD50 of >10,000 the only way it will kill you is if you get run over by a truck carrying it.

Of the nine chemicals and drugs listed in Figure 1 acetaminophen (Tylenol) is the least toxic, with the exception of aspartame and sumithrin, which are non-toxic. Calculating a lethal human dose, as I mentioned before, cannot be done by using the same LD50 value and adjusting the dose size from rats to humans. But just to illustrate the lack of acute toxicity of sumithrin, I did the "math" anyhow. If rat LD50 values were the same as those of humans, then the toxic dose of sumithrin in people would be 182 grams - 36 teaspoons. You are unlikely to eat 36 teaspoons of permethrin.

2. CUMULATIVE EXPOSURE

Most people have an incorrect impression about everyday chemicals that we are exposed to. They believe that we live in a cocktail of toxic substances, which build up in our bodies and that this is responsible for the surge in cancer rates we are now seeing. There are two problems here:

1. There is no surge of cancer rates. They have remained steady or slightly declined over the past 24 years.



Age-adjusted incidence (top) and mortality (bottom) of all cancers (per 100,000 people) between 1992-2016. Source: Cancer Stat Facts: Cancer of Any Site.

2. With few exceptions, chemicals do not accumulate in our bodies. This is because of our livers – the primary site of metabolism of drugs and chemicals, natural or synthetic – break down the chemicals or drugs that pass through them, converting these substances into water-soluble metabolites that are usually excreted in the urine.

Sumithrin, like most chemicals, does not bioaccumulate. In rats, the half-life in blood is about one hour (rapid metabolism), meaning that after one hour half of it is gone and after 8 hours (four half-lives) almost all of the sumithrin is gone. Even after administration of a single 200 mg dose (2% of the weight of the rat), more than 95% of the chemical was metabolized and eliminated after 48 hours.

Also, keep in mind that these numbers represent the fate of sumithrin when taken orally. Sumithrin is not very efficient in penetrating the skin, so skin exposure will give low blood levels to begin with.

Even though the chemical has very low toxicity when inhaled by rats, when it is inhaled in large quantities by humans, sumithrin can cause "nausea, vomiting, throat irritation, headache, dizziness, and skin and eye irritation," but the hysteria surrounding spraying is unwarranted. According to data from the Poison Control Center between 1992-2005, there was an average of 180 exposures per year with only 25% of these (45) resulting in symptoms (2). So it is not surprising that a 2011 paper, "Bystander Exposure to Ultra-Low-Volume Insecticide Applications Used for Adult Mosquito Management," concluded:
"Our results support the findings of previous risk assessments that acute exposures and risks to humans from [Ultra-Low-Volume] insecticides are well below regulatory levels of concern." C. Preftakes, et.al, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2011 Jun; 8(6): 2142–2152.
3. A LITTLE DOES NOT EQUAL A LOT

Paracelsus, the "father of toxicology."
Image: Wikipedia
Although this statement seems self-evident, it is mind-boggling how often people get it wrong by failing to differentiate between the biological effects of trace quantities and a bottle full of the same chemical, even though in the 16th century the Swiss physician Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, aka, Paracelsus, coined the phrase "All things are poison, and nothing is without poison, the dosage alone makes it so a thing is not a poison," which has been shortened to "the dose makes the poison"

This simple adage is the main reason that sumithrin can be sprayed to kill mosquitoes while sparing humans. Common mosquitoes weigh 2.5 mg. An average human weighs 70 kilograms, which is 28 million times more than the mosquito.

This is why such insecticides can be toxic to bugs but not toxic to people, but it is not the only reason. It is also known that mosquitoes metabolize sumithrin more slowly than humans, so it builds up in the bugs but not in people (3).

4. CARCINOGENICITY

There are a number of ways to evaluate whether a chemical will be carcinogenic in humans. Here are the two most important:

1) Genotoxicity (DNA damage). Chemicals that damage DNA always raise a red flag because gene damage can be a precursor to cancer. Many experimental drugs have met with an untimely demise because of a positive Ames test (3). Although not all chemicals that are genotoxic are carcinogens, most carcinogens are genotoxic. There are a number of other lab tests that are used to determine the possible carcinogenicity of chemicals.

2) High dose rodent studies. Rat models of cancer are notoriously awful. Part of the reason is that rats are not little humans, but the primary reason is the way the tests are conducted. Typically, rats are fed a very high dose – much higher than a human will ever be exposed to – for their entire lives (two years) and then examined for tumors. Although this model is clearly unrealistic, the high dose feeding is only part of the problem. The choice of rats is the other. The Sprague-Dawley rat is frequently used for this experiment; this rat is bred to easily develop tumors, so much so that the control animals (not given the chemical being tested) develop so many tumors that it can be difficult to determine whether a chemical caused the tumor or the rat developed it on its own.

Sumithrin is neither genotoxic nor carcinogenic. There is no agency, US or international, that lists the chemical as a possible carcinogen. Even California's insane Proposition 65, which requires cancer warning labels on hundreds of chemicals (also on hotel rooms, in cars, handbags...and much more) does not contain sumithrin. But the list does contain alcohol – a known human carcinogen. It would be unusual to see people hiding in their homes with the windows closed and air conditioners running when people walk by drinking beer.

5. OTHER LIFE FORMS

Sumithrin is more toxic to dogs and (especially) cats than it is to rodents, birds, or humans. The primary routes of exposure include flea collars and indoor foggers. Sumithrin is highly toxic to bees, fish, and amphibians. It should not be sprayed in waterways.

6. PERSISTENCE IN THE ENVIRONMENT

Sumithrin decomposes to non-toxic breakdown products within a few hours (in the air) and less than a day on the surface of plants. Its half-life in soil is 1-2 days and it is not water-soluble, so groundwater contamination is unlikely.

7. TO SPRAY OR NOT TO SPRAY

It is easy to conclude that any given chemical or drug should not be used if one examines only the risks of using it without considering the risks of not using it. Both mosquitoes and ticks are vectors for numerous (and emerging) bacterial and viral infections and when they are not controlled, human disease will inevitably result.

West Nile (mosquitoes) and Lyme (ticks) are well-known, but other pathogens transmitted by mosquitoes can be deadly. Chikungunya virus, once rare to the US, is now found in 35 states. The infection is rarely fatal but can be incapacitating for weeks. Dengue virus is endemic to Africa but has now been found in Texas, Hawaii, and the Florida Keys. Eastern Equine Encephalitis (EEE) perhaps the most dangerous of all mosquito-transmitted diseases, so much so that it is considered to be a potential bioterrorism weapon. It is spread to horses and humans by mosquitoes. Although still rare, the fatality rate for infected humans is 50-75%. Zika, which causes severe birth defects in the babies of infected mothers, Western Equine Encephalitis, St. Louis Encephalitis, and LaCrosse Encephalitis are still uncommon but all are now found in the US. All of these viral infections are spread by mosquitoes. (5)

In addition to Lyme, ticks spread a number of viral infections, such as Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, Colorado Tick Fever, and Powassan Encephalitis.

At the heart of this controversy is the fallacy that "natural is better." It is not, despite the brilliantly successful advertising campaign of the organic food industry, copycat traditional food manufacturers which have hopped on the bandwagon, and the dietary supplement industry, which has pushed such ridiculous claims to the point where they resemble satire. The only difference between "natural" substances and their man-made counterparts is the source of the chemical or food. Your body cannot tell the difference between a chemical from a grape or one from a lab. All that counts is the properties of the chemical in question. Virtually all of the "natural" Vitamin C you buy comes from factories in China, where it is manufactured from glucose. Yet, it is no different from Vitamin C extracted from oranges.

Public health decisions require sound science, not reflexive reactions based on misinformation, ignorance, or personal beliefs. Whether the issue is vaccination or pest control, feel-good, easy-sounding memes may be attractive alternatives to actual facts, but in the absence of sound science the easy answer is usually the wrong answer.

NOTES:

(1) Insecticide marketers engage in a sleight-of-hand by saying pyrethroid insecticides are in the same chemical family as the natural pesticides from chrysanthemums. This is technically true, but meaningless. It implies that the insecticides are somehow safer because they are "related" to chrysanthemums. That is nonsense. Each pyrethroid has its own toxicity profile. Sumithrin is safe because it is non-toxic, not because it is structurally similar to the natural insecticides.

(2) Reference: d-Phenothrin (Sumithrin®): Occupational and Residential Exposure Assessment for the Reregistration Elibibility Decision (RED); U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances, Office of Pesticide Programs, U.S. Government Printing Office: Washington, DC, 2007; pp 1-23.

(3) Another "active" ingredient found in Anvil insecticide is piperonyl butoxide.
Piperonyl butoxide is not an insecticide, rather, it inhibits the enzyme that clears sumithrin from the mosquito, making it more effective. Piperonyl butoxide is neither toxic nor carcinogenic. There is one case report of a fatal overdose, but the victim drank between one pint and one quart of the chemical.

(4) The Ames test, a widely used and important method for determining carcinogenicity uses bacteria to test for the ability of chemicals to mutate genes. It was invented by biochemist Dr. Bruce Ames in the 1970s. Ames was one of the founders of ACSH.

(5) This information is available from the American Mosquito Control Association, a non-profit group funded by the CDC.

Please Help Fund Our Work - If you follow our work, you know that we here at ACSH go after the fraudsters, the hucksters and the snake-oil peddlers. And when we're not debunking their misleading or dangerous junk science, we're always aiming to give you the most accurate and dependable health news. But we can only continue to do that with support from our readers and friends who value what we do. So if you can ... Please Donate. Thank you.
 
 

Saturday, July 20, 2019

Bill To Reinstate Obama Pesticide Ban Ignores Science

Paul Driessen Jul 20, 2019

The battle over neonicotinoid pesticides rages on. In response to one of many collusive sue-and-settle lawsuits between environmentalist groups and Obama environmental officials, in 2014 the Department of the Interior’s Fish and Wildlife Service banned neonic use in wildlife refuges.
Following a careful review of extensive scientific studies, the Trump Interior Department concluded that neonics are safe for humans, bees, other wildlife and the environment. In August 2018 it reversed the ban.

Last month, Rep. Nydia M. Velázquez (D-NY) introduced HB2854, to reinstate the ban via legislation. She and 21 cosponsors (all Democrats) say neonics threaten biodiversity, bees and other wildlife in the nation’s refuges. Anti-pesticide groups have rallied behind the bill.

Their efforts are misguided and based on bad, outdated or even dishonest information.
Neonicotinoids are the world’s most widely used insecticide class. As I have noted in previous articles (here, here and here, for example), these systemic, advanced-technology insecticides are sprayed on many fruits and vegetables. But some 90 percent of them are used as seed coatings for corn, wheat, canola, soybeans, cotton and similar crops. Either way, they are absorbed into plant tissues as crops grow.
 
Neonics protect plants against insect damage by effectively targeting only pests that actually feed on the crops, particularly during early growth stages. Since they don’t wash off, they reduce the need for multiple sprays with insecticides that truly can harm bees, birds, other animals and non-pest insects.
Moreover, because neonics from coated seeds have largely dissipated from plant tissues by the time mature plants flower, they are barely detectable in pollen and nectar. That explains why extensive studies have found that neonic residues are well below levels that actually can adversely affect bee development or reproduction under real-world (non-laboratory) conditions.

It also helps explain why annual surveys and studies continue to show steady beehive and honeybee population increases since the infamous “colony collapse disorder” and “bee-pocalypse crisis” of a few years ago.

While over-winter and summer losses are still troublesome in places, they now occur overwhelmingly in hobbyist hives. Professional beekeepers, who handle the vast majority of US bees and hives, have learned how to control what was really, or primarily, behind the worrisome honeybee losses:Varroa destructormites that arrived in the USA in 1987.

Bee larvae hatch with Varroa mites already attached to them, and these tiny parasites suck the hemolymph blood-equivalent out of bees, attack bee fat body organs, compromise their immune systems, and provide pathways for other viruses, diseases and fungal pathogens into bees and colonies.

The destructive mites infected hive after hive. What were once nuisance infections became devastating epidemics, and sometimes efforts to control the mites and diseases further damaged hives. Maintaining healthy hives became much more complicated and difficult, especially when multiple pathogens invaded.

As disease control efforts improved, hive counts and honeybee populations climbed. They are now at or near 20-year highs in North America and every other continent.

As to claims that neonics should be banned from wildlife refuges, a 2015 international study of wild bees published in Entomology Today found that most wild bees never even come into contact with crops or the neonics that supposedly threaten them.

The same study also determined that only 2 percent of wild bees are much involved in crop pollination, and thus become exposed to these pesticides. Yet they are among the healthiest bee species.

Many US Wildlife Refuges were established along migratory bird flyways to provide food for waterfowl. But some can provide sufficient food only through cooperative agreements that let local farmers plant corn, wheat and certain other crops on refuge lands in exchange for leaving some of their crops unharvested, to supplement natural animal food on the refuge.
 
Some of those farmers do use neonic-coated seeds, preferring that to more traditional insecticides which must be sprayed several times during the growing season, potentially harming bees and other non-target insects or even birds and other wildlife.

Even organic farmers employ crop protecting insecticides that are highly toxic to bees, including rotenone, copper sulfate, spinosad, hydrogen peroxide, azidirachtin and citronella oil, Risk Monger Dr. David Zaruk points out.

Other organic farm chemicals are very toxic to humans. Boron fertilizer and copper sulfate fungicide can affect human brains, livers and hearts. Pyrethrins are powerful neurotoxins that can cause leukemia.

Lime sulfur mildew and insect killer causes irreversible eye damage, and can be fatal if inhaled, swallowed or absorbed through the skin. Rotenone is a highly toxic and can enhance the onset of Parkinson’s disease. Nicotine sulfate is an organic neurotoxin that interferes with nerve-muscle transmissions, causes abnormalities in lab animal offspring, and can lead to increased blood pressure levels, irregular heart-rates and even death in organic gardeners.

They may be “natural” or “organic,” but they’re still powerful and potentially harmful. And in sharp contrast to neonics and other synthetic pesticides, most Big Organic chemicals have not been tested for residue levels or toxicity, Zaruk notes.

Members of Congress should applaud neonic use – instead of condemning it or trying to ban it from refuges – or from all modern agriculture, as some seek to do.

They should focus greater attention on Varroa mites (and Nosema ceranaeparasites), and on programs and technologies that really do pose a threat to endangered whooping cranes, other threatened birds, and bats: the proliferation of wind turbines along migratory flyways and close to many wildlife refuges.

They should investigate (and defund) the latest fad among allied radical environmentalist groups – and even some government agencies, like the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. Agro-ecology has become a hardcore political movement that rejects and seeks to ban biotech (GMO) and patented hybrid seeds, synthetic fertilizers, neonics and other pesticides, and even tractors and other mechanized equipment.

Agro-ecology thus perpetuates primitive backbreaking agriculture, poverty, malnutrition and needless death in poor countries – while hypocritically claiming to safeguard ecological values and “social justice.”

Before they introduce legislation, legislators should read reputable scientific studies, rely less on pressure group press releases, and avoid associating with organizations that stridently oppose all manner of modern technologies in the name of protecting bees and other wildlife, indigenous people and human rights.

Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of many articles on the environment. He has degrees in geology, ecology and environmental law.

Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death Hardcover – March 15, 2006 by Paul Driessen

Saturday, July 13, 2019

Donald Trump: America’s Greenest President

By July 11th, 2019|Environment|20 Comments

America has never been cleaner or greener in the post-industrial revolution era. This week President Trump made a major speech showcasing the good health of America’s environment and gains made on his watch. Both are impressive.

Read the full text of the President’s remarksthe full White House fact sheet on the environment, and commentary by CFACT’s Adam Houser at CFACT.org.

America has the cleanest air and the best drinking water on record. Overall pollution levels are in decline.  As Adam Houser points out, you’d never know it from reading the press coverage.  The Green movement in America has gone astray. 

Left-leaning politicians make futile gestures such as banning plastic bags, water bottles and drinking straws and subsidizing solar panels, electric cars and wind turbines.  None of this improves our environment, and in many circumstances actually hurts it.

In contrast, the Trump Administration has refocused America’s national efforts on genuine conservation work, and this has borne positive results including:......To Read More....

WH: Remarks by President Trump on America’s Environmental Leadership

By  | July 10th, 2019 | Environment|3 Comments

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Thank you very much. Great to have you, and I hope you all had a truly wonderful Independence Day weekend. In spite of the heavy rain — and it was really heavy — we had a remarkable Salute to America on the National Mall. It was incredible, actually. (Applause.)
Standing on the steps of the great Lincoln Memorial and looking out at the crowds — these incredible, big, beautiful crowds, braving the weather — all the way back to the Washington Monument, we celebrated freedom in all of its magnificence while saluting our great military. It was something really special. And I will say this: It was a wonderful day for all Americans. And based on its tremendous success, we’re just making the decision — and I can think we can say we’ve made the decision — to do it again next year, and, maybe we can say, for the foreseeable future. (Applause.)..........To Read More....

WH Fact sheet: President Trump is Promoting a Clean and Healthy Environment for All Americans

By  July 10th, 2019|Environment|0 Comments

My Administration is committed to being effective stewards of our environment while encouraging opportunities for American workers and their families. — President Donald J. Trump

White House Fact Sheet July 8, 2019

LEADER IN ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY: President Donald J. Trump is pursuing effective policies to advance environmental protection while promoting economic growth......To Read More...

White House discusses real environmental solutions, media loses their minds

By |July 9th, 2019|Environment|24 Comments
 
On Monday, July 8, President Donald Trump held a meeting at the White House to discuss environmental issues and to highlight the efforts his administration has made in addressing them.
This was too much for the mainstream media.

A quick Google search for “Trump environment meeting” delivers an almost never-ending result of scathing headlines:
  • “Trump’s environmental claims debunked by CNN’s John Avlon.”
  • “Trump Speech on Environment Doesn’t Pass Smell Test with Activists…”
  • “The Biggest Lie in Trump’s Environmental Speech Today”
  • “Trump touts environment record, green groups scoff”
  • “Mother Nature rains on Trumps’ I’m-good-at-the-environment parade”
With headlines like these, you would think the President had poured out toxic waste onto endangered species at the event. So, what did the President dare to discuss that brought on this onslaught of criticism?

He dared to discuss real environmental issues, like red tide, hunting and fishing driving conservation, and EPA reform, instead of walking in step with the claims that climate change will cause the world to end in 12, 20, 30, or however many years the activists have decided lately – I can’t seem to keep up with the revisions of the date of our impending apocalypse.

In fact, it wasn’t until I scrolled halfway down page 3 of this Google search until I found an article that had anything positive to say about the event...........To Read More...
 

Friday, July 12, 2019

Twist upon twist in glyphosate battle: Next generation safer biopesticides on the way thanks in part to anti-chemical activists⁠—who may yet oppose them

| July 8, 2019

As biotech firm Bayer battles more than 13,000 lawsuits alleging its popular weed killer Roundup (glyphosate) can cause cancer in farmers, there are widespread concerns that the legal battle could fuel additional restrictions on the herbicide and other pesticides.

The organic industry-funded anti-GMO advocacy group US Right to Know (USRTK), which has worked closely with the plaintiffs’ lawyers, has been clear that it’s not just going after a single weed killer; the group wants to handcuff conventional pesticide manufacturers with endless lawsuits, spur regulations and force growers to adopt organic farming practices, which they claim would lead to the use of fewer ‘toxic’ chemicals.

Many scientists and farmers fear that restrictions on glyphosate and other pesticides that have been declared safe by regulators and used for decades could force growers to turn to more expensive, less effective and more harmful solutions (including in some cases organic alternatives that are more toxic.) But not all the chaos created by myopic activists is necessarily bad. In an ironic twist, USRTK and its allies along the fringes of the environmental movement are speeding the development of new biologically based pesticides that prove both safe and almost as effective as synthetic counterparts.........To Read More....

Saturday, July 6, 2019

The Zika Virus Is Still a Threat. Here’s What Experts Know.

Andrew Jacobs July 6, 2019

With measles and Ebola grabbing headlines, it is easy to forget the health panic of 2016, when Zika was linked to severe birth defects in thousands of Brazilian newborns whose mothers were infected while pregnant, striking fear across the country and much of the Americas..............Zika, it turns out, did not vanish............. “In some ways, the situation is a bit more dangerous because people aren’t aware of it.”..............The virus, which is mostly spread by mosquitoes but also through sex with an infected person, is still circulating in Brazil and other countries that were at the center of the epidemic, and two years ago the same strain from the Americas arrived in continental Africa for the first time. That strain, researchers recently discovered, had been causing birth defects in Asia long before the Zika epidemic of 2016............To Read More....

Global warming boosted the Roman Empire, then global cooling weakened it

By | June 6th, 2019|Climate|1 Comment

A May 31 article in New Scientist, titled “Ancient Roman air pollution caused climate change in Europe,”  is resuscitating the myth that “climate change” brought down the Roman Empire. To the extent global climate forces impacted the health of the empire, it was not generic climate change that harmed the empire. Instead, warming temperatures assisted the rise of the empire and subsequent cooling temperatures weakened it. By and large, climate change only weakens civilization when that change takes the form of cooling temperatures.

The Roman Empire rose and prospered during a time of beneficial global warming. The New Scientist article asserts that the empire played a role in bringing about subsequent cooling temperatures that ultimately contributed to the empire’s downfall. According to the article, soot from Roman fires blocked sunlight and cooled Europe. Deforestation as the empire expanded also cooled temperatures, according to the article. The message of the article is that climate change can and does bring down empires and civilizations.

The New Scientist message is not new. NBC News, PBS, BBC, Reuters, Discover Magazine, Smithsonian Magazine, and Vox are just a small sampling of media outlets that have linked climate change with the fall of the Roman Empire. Almost without exception, the headlines and messaging of these media reports ignore or mention only in passing that cooling temperatures were the specific form of climate change that coincided with the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. When climate change took the form of warming temperatures, the Roman Empire – and human civilization as a whole – prospered.

The lead paragraphs of a Reuters article on the topic are typical of the media coverage, with the media emphasizing that “climate change” is scary, even while subtly acknowledging that warming temperatures have historically benefited human health and welfare:
“Climate change seems a factor in the rise and fall of the Roman empire, according to a study of ancient tree growth that urges greater awareness of the risks of global warming in the 21st century. 
“Good growth by oak and pine trees in central Europe in the past 2,500 years signaled warm and wet summers and coincided with periods of wealth among farming societies, for instance around the height of the Roman empire or in medieval times. 
“Periods of climate instability overlapped with political turmoil, such as during the decline of the Roman empire, and might even have made Europeans vulnerable to the Black Death or help explain migration to America during the chill 17th century.”
As even Reuters subtly acknowledged, warming is beneficial and cooling is harmful.

For a good summary of how and why global warming has historically benefited human civilizations, while global cooling has harmed them, watch Dennis Avery’s presentation in Katowice, Poland, coinciding with the United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP25) in Katowice last December.

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  • CFACT, founded in 1985 by Craig Rucker and the late (truly great) David Rothbard, examines the relationship between human freedom, and issues of energy, environment, climate, economics, civil rights and more.

Science digest gets caught pushing a coral reef myth

By  | July 2nd, 2019|Climate|77 Comments

Science Digest reports that scientists are calling for urgent action to restrict carbon dioxide emissions to protect coral reefs from global warming. The Science Digest article asserts that coral reefs, “which have functioned relatively unchanged for some 24 million years, are now going through profound changes in their make-up.” A review of global temperatures during the past 24 million years, however, shows warming temperatures during the past 100 years since the end of the Little Ice Age are relatively insignificant compared to temperature swings during the past 24 million years.

Science Daily quoted Professor Nick Graham of Lancaster University saying, “Coral reefs have been with us in some form since the dinosaurs and today they are at the frontline in terms of responses to climate change and a range of other human pressures.”

Scientists, however, report that temperatures were warmer than today throughout most of the period since the last ice age glaciation ended 10,000 years ago. Moreover, scientists report that temperatures during each of the past several interglacial warm periods – lasting approximately 10,000 years apiece and separated by 100,000 years or more of advancing ice sheets – were warmer than our present interglacial warm period.  See, for example.

Science Daily observes that coral reefs have “functioned relatively unchanged for some 24 million years,” which is quite strong evidence that coral can and will survive our relatively minor recent warming.

Although the Science Daily article strikes an overall alarmist tone, the article does acknowledge that “as the world’s climate changes, tropical temperatures shift towards the poles, enabling corals to grow in new places.” A study in the peer-reviewed Geophysical Research Letters, for example, documents coral rapidly expanding their range poleward as ocean temperatures gradually warm.
So perhaps some alarmists are calling for restrictions on carbon dioxide, but objective evidence shows coral have thrived under much more warming and cooling than is presently occurring, and coral continue to thrive today.

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CFACT, founded in 1985 by Craig Rucker and the late (truly great) David Rothbard, examines the relationship between human freedom, and issues of energy, environment, climate, economics, civil rights and more.

Sea levels continue to defy alarmist UN report

By | July 5th, 2019|General Information|37 Comments

Sea level is rising at merely 3.1 millimeters per year, satellite measurements report, defying alarmist United Nations predictions that sea level would rise approximately 6.2 millimeters (mm) per year.
In its Fifth Climate Assessment, released in 2014, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported a mean projected sea level rise of approximately 0.5 meters (20 inches) by the year 2100. To reach that prediction, sea level would need to rise approximately 6.2 mm per year.

Instruments aboard NASA satellites have been measuring global sea level since 1993. The satellite data show sea level is rising merely 3.1 mm per year, or half the IPCC prediction. Moreover, the satellite data show no acceleration of that pace during recent years.

Skeptics of the asserted global warming crisis note that even the reported 3.1 mm rise per year is overstated, because the government-funded keepers of the sea level data add some fictitious sea level rise. The keepers of the data note that as glacial ice melts from land masses, land masses rebound and gain elevation. Rather than reporting the pace at which sea level is rising in relation to the world’s land masses, the keepers of the data add fictitious sea level rise to account for what sea level would be if land masses were not rebounding from the loss of ice. This, of course, is not a measure of actual sea level rise relative to the coasts, but a measure of sea level in a fictitious world in which land masses did not rebound from ice loss.

Either way, the data continue to undermine alarmist predictions of rapid sea level rise. Sea level rise would need to immediately double its present pace to meet IPCC predictions. And with each passing year of just 3.1 mm rise, future sea level would have to rise even more dramatically to meet IPCC predictions. And that simply is not happening.

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CFACT founded in 1985 by Craig Rucker and the late (truly great) David Rothbard, examines the relationship between human freedom, and issues of energy, environment, climate, economics, civil rights and more.