But Sen. Sessions cites the Junkman in questioning that assertion.
At today’s Senate EPW hearing on the EPA budget, Sen. Sessions responded to Sen. Barbara Boxer’s assertion that air pollution kills people by reading from Steve Milloy’s Washington Times column, “Show us the bodies, EPA“:
…The EPA says air pollution kills tens of thousands of people annually. This is on a par with traffic accident fatalities. While we can identify traffic accident victims, air pollution victims are unknown, unidentified and as far as anyone can tell, figments of EPA’s statistical imagination…
So, I guess ya’ll are sayin’ that pollution, in the form of mercury, environmental asbestos, zinc, lead, etc., are good for us, huh? Tell that to my granddad, oh wait you can’t, he died of Hodgkins Disease at age 36 from breathing in the fumes at his sheet metal plant. Or perhaps my father-in-law? Nope he committed suicide rather than be a burden on his family when he had to go on a respirator because of the effects of working at a chemical plant (welding fumes, organo-phosphates, etc.) for much of his life. Well what about ancient Rome– a highly successful culture? Nope, according to archaeologists and historians it owes a large part of its demise to lead poisoning. And it wasn’t that long ago that the living symbol of the USA, the Bald Eagle, almost died out–because of DDT pollution! Ditto for Peregrine Falcons! And right now we’re finding androgynous alligators, amphibians and such in the very places that we would normally be fishing and boating–this due to all the estrogen-mimicking chemicals we’ve released into the water, air and land.
But I guess because pollution victims take longer to succumb, we can’t really count them as casualties. If they don’t die or become maimed for life in one gut-wrenching instance, it doesn’t count? I also have to wonder why, if mercury emissions are currently so low, we’re still constantly bombarded by advice to eat less fish–especially those higher on the food chain, like swordfish and bluefin tuna. Its true that asking industry to improve their scrubbing technology is, in the short term, relatively expensive (but probably no more so than annual executive bonuses of 20 mil or so). But the long-term costs, in terms of lost man hours, life-long medical insurance coverage for chronic asthma, damage to the environment, architecture, quality of life, etc., etc., ad nauseum, is much more so.
Yes, the EPA has much to answer for, but they serve a useful policing purpose–one that industry in general has proven unwilling to do for itself.
Personally, I’m more concerned with political pollution, the source of most death around the world and far greater than anything man can produce in a lab or mother nature can add to the mix. The sight of a Marxist like Obama, Boxer, Reid, Pelosi surely takes your breath way and the EPA sits back to charge you for your pollution.. Nice game they’ve invented.
Jack Brennan, thank you for reminding me about cigarettes and cancer. When all this started for me, around 1968-70, trade magazines like Rubber & Plastics News carried articles about the few that worked with chemicals and were alcoholics and/or heavy smokers, and died of cancer. Shortly after that, the news only told about the many who died of cancer, all of whom were industrial employees, never mentioning smoking and drinking. Soon the public was well conditioned to think that the jobs but not their personal habits killed people. Today these addictions serve only to keep millions of otherwise useless bureaucrats employed.
I have never heard of a Senator Boxer Liberal of being seriously affected by any of the Poisonous gases they exhale in the Senate Chamber !
I worked with and around Asbestos and Lead products for 56 years in NYC, and have known at least 1000 Construction Tradesmen who also worked with and around Asbestos. I know only three who died of Lung Cancer; two of them smoked two or more packs of Cigarettes a day.
Green Politics is Scam Politics for political purposes. Jake dipluma
It’s clearly genetic damage from all those brass home water fixtures labeled by the California government as “dangerous to your reproductive health” (but don’t cause any damage to residents of other states).
If the EPA were to be correct, Eastern China and all of India would be devoid of all life. I’m praying for the day soon, that the EPA becomes extinct. What a waste of taxpayer’s money.. and also consider, how many Americans are now unemployed because of their fraud and heavy hands in the private sector.
Lotto, being killed by air polution is one thing. Black Lung and toxic yellow smog are well documented in history.
However, current levels of air pollution in America is an order of magnitude lower than these events, to the point that it is questionable if anyone is killed by air pollution.
London, UK (Dec 5-9, 1952): The Great Smog of ’52 killed 4000 people!
Donora PA (Oct 26-30, 1948): the famous killer smog took 4 lives a day for 5 days!
St. Louis, MO (Nov 28-Dec 7, 1939): The 1939 St. Louis smog lasted 9 days, but no direct deaths were reported.
Total 4020 deaths.
The only way that “smog” can kill tens of thousands of people each year is if you include the 36 to 46 thousand annual US traffic fatalities
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s1104.pdf
because driving a car makes “smog” and driving a car leads to traffic fatalities.
Lotto,
Provide one name of someone that was definitively killed by air pollution. Just one.
People being killed by air pollution is nothing new in this world and everyone knows it. What we need to talk about is how to over come this problem without being told to stop using my car.
Boxer is referring to the corpses in the dumpster behind Planned Parenthood.
AMEN!!! AMEN!!! AMEN!!!
Tens of thousands of deaths show us the bodies.The entire concepts of the EPA are nothing but hype to keep funding
Get
rid of the EPA completely. I am 75 and used to use lead based paints, no brain damage, I have drunk well water still erect.
Used an outdoor toilet until a senior in high school
These people are a joke. Mercury from power plants, but not mercury from CFL bulbs. What do we do if a bulb burns out throw it in the trash.. Because the bulbs last longer they are harder to unscrew out of the sockets. Apply some pressure and the bulb breaks. Right in your house, not distant like a col fired power plant
Presently the first office that should be vacant is the presidency with a new Republican at the helm.
Jim Roe
As a resident of California this really makes me proud. How do these morons keep getting reelected I say to myself? Then I look around at my friends and neighbors and go OK I understand…