EPA: Global Warming health threat announcement a contrast to last weeks decision not to regulate emissions?

Question

Last week, the EPA effectively decided not to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, at least not until after the Bush administration leaves office. Yet today they announce in a report that climate change will pose "substantial" health threats including heat waves, hurricanes and pathogens in coming decades, the Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday.

What do you make of this Jekyll/Hyde performance?

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-climate18-2008jul18,0,4650919.story

Answer 1

Our government is dysfunctional and has failed us, I would say, on balance, considering what they charge us for the privilege.

Answer 2

Even after eight years of anti-intelligence, anti-science sentiment from the White House, our government agencies are still capable of doing some good honest research.

Unfortunately the political appointees in charge of the agencies are still ignoring the facts because the facts conflict with their opinions.

Answer 3

Well if you consider thee administration as a careful Dr. Jekyll and the EPA man as a crazy Mr. Hyde this might be true. The key point that always gets missed is documentable and verifiable evidence. There is a ton of rhetoric from the AGW side with nothing to back it up but more rhetoric and even more unjustifiable claims. All the deniers ask for is real evidence that can be verified by independent laboratories with identical or even similar results.

So far all of the highly proclaimed AGW evidence has failed miserably every independent effort to duplicate the claimed results. So until independent labs are able to use the same data and achieve the same or even similar results we will continue to doubt their extravagant claims of foreboding disaster. All independent attempts to use the provided data or any other data only verify we are experiencing one of the coolest, mildest and shortest warming periods on historical record. The warm periods usually last several hundred years and are a lot warmer than we have experienced so far.

Answer 4

I've been told by the believers that Global Warming is happening and man caused it. I was told there wasn't any debate about it. There should be no question about it, right?

Answer 5

Go measure the green House gas. There is just a trace out there which makes Global Warming a lie...

Answer 6

they should have stuck with real science and forgot this nonsence.

Answer 7

The article you link answers your question:

"EPA spokesman Jonathan Shradar said there was no conflict between the warnings in the report and the agency's conclusion last week that regulation should be put off.

The problem, he said, is that the agency is still searching for the correct way to address the issue."

It helps to read the entire article.

Edit:  So you're asking our opinions on what they've said, but only concerning select statements taken out of context....ok.  I think the EPA is stuck between two conflicting branches of our government, both of which have jurisdiction over it.  I believe the guarded language of this release reflects said conflict.  I believe the spokesman was truthful in that the agency IS trying to research the best way to address the issue...the issue being the conflict within our political system over CO2 and global warming.  How's that?

Answer 8

"The report was prepared under the EPA's leadership but released by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, which coordinates research among several federal agencies. Joel D. Scheraga of the EPA's Global Change Research Program said that there was no political interference in the report's findings or the timing of its release.

"The answer is unequivocally 'no,' " he said."

"White House spokesman Tony Fratto said yesterday that the EPA administrator chose his course on his own.

"Steve Johnson, as he has said repeatedly, and in sworn testimony, made his own decision," Fratto said. "And so whatever anyone's views were at that time are fairly irrelevant because the administrator chose to go a different route." "

If you believe these statements one might concluded Steve Johnson, on one hand is a puppet of the administration and on the other hand he still has a heart. I suspect he is a man in deep conflict with himself.

It seems possible that he has defied the administration by his agencies proclamation but there is little damage he and the EPA can do to Bush's fossil fuel buddies profits since they have already declared that no regulation of fossil fuel emissions will take place until after the Bush administration leaves, and even then that's still a maybe.

Answer 9

Something everyone should be concerned over. No matter what the announcement is, it clearly shows political cohersing. Public trust has gone down the (water closet).

Answer 10

I am wary of the fact they mention pathogens.

This is paving the way for more BS to come.

The Builderberg group has already decided to reduce the population by 60%.

"Global warming" will provide perfect cover for selected outbreaks of "bird flu" , morgellons or other syndromes leading eventually to death for those individuals.

Please note this will not be in Washington DC - too close to home, but in outlying areas.

The seeds have been sown - now the public knows of such problems, so there won't be an outcry when it does happen.

The EPA don't even recognise Morgellons as real, and refuse to analyise samples

Answer 11

The US government is just as fickle as the weather.

Answer 12

a) We've always (except for one year in the early 1800s, when Frankenstein was written - speaking of horror novels) had summer heat waves - and this year we're actually having fewer of them than usual.

b) I thought they'd changed their position on hurricanes?

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Science/200...

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/01/2...

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk...

Jeez - talk about Jekyll and Hyde - - - after Katrina they were saying "Katrina's real name is global warming."

http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserve...

Answer 13

It sounds like like the rest of this decade is safe from heat waves, hurricanes and pathogens.

Answer 14

You know in about 3 months we will elect another President-- instead of continually bashing ONE President-- why not focus on the folks that make laws and pass around the money-- Congress.

With a 14% approval rating Congressional action and approval ratings are at an all time LOW. However they do find time to go on vacation --- and to pass legislation raising their PAY.

Edit-- and the thumbs down is for what? The truth?

Answer 15

Really what it boils down to is the scientists and researchers hired by the EPA to study these kinds of environmental issues vs. the political appointees who run the EPA.

The scientists can do the research and come up with reports with these kinds of conclusions (as long as they're not interfered with by the administration, which is not always the case), but the administrators still get to decide what actions the EPA will actually take.

Unfortunately these administrators were appointed by and answer to quite possibly the worst environmental president in US history.  And they're taking the exact same tactic as he is - say there's a problem, say we'll address it, but use as many delay tactics as possible.

In the end, the problem is that while the EPA has a good mission and good intentions, it's still a government bureaucracy subject to our political leaders' whims, and right now we have some terrible political leaders.

Answer 16

Who cares the EPA is worthless.  All it does is eat up tax dollars