20th Anniversary of the (Scientifically Baseless) Alar Scare
The American Council on Science and Health, February 25, 2009
Twenty years ago tomorrow, a combination of environmentalists, public interest lawyers, publicists, and members of the news media foisted a bogus health scare on the American public -- the fear that apples being sprayed with Alar were exposing children to a cancer-causing chemical. The Great Apple Scare: Alar 20 Years Later , a new publication by the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH), depicts how this plant growth-regulating chemical was successfully demonized and provides a template for the many baseless health scares that followed.
Authored by William P. Kucewicz, formerly on the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal, The Great Apple Scare provides a succinct history of Alar's use, as well as the generation of anxiety and fear among American consumers. "Of course, those most concerned were parents of young children," notes Dr. Elizabeth Whelan, ACSH president. "One woman became so anxious that she chased a school bus in order to remove the apple from her child's lunchbox."
In 1968 the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the use of Alar on apples after two years of carcinogenicity testing had shown it was safe. Additional studies were conducted after that approval. While the great majority also found no problems with Alar, studies done by one researcher supposedly did not. Evaluation by numerous experts found many scientific problems with this research.
But before this welcome news could be publicized, the CBS show "60 Minutes" termed Alar one of the most dangerous chemicals in the American food supply. Subsequently, actress Meryl Streep donned a toxicologist's mantle and helped spread the accusations against Alar.
Unfortunately, science was no match for the fear trumped up by environmental activists and associated public relations firm Fenton Communications, and in 1989 Alar was removed from the market."
The Alar saga provided a roadmap for activists to attack numerous other chemicals that never harmed anyone," stated ACSH medical director Dr. Gilbert Ross. "It should leave readers with some understanding of how baseless most of these health scares really are," he continued.
See a video commentary about the Alar scare by ACSH's Dr. Whelan here.
Showing posts with label junk science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label junk science. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Bottled Water and the Overflowing Nanny State: How Misinformation Erodes Consumer Freedom
Bottled Water and the Overflowing Nanny State, by Angela Logomasini
How Misinformation Erodes Consumer Freedom
CEI, February 17, 2009
For the past couple decades, bottled water had been growing in popularity as an environmentally preferred choice and as a healthy beverage alternative. Yet in recent years, environmental activists have begun attacking its value and quality. The activists’ claims do not hold water, yet, based on those claims, they are promoting bans, taxes, and regulations on bottled water—taking the Nanny State to a whole new level. The following analysis counters this “new wisdom,” questioning the justifications for this new assault on consumer freedom.
Some key facts include:Bottled water regulation is at least as stringent as tap water regulation. Under federal law the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) must pass bottled water regulations that are “no less stringent” than Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations. The law does not allow the FDA to set standards that produce a lower quality product. As a result, FDA regulations mirror EPA regulations very closely and are more stringent in some respects because FDA applies additional food, packaging, and labeling regulations.
Bottled water is substantially different from tap. About 75 percent of bottled water is from sources other than municipal systems such as springs or underground sources. Much of the bottled municipal water undergoes additional purification treatments to produce a higher quality product that must meet FDA bottled water quality standards, packaging, and labeling mandates. In terms of safety, tap water has more documented health-related case reports compared to bottled water. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends bottled water for individuals with compromised immune systems to reduce the risks associated with tap water.
Bottled water containers are a tiny fraction of the solid waste stream. Many people have turned to bottled water to replace other portable drinks containing sugar and calories, producing little increase in total waste. In any case, single-serving plastic water bottles amount to just 0.3 percent of the nation’s solid waste. Bottles used in water coolers are recycled at high rates and have even less impact on landfill waste. Taxing and banning either type of container will not matter much in terms of overall waste.
Plastic bottles are safe for consumers. The chemicals which environmental activists suggest are a problem are not even used in the PET plastic used for single-serving water bottles. Bisphenol A, a chemical found in large five-gallon water cooler jugs and other food containers exists at such low trace levels that there have been no reported health problems and the FDA, along with several scientific organizations around the world, have not found any problem with this substance.
The public has freely turned to bottled water as an alternative to drinks with calories, for convenience, freshness, and whatever other reasons they themselves find worthy. Misinformation spread by activists should not determine who can access this product. People who do not like the product can make their own choices. They should not have any right to make them for the rest of us.
See the full report.
How Misinformation Erodes Consumer Freedom
CEI, February 17, 2009
For the past couple decades, bottled water had been growing in popularity as an environmentally preferred choice and as a healthy beverage alternative. Yet in recent years, environmental activists have begun attacking its value and quality. The activists’ claims do not hold water, yet, based on those claims, they are promoting bans, taxes, and regulations on bottled water—taking the Nanny State to a whole new level. The following analysis counters this “new wisdom,” questioning the justifications for this new assault on consumer freedom.
Some key facts include:Bottled water regulation is at least as stringent as tap water regulation. Under federal law the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) must pass bottled water regulations that are “no less stringent” than Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations. The law does not allow the FDA to set standards that produce a lower quality product. As a result, FDA regulations mirror EPA regulations very closely and are more stringent in some respects because FDA applies additional food, packaging, and labeling regulations.
Bottled water is substantially different from tap. About 75 percent of bottled water is from sources other than municipal systems such as springs or underground sources. Much of the bottled municipal water undergoes additional purification treatments to produce a higher quality product that must meet FDA bottled water quality standards, packaging, and labeling mandates. In terms of safety, tap water has more documented health-related case reports compared to bottled water. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends bottled water for individuals with compromised immune systems to reduce the risks associated with tap water.
Bottled water containers are a tiny fraction of the solid waste stream. Many people have turned to bottled water to replace other portable drinks containing sugar and calories, producing little increase in total waste. In any case, single-serving plastic water bottles amount to just 0.3 percent of the nation’s solid waste. Bottles used in water coolers are recycled at high rates and have even less impact on landfill waste. Taxing and banning either type of container will not matter much in terms of overall waste.
Plastic bottles are safe for consumers. The chemicals which environmental activists suggest are a problem are not even used in the PET plastic used for single-serving water bottles. Bisphenol A, a chemical found in large five-gallon water cooler jugs and other food containers exists at such low trace levels that there have been no reported health problems and the FDA, along with several scientific organizations around the world, have not found any problem with this substance.
The public has freely turned to bottled water as an alternative to drinks with calories, for convenience, freshness, and whatever other reasons they themselves find worthy. Misinformation spread by activists should not determine who can access this product. People who do not like the product can make their own choices. They should not have any right to make them for the rest of us.
See the full report.
Monday, February 9, 2009
FDA, foodborne illness outbreaks and inspections
Tilting at Food Safety Windmills, by Greg Conko
Openmarket/AEI, February 09, 2009 @ 11:05 am
The papers have been filled the past few weeks with stories about the recent peanut contamination problem. And, as this article from today’s New York Times, and this from Saturday’s Washington Post, indicate, the conventional wisdom is that America’s “food safety net” is badly frayed due to Bush Administration cut-backs in FDA spending. As is typical, the problem isn’t so simple.
Unfortunately, as long as the world’s food production system continues to be highly decentralized and fragmented, there will continue to be foodborne illness outbreaks like the most recent salmonella contamination problem and the E. coli contamination outbreaks seen in the past few years. The trouble, of course, is that food is, by and large, grown outside in dirt, and microbial contamination is a fact of life. Measures can and should be taken by food producers, processors, and packagers to identify contamination where it occurs and remove it from the food chain. But, with over a billion meals consumed in the United States every day, there is not enough money in the world to meaningfully increase inspections of the hundreds of thousands of facilities that produce, process, and sell food in the United States.
Currently, there is no requirement for FDA to inspect any one food production facility on a regular basis, and many facilities go years between inspections. FDA sets its own priorities based on the types of food products and production activities involved, by trying to determine where the likeliest risks lie. That, say the critics, is the root of the problem. FDA needs the financial and personnel resources to inspect every food production facility in the country (as well as foreign facilities that export to the U.S.) on a regular basis.
But will this really do anything productive? In short, the answer is “no.” The proposed Food and Drug Administration Globalization Act of 2009 would expand FDA’s authority substantially, requiring additional money for agency personnel and more frequent inspections. How frequent? Not less than once every 4 years. So, even after this massive influx of taxpayer cash, the best we can expect is that most food production facilities will now be inspected once every four years instead of once every decade. Does anyone really think that’s going to help? Of course not — no thinking person could. Instead, this is designed to make us all feel that the government is “doing something,” while taking more money out of the productive economy and funnelling it to Washington.
If recent stories are true -– that operators of the Peanut Corporation plant in Georgia willfully failed to remove contaminated product from its shipments and did not clean equipment after contamination was identified –- it is hard to imagine that a doubling or tripling of inspections could have prevented this tragedy. News accounts indicate that Peanut Corporation executives actually identified the presence of salmonella in various products and PUT THEM ON THE MARKET ANYWAY.
Fortunately, this kind of conscious cheating is rare in a country like the United States. But, in order to help deter it, penalties for such willful misconduct must be beefed up (so to speak). I’m not suggesting we start executing food plant operators or safety inspectors found to be willfully negligent, as China has been doing recently. Though, for acts that serious, serious penalties are warranted. The penalties for knowingly putting contaminated foodstuffs into commerce need to be more than simple slaps on the wrist.
Finally, it’s worth repeating that we can never realistically eliminate all foodborne illness. The shear size and scope of the problem –- that is, bacteria and viruses are all around us all the time -– means that we must recognize there are diminishing marginal gains to be had from increased spending on food safety. Not that we should accept defeat, but that at some point we have to recognize that diverting more and more public resources to combating an intractable problem means having fewer resources to spend on other things -– like health care, education, occupational safety, etc. -– that could increase safety by a far greater amount.
On the other hand, there are a handful of regulatory changes that could both help the private sector combat foodborne illness while also lower the cost of food safety. For example, food irradiation is a safe and effective technology for killing or denaturing bacteria and viruses in and on foods, such as meat and poultry, grains, and even some fruits and vegetables. But, a variety of regulatory restrictions on the use of irradiation (as well as mandatory labeling that seems designed to scare consumers away from irradiated foods) make it uneconomical for food processors to use irradiation in the United States on a wide-scale basis. The most innovative breakthroughs in food biotechnology are rarely ever tested because the regulation of biotech plants and animals are too costly. And the more recent panic about nanotechnology, combined with burgeoning regulation in that field, could strangle in the crib some of the most innovative efforts to improve food safety.
Thus, FDA, USDA, and EPA -– the same regulatory agencies charged with ensuring that the American food supply is safe -– are actually contributing to lower safety by creating and maintaining poorly thought out rules regarding technology regulation. It ought to serve as a cautionary note that, in trying to make changes that will improve food safety, we need to be conscious that some well-intentioned efforts can actually make us less safe.
Openmarket/AEI, February 09, 2009 @ 11:05 am
The papers have been filled the past few weeks with stories about the recent peanut contamination problem. And, as this article from today’s New York Times, and this from Saturday’s Washington Post, indicate, the conventional wisdom is that America’s “food safety net” is badly frayed due to Bush Administration cut-backs in FDA spending. As is typical, the problem isn’t so simple.
Unfortunately, as long as the world’s food production system continues to be highly decentralized and fragmented, there will continue to be foodborne illness outbreaks like the most recent salmonella contamination problem and the E. coli contamination outbreaks seen in the past few years. The trouble, of course, is that food is, by and large, grown outside in dirt, and microbial contamination is a fact of life. Measures can and should be taken by food producers, processors, and packagers to identify contamination where it occurs and remove it from the food chain. But, with over a billion meals consumed in the United States every day, there is not enough money in the world to meaningfully increase inspections of the hundreds of thousands of facilities that produce, process, and sell food in the United States.
Currently, there is no requirement for FDA to inspect any one food production facility on a regular basis, and many facilities go years between inspections. FDA sets its own priorities based on the types of food products and production activities involved, by trying to determine where the likeliest risks lie. That, say the critics, is the root of the problem. FDA needs the financial and personnel resources to inspect every food production facility in the country (as well as foreign facilities that export to the U.S.) on a regular basis.
But will this really do anything productive? In short, the answer is “no.” The proposed Food and Drug Administration Globalization Act of 2009 would expand FDA’s authority substantially, requiring additional money for agency personnel and more frequent inspections. How frequent? Not less than once every 4 years. So, even after this massive influx of taxpayer cash, the best we can expect is that most food production facilities will now be inspected once every four years instead of once every decade. Does anyone really think that’s going to help? Of course not — no thinking person could. Instead, this is designed to make us all feel that the government is “doing something,” while taking more money out of the productive economy and funnelling it to Washington.
If recent stories are true -– that operators of the Peanut Corporation plant in Georgia willfully failed to remove contaminated product from its shipments and did not clean equipment after contamination was identified –- it is hard to imagine that a doubling or tripling of inspections could have prevented this tragedy. News accounts indicate that Peanut Corporation executives actually identified the presence of salmonella in various products and PUT THEM ON THE MARKET ANYWAY.
Fortunately, this kind of conscious cheating is rare in a country like the United States. But, in order to help deter it, penalties for such willful misconduct must be beefed up (so to speak). I’m not suggesting we start executing food plant operators or safety inspectors found to be willfully negligent, as China has been doing recently. Though, for acts that serious, serious penalties are warranted. The penalties for knowingly putting contaminated foodstuffs into commerce need to be more than simple slaps on the wrist.
Finally, it’s worth repeating that we can never realistically eliminate all foodborne illness. The shear size and scope of the problem –- that is, bacteria and viruses are all around us all the time -– means that we must recognize there are diminishing marginal gains to be had from increased spending on food safety. Not that we should accept defeat, but that at some point we have to recognize that diverting more and more public resources to combating an intractable problem means having fewer resources to spend on other things -– like health care, education, occupational safety, etc. -– that could increase safety by a far greater amount.
On the other hand, there are a handful of regulatory changes that could both help the private sector combat foodborne illness while also lower the cost of food safety. For example, food irradiation is a safe and effective technology for killing or denaturing bacteria and viruses in and on foods, such as meat and poultry, grains, and even some fruits and vegetables. But, a variety of regulatory restrictions on the use of irradiation (as well as mandatory labeling that seems designed to scare consumers away from irradiated foods) make it uneconomical for food processors to use irradiation in the United States on a wide-scale basis. The most innovative breakthroughs in food biotechnology are rarely ever tested because the regulation of biotech plants and animals are too costly. And the more recent panic about nanotechnology, combined with burgeoning regulation in that field, could strangle in the crib some of the most innovative efforts to improve food safety.
Thus, FDA, USDA, and EPA -– the same regulatory agencies charged with ensuring that the American food supply is safe -– are actually contributing to lower safety by creating and maintaining poorly thought out rules regarding technology regulation. It ought to serve as a cautionary note that, in trying to make changes that will improve food safety, we need to be conscious that some well-intentioned efforts can actually make us less safe.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Criticism of Windpower’s "Homes Served" Claims
Beware Windpower’s "Homes Served" Claims, by Glenn Schleede
Master Resource, February 4, 2009
People who use the phrase “homes served” to describe the potential output from one or more wind turbines either do not understand the facts about wind turbines, believe false claims put forth by the wind industry, or are trying to mislead their reader or listener.
False statements about “homes served” by wind developers and their lobbyists are bad enough, but it is discouraging to hear politicians, reporters, and others adopt and regurgitate them.
The concept of “homes served”The concept of “homes served” has long been used in the electric industry as a way of giving some idea of the amount of electricity that would be produced by a proposed generating plant without using such terms as megawatt- or kilowatt-hours, which mean little to most people. The concept is always misleading since residential users of electricity (i.e., “homes served”) account for only 37% of all U.S. electricity use. [i]
Claims about “homes served” by a proposed “wind farm” or other generating unit are usually based on a three-step calculation:
Start with an assumption (i.e., a guess) about the amount of electricity that would be produced annually by a “wind farm” or other generating unit, in kilowatt-hours (kWh) or megawatt-hours (MWh).[ii]
Employ an estimate (in kWh) of the amount of electricity used annually by an average residential customer in the area or state where their “wind farm” is located. [iii]
Divide the assumed annual production of electricity by the estimated annual average residential electricity use.
“Homes Served” can be useful when talking about reliable generating unitsAlthough misleading, the concept of “homes served” has some validity when used to describe the output from a reliable, “dispatchable” electric generating unit, that is, one that can be called upon to produce electricity whenever it is needed. Such generating units are the ones that are counted on by the electric industry to provide a reliable supply of electricity for customers every day, at all hours of the day, year round.
“Homes served” is NOT a valid concept when referring to wind turbines and “wind farms”Using “homes served” when talking about wind turbines and “wind farms” is both false and misleading for several reasons.
1. NO homes are really served by wind.No homes are served by wind energy because wind turbines produce electricity only when wind speeds are in the right speed range (see below). Homes using electricity from wind must always have some reliable energy source immediately available to provide electricity when there is insufficient wind unless the residents are content to have electricity only when the wind is blowing in the right speed range – a condition that few in America are willing to tolerate.
2. Electricity from wind turbines is inherently intermittent, volatile, and unreliable.Wind turbines produce electricity only when the wind is blowing within the right speed range. Wind turbines typically start producing electricity at about 6 mph, reach rated capacity at about 32 mph, and cut out at about 56 mph. Unless a home owner has an expensive battery storage system, such volatile and unreliable output wouldn’t be suitable for lights, heating, computers, appliances, or many other purposes.
3. Electricity from “wind farms” is seldom available when most needed by home users.Again, the output of wind turbines is dependent on wind conditions. Depending on the specific area, winds tend to be strongest at night in cold months. However, electricity demand in most areas of the United States is heavily concentrated during daytime and early evening hours. Even worse, wind turbines cannot be counted on to produce at the time of peak electricity demand, which often occurs in late afternoon on hot weekdays in July and August. At the time of peak electricity demand, wind turbine output may be in the range of 0% to 5% of rated capacity.
4. The electricity produced by wind turbines is low in value compared to electricity from reliable generating units.That’s because it is inherently intermittent, volatile, unreliable, and not available when most needed—as described in points 2 and 3 above.
5. Not all the electricity produced by a wind turbine actually reaches customers or serves a useful purpose. Some electricity is lost as it is moved over transmission and distribution lines that carry the electricity from generating units to homes, offices, stores, factories and other users. The amount of electricity that is lost depends on the distance and the condition of lines and transformers. These “line losses” are a significant issue for wind energy because huge, obtrusive wind turbines (often 40+ stories tall) and “wind farms” are not welcome near metropolitan areas that account for most electricity demand. Therefore, they are often located at some distance from the areas where their electricity is needed and so require expensive transmission-line capacity, which they use inefficiently. (Ironically, the lucrative federal tax credits provided to “wind farm” owners are based on electricity produced, not the lesser amount that actually reaches customers and serves a useful purpose.)
6. Claims of “homes served” by wind energy are additionally misleading because of the high true cost of electricity from wind turbines.Claims that the cost of electricity from wind turbines is “competitive” with the cost of electricity from traditional sources are false. Such claims typically do not include the cost of (a) the huge federal and state tax breaks available to “wind farm” owners,[iv] or (b) the cost of providing the generating capacity and generation that must always be immediately available to “back up” intermittent, unreliable wind turbine output and keep electric grids reliable and in balance.
Claims of “homes served” should always be challenged Any use of the “homes served” assertion in connection with a “wind farm” should be challenged, whether the assertion is from a wind industry lobbyist, other wind energy advocate, political leader, other government official, or reporter. They should be required to explain each of their assumptions and calculations, and admit that industrial scale wind turbines are useless unless reliable generating units are immediately available to supply electricity when wind is not strong enough to produce significant electricity. Almost certainly, their assertions will be false.
What valid claim could wind industry officials make?As explained above, wind industry developers, promoters, and lobbyists – and politicians and reporters — should never use the false and misleading “homes served” metric. In theory, they could justify an assertion that the estimated amount of electricity produced by a “wind farm” – once discounted for line losses which are likely to be in the range of 5% to 10% — may be roughly equal to the amount of electricity used annually by X homes – after doing a calculation such as that outlined earlier. However, as indicated above, even this assertion would be misleading because it ignores the fact that the output from wind turbines is intermittent, volatile, unreliable, and unlikely to be available when electricity is most needed.
Other false and misleading claims about wind energyAs shown above, “homes served” is not the only or the most important false claim made about wind energy. Other false claims about wind energy include the following:
It is low or competitive in cost. In fact, its cost is high when all true costs are counted.
It is environmentally benign. In fact, it has significant adverse environmental, ecological, scenic, and property value impacts.
It avoids significant emissions that would otherwise be produced. In fact, it avoids few.
It provides big job and economic benefits. In fact, there are few such benefits.
It reduces U.S. dependence on imported oil. In fact, it does not.
It reduces the need for building reliable generating units in areas experiencing growth in peak electricity demand or needing to replace old generating units. The opposite is true.
Such claims as these have been made often during the past decade and more by the wind industry and other wind advocates. Only during the past 3–4 years have these claims begun to be demonstrated as false and misleading. The facts about wind energy are beginning to show up in the media but, unfortunately, have yet to be understood by most political leaders and regulators.
Full text w/references here http://masterresource.org/?p=677
Master Resource, February 4, 2009
People who use the phrase “homes served” to describe the potential output from one or more wind turbines either do not understand the facts about wind turbines, believe false claims put forth by the wind industry, or are trying to mislead their reader or listener.
False statements about “homes served” by wind developers and their lobbyists are bad enough, but it is discouraging to hear politicians, reporters, and others adopt and regurgitate them.
The concept of “homes served”The concept of “homes served” has long been used in the electric industry as a way of giving some idea of the amount of electricity that would be produced by a proposed generating plant without using such terms as megawatt- or kilowatt-hours, which mean little to most people. The concept is always misleading since residential users of electricity (i.e., “homes served”) account for only 37% of all U.S. electricity use. [i]
Claims about “homes served” by a proposed “wind farm” or other generating unit are usually based on a three-step calculation:
Start with an assumption (i.e., a guess) about the amount of electricity that would be produced annually by a “wind farm” or other generating unit, in kilowatt-hours (kWh) or megawatt-hours (MWh).[ii]
Employ an estimate (in kWh) of the amount of electricity used annually by an average residential customer in the area or state where their “wind farm” is located. [iii]
Divide the assumed annual production of electricity by the estimated annual average residential electricity use.
“Homes Served” can be useful when talking about reliable generating unitsAlthough misleading, the concept of “homes served” has some validity when used to describe the output from a reliable, “dispatchable” electric generating unit, that is, one that can be called upon to produce electricity whenever it is needed. Such generating units are the ones that are counted on by the electric industry to provide a reliable supply of electricity for customers every day, at all hours of the day, year round.
“Homes served” is NOT a valid concept when referring to wind turbines and “wind farms”Using “homes served” when talking about wind turbines and “wind farms” is both false and misleading for several reasons.
1. NO homes are really served by wind.No homes are served by wind energy because wind turbines produce electricity only when wind speeds are in the right speed range (see below). Homes using electricity from wind must always have some reliable energy source immediately available to provide electricity when there is insufficient wind unless the residents are content to have electricity only when the wind is blowing in the right speed range – a condition that few in America are willing to tolerate.
2. Electricity from wind turbines is inherently intermittent, volatile, and unreliable.Wind turbines produce electricity only when the wind is blowing within the right speed range. Wind turbines typically start producing electricity at about 6 mph, reach rated capacity at about 32 mph, and cut out at about 56 mph. Unless a home owner has an expensive battery storage system, such volatile and unreliable output wouldn’t be suitable for lights, heating, computers, appliances, or many other purposes.
3. Electricity from “wind farms” is seldom available when most needed by home users.Again, the output of wind turbines is dependent on wind conditions. Depending on the specific area, winds tend to be strongest at night in cold months. However, electricity demand in most areas of the United States is heavily concentrated during daytime and early evening hours. Even worse, wind turbines cannot be counted on to produce at the time of peak electricity demand, which often occurs in late afternoon on hot weekdays in July and August. At the time of peak electricity demand, wind turbine output may be in the range of 0% to 5% of rated capacity.
4. The electricity produced by wind turbines is low in value compared to electricity from reliable generating units.That’s because it is inherently intermittent, volatile, unreliable, and not available when most needed—as described in points 2 and 3 above.
5. Not all the electricity produced by a wind turbine actually reaches customers or serves a useful purpose. Some electricity is lost as it is moved over transmission and distribution lines that carry the electricity from generating units to homes, offices, stores, factories and other users. The amount of electricity that is lost depends on the distance and the condition of lines and transformers. These “line losses” are a significant issue for wind energy because huge, obtrusive wind turbines (often 40+ stories tall) and “wind farms” are not welcome near metropolitan areas that account for most electricity demand. Therefore, they are often located at some distance from the areas where their electricity is needed and so require expensive transmission-line capacity, which they use inefficiently. (Ironically, the lucrative federal tax credits provided to “wind farm” owners are based on electricity produced, not the lesser amount that actually reaches customers and serves a useful purpose.)
6. Claims of “homes served” by wind energy are additionally misleading because of the high true cost of electricity from wind turbines.Claims that the cost of electricity from wind turbines is “competitive” with the cost of electricity from traditional sources are false. Such claims typically do not include the cost of (a) the huge federal and state tax breaks available to “wind farm” owners,[iv] or (b) the cost of providing the generating capacity and generation that must always be immediately available to “back up” intermittent, unreliable wind turbine output and keep electric grids reliable and in balance.
Claims of “homes served” should always be challenged Any use of the “homes served” assertion in connection with a “wind farm” should be challenged, whether the assertion is from a wind industry lobbyist, other wind energy advocate, political leader, other government official, or reporter. They should be required to explain each of their assumptions and calculations, and admit that industrial scale wind turbines are useless unless reliable generating units are immediately available to supply electricity when wind is not strong enough to produce significant electricity. Almost certainly, their assertions will be false.
What valid claim could wind industry officials make?As explained above, wind industry developers, promoters, and lobbyists – and politicians and reporters — should never use the false and misleading “homes served” metric. In theory, they could justify an assertion that the estimated amount of electricity produced by a “wind farm” – once discounted for line losses which are likely to be in the range of 5% to 10% — may be roughly equal to the amount of electricity used annually by X homes – after doing a calculation such as that outlined earlier. However, as indicated above, even this assertion would be misleading because it ignores the fact that the output from wind turbines is intermittent, volatile, unreliable, and unlikely to be available when electricity is most needed.
Other false and misleading claims about wind energyAs shown above, “homes served” is not the only or the most important false claim made about wind energy. Other false claims about wind energy include the following:
It is low or competitive in cost. In fact, its cost is high when all true costs are counted.
It is environmentally benign. In fact, it has significant adverse environmental, ecological, scenic, and property value impacts.
It avoids significant emissions that would otherwise be produced. In fact, it avoids few.
It provides big job and economic benefits. In fact, there are few such benefits.
It reduces U.S. dependence on imported oil. In fact, it does not.
It reduces the need for building reliable generating units in areas experiencing growth in peak electricity demand or needing to replace old generating units. The opposite is true.
Such claims as these have been made often during the past decade and more by the wind industry and other wind advocates. Only during the past 3–4 years have these claims begun to be demonstrated as false and misleading. The facts about wind energy are beginning to show up in the media but, unfortunately, have yet to be understood by most political leaders and regulators.
Full text w/references here http://masterresource.org/?p=677
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Relationships with the Drug Industry: Build Trust Based on Good Science
Relationships with the Drug Industry: Build Trust Based on Good Science. By Scott Gottlieb, M.D.
AEI, Wednesday, February 4, 2009
How do the current tensions in the relationship between the pharmaceutical industry, physicians, and patients affect individual health? Dr. Scott Gottlieb explores the possible causes for the breakdown in communication between these groups and charts a strategy to improve the productivity of their interactions and leverage these relationships in order to advance public health.
Medical treatments are becoming increasingly more individual, with respect to both disease and patient. They are also becoming more complex, and precise diagnoses and close monitoring are needed to optimise their use. In this environment, consumers and doctors need to work more closely with product developers. Yet increasing regulation of the drug industry is restricting its ability to disseminate the results of its clinical studies. This risks shrinking the opportunities patients have to improve their health. In the face of regulatory steps to restrain their scientific speech, drug makers need to take new steps in their relationship with doctors and patients and establish transparent guidelines for those interactions. They should also focus more squarely on matters of advancing science, monitoring for safety, and improving health education.
Science not marketing
A large part of the industry’s current problems stems from the way its relationship with academic physicians and medical institutions has evolved over the past few decades. Formerly, the industry depended on academic doctors to conduct basic and clinical research. Now more of that work is done in house.[1] As a consequence, the relationships forged with the academic medical community are often based on marketing related activities. This feeds the regrettable perception that drug makers ally themselves with medical thought leaders to advance marketing goals, not science, and that information they generate cannot be trusted.
Relationships should be predicated on genuine scientific work. This doesn’t mean that drug makers should stop engaging leading physicians to help companies generate and share information about new advances, but that they need to engage with doctors who had a role in discovering those advances rather than those with no or little link to the underlying science. The latter creates the unfortunate appearance that opinions are being rented; the former is unassailable, as a scientist is the most appropriate champion for his work.
Overcoming mistrust
As patients are taking an increasingly active role in treatment decisions drug companies need to take new steps to improve health literacy and patient education while they continue to invest in better ways to monitor the performance and safety of their products. Unfortunately, the existing mistrust means that policy makers continue to create restrictions that impede the ability of drug companies to speak to patients. This creates information asymmetry and denies patients the opportunity to receive truthful, non-misleading information about new products, thus hurting health outcomes.[2] [3] It also leads to a regulatory edifice that makes it harder for drug companies to monitor the performance of their drugs by talking directly with patients and makes it harder for them to provide targeted information to patients on proper use of prescription drugs. The bottom line remains that the drug firms remain one of the few actors in this marketplace with the financing and incentives to share and collect information. Under proper regulation, public health imperatives should compel us to make better use of these resources on behalf of patients.
Scott Gottlieb, M.D., is a resident fellow at AEI.
Notes
1. Bodenheimer T. Uneasy alliance--clinical investigators and the pharmaceutical industry. N Engl J Med 2000;342:1539-44.
2. Sentell TL, Halpin HA. Importance of adult literacy in understanding health disparities. J Gen Intern Med 2006;21:862-6.
3. Schillinger D, Grumbach K, Piette J, Wang F, Osmond D, Daher C, et al. Association of health literacy with diabetes outcomes. JAMA 2002;288:475-82.
Full text w/links in the references here
AEI, Wednesday, February 4, 2009
How do the current tensions in the relationship between the pharmaceutical industry, physicians, and patients affect individual health? Dr. Scott Gottlieb explores the possible causes for the breakdown in communication between these groups and charts a strategy to improve the productivity of their interactions and leverage these relationships in order to advance public health.
Medical treatments are becoming increasingly more individual, with respect to both disease and patient. They are also becoming more complex, and precise diagnoses and close monitoring are needed to optimise their use. In this environment, consumers and doctors need to work more closely with product developers. Yet increasing regulation of the drug industry is restricting its ability to disseminate the results of its clinical studies. This risks shrinking the opportunities patients have to improve their health. In the face of regulatory steps to restrain their scientific speech, drug makers need to take new steps in their relationship with doctors and patients and establish transparent guidelines for those interactions. They should also focus more squarely on matters of advancing science, monitoring for safety, and improving health education.
Science not marketing
A large part of the industry’s current problems stems from the way its relationship with academic physicians and medical institutions has evolved over the past few decades. Formerly, the industry depended on academic doctors to conduct basic and clinical research. Now more of that work is done in house.[1] As a consequence, the relationships forged with the academic medical community are often based on marketing related activities. This feeds the regrettable perception that drug makers ally themselves with medical thought leaders to advance marketing goals, not science, and that information they generate cannot be trusted.
Relationships should be predicated on genuine scientific work. This doesn’t mean that drug makers should stop engaging leading physicians to help companies generate and share information about new advances, but that they need to engage with doctors who had a role in discovering those advances rather than those with no or little link to the underlying science. The latter creates the unfortunate appearance that opinions are being rented; the former is unassailable, as a scientist is the most appropriate champion for his work.
Overcoming mistrust
As patients are taking an increasingly active role in treatment decisions drug companies need to take new steps to improve health literacy and patient education while they continue to invest in better ways to monitor the performance and safety of their products. Unfortunately, the existing mistrust means that policy makers continue to create restrictions that impede the ability of drug companies to speak to patients. This creates information asymmetry and denies patients the opportunity to receive truthful, non-misleading information about new products, thus hurting health outcomes.[2] [3] It also leads to a regulatory edifice that makes it harder for drug companies to monitor the performance of their drugs by talking directly with patients and makes it harder for them to provide targeted information to patients on proper use of prescription drugs. The bottom line remains that the drug firms remain one of the few actors in this marketplace with the financing and incentives to share and collect information. Under proper regulation, public health imperatives should compel us to make better use of these resources on behalf of patients.
Scott Gottlieb, M.D., is a resident fellow at AEI.
Notes
1. Bodenheimer T. Uneasy alliance--clinical investigators and the pharmaceutical industry. N Engl J Med 2000;342:1539-44.
2. Sentell TL, Halpin HA. Importance of adult literacy in understanding health disparities. J Gen Intern Med 2006;21:862-6.
3. Schillinger D, Grumbach K, Piette J, Wang F, Osmond D, Daher C, et al. Association of health literacy with diabetes outcomes. JAMA 2002;288:475-82.
Full text w/links in the references here
Thursday, January 29, 2009
NY Soda Tax: All Politics, No Science
NY Soda Tax: All Politics, No Science. By Elizabeth M. Whelan, Sc.D., M.P.H.
American Council on Science and Health, Jan 29, 2009
Aiming to combat the obesity epidemic in New York, Gov. David Paterson has recommended an 18% tax on sugar-sweetened soft drinks and a few other sweetened beverages. Unfortunately, the proposed tax is inconsistent with the facts about what causes obesity. It also sets an alarming precedent for taxing foods deemed "bad" by government officials -- further increasing the cost of living in the state -- particularly for the least affluent citizens.
•First, there is no scientific basis for singling out sugar-sweetened soda and certain fruit drinks as a primary underlying cause of obesity. So many Americans these days far exceed their ideal weight because they consume too many calories from all types of foods and beverages -- and do not dedicate sufficient effort to burning calories through exercise. Sugar-sweetened sodas don't make you fatter than eating too much meat, bread, potatoes, or anything else. The old adage "for every complex problem there is a simple solution -- and it never works" comes to mind here. It is always easier to zero in on one alleged villain and assume the problem is solved.
•Second, taxing soda sets up a precedent for taxing myriad foods considered "bad" by popular wisdom. Can we expect taxes next on cake, cookies, candy, and pizza? If food with high sugar or fat content is "bad" and deserving of punitive regulatory action, to be consistent will we tax orange juice (very high in sugar) and avocados (a plentiful source of fat)? Should we tax everything except tofu and spinach?
•Third, when the soda tax is examined closely -- given that it will have zero net effect on reducing obesity -- it must be perceived as another attempt to raise revenue for a financially strapped state. The Governor estimates that the soda tax will bring in $404 million the first year and $539 million annually after that. What's not to like about that if you are trying to balance a budget? But the bad news is that this influx of cash has nothing to do with fighting obesity and enhancing health.
There is, however, some good news about the proposed soda tax: Polls show that New Yorkers oppose this useless and regressive tax by nearly a 2:1 margin. Presumably, citizens recognize that obesity is a very serious health risk -- requiring serious solutions, not quick, ineffective regulatory fixes.
Dr. Elizabeth M. Whelan is President of the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH.org, HealthFactsAndFears.com).
American Council on Science and Health, Jan 29, 2009
Aiming to combat the obesity epidemic in New York, Gov. David Paterson has recommended an 18% tax on sugar-sweetened soft drinks and a few other sweetened beverages. Unfortunately, the proposed tax is inconsistent with the facts about what causes obesity. It also sets an alarming precedent for taxing foods deemed "bad" by government officials -- further increasing the cost of living in the state -- particularly for the least affluent citizens.
•First, there is no scientific basis for singling out sugar-sweetened soda and certain fruit drinks as a primary underlying cause of obesity. So many Americans these days far exceed their ideal weight because they consume too many calories from all types of foods and beverages -- and do not dedicate sufficient effort to burning calories through exercise. Sugar-sweetened sodas don't make you fatter than eating too much meat, bread, potatoes, or anything else. The old adage "for every complex problem there is a simple solution -- and it never works" comes to mind here. It is always easier to zero in on one alleged villain and assume the problem is solved.
•Second, taxing soda sets up a precedent for taxing myriad foods considered "bad" by popular wisdom. Can we expect taxes next on cake, cookies, candy, and pizza? If food with high sugar or fat content is "bad" and deserving of punitive regulatory action, to be consistent will we tax orange juice (very high in sugar) and avocados (a plentiful source of fat)? Should we tax everything except tofu and spinach?
•Third, when the soda tax is examined closely -- given that it will have zero net effect on reducing obesity -- it must be perceived as another attempt to raise revenue for a financially strapped state. The Governor estimates that the soda tax will bring in $404 million the first year and $539 million annually after that. What's not to like about that if you are trying to balance a budget? But the bad news is that this influx of cash has nothing to do with fighting obesity and enhancing health.
There is, however, some good news about the proposed soda tax: Polls show that New Yorkers oppose this useless and regressive tax by nearly a 2:1 margin. Presumably, citizens recognize that obesity is a very serious health risk -- requiring serious solutions, not quick, ineffective regulatory fixes.
Dr. Elizabeth M. Whelan is President of the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH.org, HealthFactsAndFears.com).
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Chernobyl, Three Miles Island and thyroid cancer
Nuke Those Fears! By Ruth Kava, Ph.D., R.D.
Greens dismiss nuclear energy based on little more than greatly exaggerated depictions of the supposed dangers and difficulties of its use.
American Council on Science and Health, Jan 27, 2009
Excerpts:
The environmental mantra these days has two main components -- clean energy and green (sustainable) energy -- anything but oil and coal. Proponents strongly encourage the development of solar and wind energy, neither of which is ready yet for widespread commercial use. But they ignore or downplay the use of a well understood and already commercialized technology -- nuclear energy -- based on little more than greatly exaggerated depictions of the supposed dangers and difficulties of its use.
One fear that has been widely promoted is that of large-scale accidents in nuclear power plants. Anti-nuclear activists point to two examples of that -- the explosion at the Russian Chernobyl reactor in 1986, and the partial meltdown of the fuel rods at the Three Mile Island reactor in 1979.
The Chernobyl explosion was due to errors made by the operators during a test and a lack of adequate safety features and procedures that could have prevented such errors. It will surprise many that, with the exception of workers who were on the scene and received massive acute doses of radiation, there has been no evidence of increased radiation-caused mortality. In contrast to the Chernobyl plant, modern nuclear facilities have redundant safety features to prevent such errors.
Although it has also been used as an example of a large-scale accident, there was actually little release of radioactivity from the Three Mile Island reactor -- even though about half of the fuel melted. The level of radioactivity received by the surrounding area was not significantly greater than that normally supplied by natural background sources. In other words, the containment precautions were effective. Of course, the anti-nuclear fanatics' propaganda pays no attention to these simple facts.
Another fear that has been widely promoted is that release of radioactivity from a nuclear plant -- specifically the radioactive iodine, I131 -- would cause thyroid cancer in exposed children. This fear actually has some biological basis in that the thyroid gland avidly takes up iodine. It can be prevented from absorbing the radioactive iodine, however, by giving a large dose of non-radioactive iodine. An even simpler preventive measure: avoid drinking milk for a week or two after such an (unlikely) event. Of course prevention of I131 release is a much better option.
It is true that a year after the Chernobyl accident screening studies revealed an increased occurrence of thyroid cancer in exposed children. However, many scientists have questioned whether this was really due to the Chernobyl-related exposure, since thyroid cancer typically has a latency period of thirty years. Further, it is important to note that prior to the explosion, there was very little screening of children in the Chernobyl area -- but around 90% were screened afterwards. This fact alone very likely contributed to the increased incidence observed. In addition, the incidence of thyroid cancer was actually lower in the highly contaminated region than in the general Russian population.
[...]
Dr. Ruth Kava is Director of Nutrition at the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH.org, HealthFactsAndFears.com).
Greens dismiss nuclear energy based on little more than greatly exaggerated depictions of the supposed dangers and difficulties of its use.
American Council on Science and Health, Jan 27, 2009
Excerpts:
The environmental mantra these days has two main components -- clean energy and green (sustainable) energy -- anything but oil and coal. Proponents strongly encourage the development of solar and wind energy, neither of which is ready yet for widespread commercial use. But they ignore or downplay the use of a well understood and already commercialized technology -- nuclear energy -- based on little more than greatly exaggerated depictions of the supposed dangers and difficulties of its use.
One fear that has been widely promoted is that of large-scale accidents in nuclear power plants. Anti-nuclear activists point to two examples of that -- the explosion at the Russian Chernobyl reactor in 1986, and the partial meltdown of the fuel rods at the Three Mile Island reactor in 1979.
The Chernobyl explosion was due to errors made by the operators during a test and a lack of adequate safety features and procedures that could have prevented such errors. It will surprise many that, with the exception of workers who were on the scene and received massive acute doses of radiation, there has been no evidence of increased radiation-caused mortality. In contrast to the Chernobyl plant, modern nuclear facilities have redundant safety features to prevent such errors.
Although it has also been used as an example of a large-scale accident, there was actually little release of radioactivity from the Three Mile Island reactor -- even though about half of the fuel melted. The level of radioactivity received by the surrounding area was not significantly greater than that normally supplied by natural background sources. In other words, the containment precautions were effective. Of course, the anti-nuclear fanatics' propaganda pays no attention to these simple facts.
Another fear that has been widely promoted is that release of radioactivity from a nuclear plant -- specifically the radioactive iodine, I131 -- would cause thyroid cancer in exposed children. This fear actually has some biological basis in that the thyroid gland avidly takes up iodine. It can be prevented from absorbing the radioactive iodine, however, by giving a large dose of non-radioactive iodine. An even simpler preventive measure: avoid drinking milk for a week or two after such an (unlikely) event. Of course prevention of I131 release is a much better option.
It is true that a year after the Chernobyl accident screening studies revealed an increased occurrence of thyroid cancer in exposed children. However, many scientists have questioned whether this was really due to the Chernobyl-related exposure, since thyroid cancer typically has a latency period of thirty years. Further, it is important to note that prior to the explosion, there was very little screening of children in the Chernobyl area -- but around 90% were screened afterwards. This fact alone very likely contributed to the increased incidence observed. In addition, the incidence of thyroid cancer was actually lower in the highly contaminated region than in the general Russian population.
[...]
Dr. Ruth Kava is Director of Nutrition at the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH.org, HealthFactsAndFears.com).
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard On Biotech Opponents
Biotech Opponents Are Playing with Human Lives, by Till Behrend
Nobel laureate Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard discusses the environmentalists' war against genetically modified food.
Pajamas Media, January 3, 2009
There is a specter haunting Europe: the specter of genetically modified foods. Although regularly consumed in the U.S. and around the world, in Europe GM foods are the target of veritable scare campaigns by environmental pressure groups and in the media. As a consequence, even GM crops that have been formally approved by the European Commission are the subject of increasing restrictions in Germany, France, and other European countries. GM crops — including such as have been planted merely for experimental purposes — are regularly destroyed by anti-GM militants in acts of would-be “civil disobedience.” Till Behrend of [1] the German weekly Focus spoke with the geneticist and Nobel Prize laureate Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard about the sources of biotech-phobia.
John Rosenthal (Translator)
***
FOCUS: Professor Nüsslein-Volhard, farmers all around the world are cultivating genetically modified crops on an ever larger scale. But many Germans appear to be afraid of the new technology. Are they right to be?
Nüsslein-Volhard: Well, we Germans are always afraid of new things. But what are these people actually afraid about? They’re afraid that they will assimilate alien genes while eating genetically modified foods. But that’s nonsense. The genes are digested, broken down, and eliminated from the body just like in the case of traditional foods. This has been proven beyond any shadow of a doubt. The human genome is sequential and you can examine whether there are any cow genes or plant genes in there. Have no fear: there aren’t any.
FOCUS: What distinguishes, then, classically bred crops from genetically modified crops?
Nüsslein-Volhard: People seem to be unaware that practically all the grains and vegetables that we eat nowadays have been highly genetically modified as compared to their natural forms. There’s hardly any crop as artificial as a potato. In the wild, potatoes are tiny and highly poisonous. It took thousands of generations to turn the potato into a decent sort of food. In contrast to the classical development of new plant strains, “green” biotechnology has the advantage that with its help one can proceed much faster and in a much more targeted fashion.
FOCUS: It’s true that for plant breeders that might be a fine thing. But lots of people want to do what’s right for nature and for themselves, and consequently they insist on “organic” products.
Nüsslein-Volhard: Given our level of material well-being and the fertility of our soil, we can afford to do that. But actually that’s a snobby, elitist attitude. Organic farming cannot feed large cities. And it certainly cannot feed the world’s population. It’s not possible, since the yields of organic farming are too small and the area one has to plant is way too much. It really makes more sense to use the particularly rich fields that we have intensively and in a sustainable manner by planting high-yield crops. The environment benefits, too, since then we can return other fields to their natural state.
FOCUS: Nonetheless, organic farming is thought to stand for a more respectful treatment of the environment.
Nüsslein-Volhard: Wrongly. Or do you imagine perhaps that organic farming can do without the spraying of pesticides? On organic farms, too, one sprays pesticides constantly and all over the place! In this respect, genetic engineering really has more intelligent solutions to offer. For example, with the help of genetic engineering we can make corn or cotton that is resistant to insect damage. If we incorporate a particular gene, they become poisonous for harmful insects, but not for humans or for mice. Then you can do without the insecticide. I find this rather smart. There are also strains being developed that grow with less water or that grow on salt-affected soils. It’s both sophisticated and ecologically beneficial!
FOCUS: If green biotechnology is so beneficial, why hasn’t it gained ground here in Germany?
Nüsslein-Volhard: We have groups like Greenpeace to thank for that: groups that put ideology above everything else — regardless of all the positive results that have been had [with GM crops] in the meanwhile in many countries. As a consequence, green biotechnology is practically a social taboo here.
FOCUS: What are the implications for scientific research?
Nüsslein-Volhard: For theoretical research, there are no consequences. But as soon as it’s a matter of practical applications, things become difficult for the scientists. In Germany, there are practically no positions to be found anymore that would permit them to translate their ideas and research into practice. We do have a biotechnology law, which to some extent makes possible the field experiments that are necessary to gain authorization [for GM crops]. But if the fields are constantly being destroyed and nothing is done about it, then it’s just not possible. Not far from here, at the University of Hohenheim, a whole course had to be canceled because anti-GM militants tore up all the experimental fields. The consequence is that Germany exports exceptionally well-trained scientists to other countries. They don’t see any future for themselves here.
FOCUS: Using the techniques of genetic engineering, German scientists have developed the so-called golden rice. The rice is enriched with vitamin A and it has the potential to spare millions of people in the world’s poorest countries from losing their eyesight. Greenpeace is opposed to the golden rice, because they don’t want people in the Third World to serve as guinea pigs. Do you share this concern?
Nüsslein-Volhard: But that’s total nonsense. The behavior of Greenpeace in this matter is profoundly inhuman! Without a second thought, they are playing with human lives. I’ll give you another example. A few years ago, the Americans sent aid shipments of corn to African countries that were suffering from famine. The corn was genetically modified. In America, everyone eats it (including the German tourist), but the starving Africans were not permitted to eat the corn, because Greenpeace and other groups warned that it was genetically modified. These are unbelievable absurdities. I find it extremely depressing.
FOCUS: Critics of green biotechnologies complain that small farmers in the Third World become dependent on the big agro-industrial firms, which have their newly developed crop strains patented.
Nüsslein-Volhard: Okay, I find this criticism bizarre. As if it is somehow immoral to sell corn kernels as seed. Nobody is giving cars away, after all! The seed for all high-performance crop strains, including those that have not been genetically engineered, is specially produced nowadays, in order to guarantee the maximum yield. It’s just that hardly anyone knows that. The image of the farmer who retains a part of his harvest and replants the kernels the following spring is very romantic, of course. But in the case of corn, for example, such behavior would be totally irrational, since he would then only be able to collect half of the potential yields. But farmers have to try to get as much out of their land as possible. When they don’t manage to do so in an economically efficient fashion, then they need subsidies. Of course, we could pay them such subsidies, in order for them to continue sowing seed that they have themselves harvested. But I don’t find this particularly shrewd.
FOCUS: You’re reputed to be a passionate cook and you’ve even published a cookbook. As a cook, what would you like to see done with biotechnology?
Nüsslein-Volhard: Sometimes I regret the fact that you can’t find certain old-fashioned sorts of fruit in the stores anymore, simply because they spoil too quickly. There are particularly tasty sorts of strawberries or sour cherries, for example, that don’t keep well. You can tell that many types of fruits and vegetables are cultivated for their robustness and the quantity of the yield, but not for their flavor. If it would be possible by using genetic engineering to make the tastier sort of strawberries keep longer, personally I’d have nothing against it. You can’t have everything. But by using genetic engineering you can perhaps have more.
Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard is the director of the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen. In 1995, she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine. The above interview first appeared on the German news site [2] Focus-Online. The German version is available [3] here. The English translation is by John Rosenthal.
[References at the original link at the beginning]
Nobel laureate Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard discusses the environmentalists' war against genetically modified food.
Pajamas Media, January 3, 2009
There is a specter haunting Europe: the specter of genetically modified foods. Although regularly consumed in the U.S. and around the world, in Europe GM foods are the target of veritable scare campaigns by environmental pressure groups and in the media. As a consequence, even GM crops that have been formally approved by the European Commission are the subject of increasing restrictions in Germany, France, and other European countries. GM crops — including such as have been planted merely for experimental purposes — are regularly destroyed by anti-GM militants in acts of would-be “civil disobedience.” Till Behrend of [1] the German weekly Focus spoke with the geneticist and Nobel Prize laureate Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard about the sources of biotech-phobia.
John Rosenthal (Translator)
***
FOCUS: Professor Nüsslein-Volhard, farmers all around the world are cultivating genetically modified crops on an ever larger scale. But many Germans appear to be afraid of the new technology. Are they right to be?
Nüsslein-Volhard: Well, we Germans are always afraid of new things. But what are these people actually afraid about? They’re afraid that they will assimilate alien genes while eating genetically modified foods. But that’s nonsense. The genes are digested, broken down, and eliminated from the body just like in the case of traditional foods. This has been proven beyond any shadow of a doubt. The human genome is sequential and you can examine whether there are any cow genes or plant genes in there. Have no fear: there aren’t any.
FOCUS: What distinguishes, then, classically bred crops from genetically modified crops?
Nüsslein-Volhard: People seem to be unaware that practically all the grains and vegetables that we eat nowadays have been highly genetically modified as compared to their natural forms. There’s hardly any crop as artificial as a potato. In the wild, potatoes are tiny and highly poisonous. It took thousands of generations to turn the potato into a decent sort of food. In contrast to the classical development of new plant strains, “green” biotechnology has the advantage that with its help one can proceed much faster and in a much more targeted fashion.
FOCUS: It’s true that for plant breeders that might be a fine thing. But lots of people want to do what’s right for nature and for themselves, and consequently they insist on “organic” products.
Nüsslein-Volhard: Given our level of material well-being and the fertility of our soil, we can afford to do that. But actually that’s a snobby, elitist attitude. Organic farming cannot feed large cities. And it certainly cannot feed the world’s population. It’s not possible, since the yields of organic farming are too small and the area one has to plant is way too much. It really makes more sense to use the particularly rich fields that we have intensively and in a sustainable manner by planting high-yield crops. The environment benefits, too, since then we can return other fields to their natural state.
FOCUS: Nonetheless, organic farming is thought to stand for a more respectful treatment of the environment.
Nüsslein-Volhard: Wrongly. Or do you imagine perhaps that organic farming can do without the spraying of pesticides? On organic farms, too, one sprays pesticides constantly and all over the place! In this respect, genetic engineering really has more intelligent solutions to offer. For example, with the help of genetic engineering we can make corn or cotton that is resistant to insect damage. If we incorporate a particular gene, they become poisonous for harmful insects, but not for humans or for mice. Then you can do without the insecticide. I find this rather smart. There are also strains being developed that grow with less water or that grow on salt-affected soils. It’s both sophisticated and ecologically beneficial!
FOCUS: If green biotechnology is so beneficial, why hasn’t it gained ground here in Germany?
Nüsslein-Volhard: We have groups like Greenpeace to thank for that: groups that put ideology above everything else — regardless of all the positive results that have been had [with GM crops] in the meanwhile in many countries. As a consequence, green biotechnology is practically a social taboo here.
FOCUS: What are the implications for scientific research?
Nüsslein-Volhard: For theoretical research, there are no consequences. But as soon as it’s a matter of practical applications, things become difficult for the scientists. In Germany, there are practically no positions to be found anymore that would permit them to translate their ideas and research into practice. We do have a biotechnology law, which to some extent makes possible the field experiments that are necessary to gain authorization [for GM crops]. But if the fields are constantly being destroyed and nothing is done about it, then it’s just not possible. Not far from here, at the University of Hohenheim, a whole course had to be canceled because anti-GM militants tore up all the experimental fields. The consequence is that Germany exports exceptionally well-trained scientists to other countries. They don’t see any future for themselves here.
FOCUS: Using the techniques of genetic engineering, German scientists have developed the so-called golden rice. The rice is enriched with vitamin A and it has the potential to spare millions of people in the world’s poorest countries from losing their eyesight. Greenpeace is opposed to the golden rice, because they don’t want people in the Third World to serve as guinea pigs. Do you share this concern?
Nüsslein-Volhard: But that’s total nonsense. The behavior of Greenpeace in this matter is profoundly inhuman! Without a second thought, they are playing with human lives. I’ll give you another example. A few years ago, the Americans sent aid shipments of corn to African countries that were suffering from famine. The corn was genetically modified. In America, everyone eats it (including the German tourist), but the starving Africans were not permitted to eat the corn, because Greenpeace and other groups warned that it was genetically modified. These are unbelievable absurdities. I find it extremely depressing.
FOCUS: Critics of green biotechnologies complain that small farmers in the Third World become dependent on the big agro-industrial firms, which have their newly developed crop strains patented.
Nüsslein-Volhard: Okay, I find this criticism bizarre. As if it is somehow immoral to sell corn kernels as seed. Nobody is giving cars away, after all! The seed for all high-performance crop strains, including those that have not been genetically engineered, is specially produced nowadays, in order to guarantee the maximum yield. It’s just that hardly anyone knows that. The image of the farmer who retains a part of his harvest and replants the kernels the following spring is very romantic, of course. But in the case of corn, for example, such behavior would be totally irrational, since he would then only be able to collect half of the potential yields. But farmers have to try to get as much out of their land as possible. When they don’t manage to do so in an economically efficient fashion, then they need subsidies. Of course, we could pay them such subsidies, in order for them to continue sowing seed that they have themselves harvested. But I don’t find this particularly shrewd.
FOCUS: You’re reputed to be a passionate cook and you’ve even published a cookbook. As a cook, what would you like to see done with biotechnology?
Nüsslein-Volhard: Sometimes I regret the fact that you can’t find certain old-fashioned sorts of fruit in the stores anymore, simply because they spoil too quickly. There are particularly tasty sorts of strawberries or sour cherries, for example, that don’t keep well. You can tell that many types of fruits and vegetables are cultivated for their robustness and the quantity of the yield, but not for their flavor. If it would be possible by using genetic engineering to make the tastier sort of strawberries keep longer, personally I’d have nothing against it. You can’t have everything. But by using genetic engineering you can perhaps have more.
Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard is the director of the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen. In 1995, she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine. The above interview first appeared on the German news site [2] Focus-Online. The German version is available [3] here. The English translation is by John Rosenthal.
[References at the original link at the beginning]
Saturday, January 3, 2009
The Politics of Fat
The Politics of Fat, by Andrew Ferguson
The Weekly Standard, Jan 05, 2009, Volume 014, Issue 16
On December 15, the city council of Binghamton, New York--every member a proud progressive--unanimously passed an ordinance making it a crime to discriminate against fat people. The next day, David Paterson, the famously progressive governor of New York, proposed a special "fat tax" on soda pop because soda pop makes people fat.
When it comes to obesity, the authorities in New York have put their citizens on notice: We will get you coming and going.
Supporters make clear that each move is only preliminary to even greater reforms. Several legislators are interested in a statewide "weight-based" discrimination law, and fat taxes on other foods may prove irresistible.
Obesity is very today, very right now. Obesity is the new smoking. "What smoking was to my parents' generation," Paterson says, "obesity is to my children's generation." He means this in two ways. One is that kids today--these kids today!--eat fatty foods with as much ardor as their grandparents smoked tobacco. The other is that government intends to eradicate the first vice with the same ruthlessness as it did the second. And it's not an idle threat. The campaign against smoking was progressivism's greatest recent success. Over a span of 20 years, an ancient human weakness once enjoyed by nearly half the population and quietly tolerated by the other half became virtually outlawed.
The anti-smoking campaign shows how to turn a private vice requiring tolerance and indulgence into a public offense demanding regulation and official censure. Paterson is following the campaign step by step. First comes the misappropriation of the language of epidemiology. The terms are liberated from their scientific meaning and then attached to a widely shared activity or condition. The condition, in this case obesity, is renamed a "disease," suggesting that some kind of contagion is making the rounds. Then the disease inflates into an "epidemic," suggesting an urgency that only the foolhardy would ignore. "We find ourselves," says Paterson, "in the midst of a new public health epidemic, childhood obesity." Any libertarian qualms are quickly overridden, since not even the most hollow-eyed anarcho-capitalist would deny that government is obliged to guard against runaway disease.
To intensify the urgency, Paterson deploys neutral statistics from sources that are already on his side. The statistics are always improbably exact. Unnamed public health researchers at Harvard have discovered that obesity is "associated" with 112,000 deaths in the United States every year; not 113,000, and not 111,000. Each can of soda pop "increases the risk" of making a child fat by 60 percent. Not 59 percent. Not 61 percent. An increase of $1.25 in tobacco taxes saves more than 37,000 lives and $5 billion in health care costs. And Paterson's 18 percent tax on sugary soft drinks will reduce consumption by 5 percent. Not four.
From here the rest of the argument tumbles like dominoes, clack clack clack. Fat people are not merely drawn to eating unhealthy food; they are "addicted." As addicts, they are rendered helpless by their addiction. Helpless, they deserve the status of victims. Like all victims, they must be victimized by something. By unhealthy food? No: Not food merely, for food and commercial marketing combine to create the TFE--the "Toxic Food Environment." The TFE is everywhere in today's America; it is today's America. It emanates from the seductive advertising of food, from the media's quasi-pornographic obsession with food, from the scandalously low price of food, from the ubiquitous sale of food in such unlikely places as gas-station minimarts. (In simpler times, Americans got gas when they ate food; now they eat food when they get gas.) Created by cynical corporations, the TFE is the ghastly miasma in which we live and move and have our being, swelling with every Frito.
Thus a private failing becomes a public menace.
This is the point in the argument where the city council of Binghamton jumps in. Actually, they perked up at the mention of the word "victims." Victims are citizens who have gone limp. They require the paternal care and protection of public officials. Researchers from Yale (no less) "found that obese adults were 37 times more likely"--not 36 times more likely, and not 38 either--"to report weight-based employment discrimination compared to 'normal' weight adults." Nonprogressives from places other than Binghamton might find this statistic less than eye-popping. Who else but fat people are going to suffer discrimination against fat people? But the very idea of such unregulated bigotry moved the city council to act. Specifically, it outlawed what has elsewhere been called weightism: "weight-based" discrimination in housing, employment, education, and public accommodation. The bill's sponsor explained the law by saying, "It is the human thing to do."
Well, it's certainly the progressive thing to do. Those same Yale researchers fleshed out the reasoning, if you'll forgive the expression. "Weight bias exists," they explained, because weightist bigots believe that "the only reason people fail to lose weight is because of [they're not teaching grammar at Yale these days] poor self-discipline or a lack of willpower." This wrongheaded notion "blames the victim rather than addressing environmental conditions that cause obesity."
The city council takes care of the first part of this incorrect thinking. Its new law reinforces the view that obesity, like sex or race, is an unchangeable condition deserving civil rights protection. The governor aims for the second part, by making the initial move toward taxing those "environmental conditions" out of existence; he will, in other words, directly attack the TFE and, if all goes well, cure the obesity epidemic.
The governor and the Binghamton city council acted independently, of course, but together they've concocted a perfectly progressive two-pronged approach, a one-two punch, a regulatory pincer movement designed to eliminate, all at once and simultaneously, not only discrimination against the obese but also the obese themselves.
One problem does suggest itself. If the government is to declare our hefty brothers and sisters a protected class, if they are to become a legal caste that cannot be singled out because of their weight, how can the government continue to go after their favorite foods? A "fat tax" on sugary soda pop punishes fat people by making the foods they love more expensive--merely because fat people love them. One tactic violates the other. It's only a matter of time before fat people will be able to sue the state of New York on grounds of discrimination for imposing a fat tax. And then where will we be?
I don't want to give anybody any ideas, but I have noticed an alarming number of dangerously skinny people drinking diet soda. It's like an -epidemic.
Andrew Ferguson is a senior editor at The Weekly Standard.
The Weekly Standard, Jan 05, 2009, Volume 014, Issue 16
On December 15, the city council of Binghamton, New York--every member a proud progressive--unanimously passed an ordinance making it a crime to discriminate against fat people. The next day, David Paterson, the famously progressive governor of New York, proposed a special "fat tax" on soda pop because soda pop makes people fat.
When it comes to obesity, the authorities in New York have put their citizens on notice: We will get you coming and going.
Supporters make clear that each move is only preliminary to even greater reforms. Several legislators are interested in a statewide "weight-based" discrimination law, and fat taxes on other foods may prove irresistible.
Obesity is very today, very right now. Obesity is the new smoking. "What smoking was to my parents' generation," Paterson says, "obesity is to my children's generation." He means this in two ways. One is that kids today--these kids today!--eat fatty foods with as much ardor as their grandparents smoked tobacco. The other is that government intends to eradicate the first vice with the same ruthlessness as it did the second. And it's not an idle threat. The campaign against smoking was progressivism's greatest recent success. Over a span of 20 years, an ancient human weakness once enjoyed by nearly half the population and quietly tolerated by the other half became virtually outlawed.
The anti-smoking campaign shows how to turn a private vice requiring tolerance and indulgence into a public offense demanding regulation and official censure. Paterson is following the campaign step by step. First comes the misappropriation of the language of epidemiology. The terms are liberated from their scientific meaning and then attached to a widely shared activity or condition. The condition, in this case obesity, is renamed a "disease," suggesting that some kind of contagion is making the rounds. Then the disease inflates into an "epidemic," suggesting an urgency that only the foolhardy would ignore. "We find ourselves," says Paterson, "in the midst of a new public health epidemic, childhood obesity." Any libertarian qualms are quickly overridden, since not even the most hollow-eyed anarcho-capitalist would deny that government is obliged to guard against runaway disease.
To intensify the urgency, Paterson deploys neutral statistics from sources that are already on his side. The statistics are always improbably exact. Unnamed public health researchers at Harvard have discovered that obesity is "associated" with 112,000 deaths in the United States every year; not 113,000, and not 111,000. Each can of soda pop "increases the risk" of making a child fat by 60 percent. Not 59 percent. Not 61 percent. An increase of $1.25 in tobacco taxes saves more than 37,000 lives and $5 billion in health care costs. And Paterson's 18 percent tax on sugary soft drinks will reduce consumption by 5 percent. Not four.
From here the rest of the argument tumbles like dominoes, clack clack clack. Fat people are not merely drawn to eating unhealthy food; they are "addicted." As addicts, they are rendered helpless by their addiction. Helpless, they deserve the status of victims. Like all victims, they must be victimized by something. By unhealthy food? No: Not food merely, for food and commercial marketing combine to create the TFE--the "Toxic Food Environment." The TFE is everywhere in today's America; it is today's America. It emanates from the seductive advertising of food, from the media's quasi-pornographic obsession with food, from the scandalously low price of food, from the ubiquitous sale of food in such unlikely places as gas-station minimarts. (In simpler times, Americans got gas when they ate food; now they eat food when they get gas.) Created by cynical corporations, the TFE is the ghastly miasma in which we live and move and have our being, swelling with every Frito.
Thus a private failing becomes a public menace.
This is the point in the argument where the city council of Binghamton jumps in. Actually, they perked up at the mention of the word "victims." Victims are citizens who have gone limp. They require the paternal care and protection of public officials. Researchers from Yale (no less) "found that obese adults were 37 times more likely"--not 36 times more likely, and not 38 either--"to report weight-based employment discrimination compared to 'normal' weight adults." Nonprogressives from places other than Binghamton might find this statistic less than eye-popping. Who else but fat people are going to suffer discrimination against fat people? But the very idea of such unregulated bigotry moved the city council to act. Specifically, it outlawed what has elsewhere been called weightism: "weight-based" discrimination in housing, employment, education, and public accommodation. The bill's sponsor explained the law by saying, "It is the human thing to do."
Well, it's certainly the progressive thing to do. Those same Yale researchers fleshed out the reasoning, if you'll forgive the expression. "Weight bias exists," they explained, because weightist bigots believe that "the only reason people fail to lose weight is because of [they're not teaching grammar at Yale these days] poor self-discipline or a lack of willpower." This wrongheaded notion "blames the victim rather than addressing environmental conditions that cause obesity."
The city council takes care of the first part of this incorrect thinking. Its new law reinforces the view that obesity, like sex or race, is an unchangeable condition deserving civil rights protection. The governor aims for the second part, by making the initial move toward taxing those "environmental conditions" out of existence; he will, in other words, directly attack the TFE and, if all goes well, cure the obesity epidemic.
The governor and the Binghamton city council acted independently, of course, but together they've concocted a perfectly progressive two-pronged approach, a one-two punch, a regulatory pincer movement designed to eliminate, all at once and simultaneously, not only discrimination against the obese but also the obese themselves.
One problem does suggest itself. If the government is to declare our hefty brothers and sisters a protected class, if they are to become a legal caste that cannot be singled out because of their weight, how can the government continue to go after their favorite foods? A "fat tax" on sugary soda pop punishes fat people by making the foods they love more expensive--merely because fat people love them. One tactic violates the other. It's only a matter of time before fat people will be able to sue the state of New York on grounds of discrimination for imposing a fat tax. And then where will we be?
I don't want to give anybody any ideas, but I have noticed an alarming number of dangerously skinny people drinking diet soda. It's like an -epidemic.
Andrew Ferguson is a senior editor at The Weekly Standard.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Wind farm industry forced to admit environmental benefit of wind power in reducing carbon emissions is only half as stated
UK Telegraph: Promoters overstated the environmental benefit of wind farms, by Patrick Sawer
The wind farm industry has been forced to admit that the environmental benefit of wind power in reducing carbon emissions is only half as big as it had previously claimed.
Last Updated: 8:14AM GMT, Dec 21, 2008
The British Wind Energy Association (BWEA) has agreed to scale down its calculation for the amount of harmful carbon dioxide emission that can be eliminated by using wind turbines to generate electricity instead of burning fossil fuels such as coal or gas.
The move is a serious setback for the advocates of wind power, as it will be regarded as a concession that twice as many wind turbines as previously calculated will be needed to provide the same degree of reduction in Britain's carbon emissions.
A wind farm industry source admitted: "It's not ideal for us. It's the result of pressure by the anti-wind farm lobby."
For several years the BWEA – which lobbies on behalf of wind power firms – claimed that electricity from wind turbines 'displaces' 860 grams of carbon dioxide emission for every kilowatt hour of electricity generated.
However it has now halved that figure to 430 grams, following discussions with the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).
Hundreds of wind farms are being planned across the country, adding to the 198 onshore and offshore farms - a total of 2,389 turbines - already in operation. Another 40 farms are currently under construction.
Experts have previously calculated that to help achieve the Government's aim of saving around 200 million tons of CO2 emissions by 2020 - through generating 15 per cent of the country's electricity from wind power - would require 50,000 wind turbines.
But the new figure for carbon displacement means that twice as many turbines would now be needed to save the same amount of CO2 emissions.
While their advocates regard wind farms as a key part of Britain's fight against climate change, opponents argue they blight the landscape at great financial cost while bringing little environmental benefit.
Dr Mike Hall, an anti-wind farm campaigner from the Friends of Eden, Lakeland and Lunesdale Scenery group in the Lake District, said: "Every wind farm application says it will lead to a big saving in the amount of carbon dioxide produced. This has been greatly exaggerated and the reduction in the carbon displacement figure is a significant admission of this.
"As we get cleaner power stations on line, the figure will get even lower. It further backs the argument that wind farms are one of the most inefficient and expensive ways of lowering carbon emissions."
Because wind farms burn no fuel, they emit no carbon dioxide during regular running. The revised calculation for the amount of carbon emission they save has come about because the BWEA's earlier figure did not take account of recent improvements to the technology used in conventional, fossil-fuel-burning power stations.
The figure of 860 grams dates back to the days of old-style coal-fired power stations. However, since the early 1990s, many of the dirty coal-fired stations have been replaced by cleaner-burning stations, with a consequent reduction in what the industry calls the "grid average mix" figure for carbon dioxide displacement.
As a result, a modern 100MW coal or gas power station is now calculated to produce half as many tonnes of carbon dioxide as its predecessor would have done.
The BWEA's move follows a number of rulings by the ASA against claims made by individual wind farm promoters about the benefits their schemes would have in reducing carbon emissions.
In one key adjudication, the ASA ruled that a claim by Npower Renewables that a wind farm planned for the southern edge of Exmoor National Park, in Devon, would help prevent the release of 33,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere was "inaccurate and likely to mislead". This claim was based on the 860-gram figure.
The watchdog concluded: "We told Npower to ensure that future carbon savings claims were based on a more representative and rigorous carbon emissions factor."
The ASA has now recommended that the BWEA and generating companies use the far lower figure of 430 grams.
In a letter to its members, the BWEA's head of onshore, Jan Matthiesen, said: "It was agreed to recommend to all BWEA members to use the single static figure of 430 g CO2/kWh for the time being. The advantage is that it is well accepted and presents little risk as it understates the true figure."
This is now the figure given on the BWEA's website. The organisation will also be forced to lower its claim for the total amount of carbon dioxide emission saved by the 2,389 wind turbines currently operating around Britain.
But the association denied the change weakened the case for wind farms.
Nick Medic, spokesman for the BWEA, said: "Wind farms are still eliminating emissions. The fact is that fossil fuel burning power stations belch out CO2 and wind farms don't. That has not changed.
"The fact is we need to reduce carbon emissions, however you account for them. But there are people who just don't like wind farms and will use any argument against them."
The wind farm industry has been forced to admit that the environmental benefit of wind power in reducing carbon emissions is only half as big as it had previously claimed.
Last Updated: 8:14AM GMT, Dec 21, 2008
The British Wind Energy Association (BWEA) has agreed to scale down its calculation for the amount of harmful carbon dioxide emission that can be eliminated by using wind turbines to generate electricity instead of burning fossil fuels such as coal or gas.
The move is a serious setback for the advocates of wind power, as it will be regarded as a concession that twice as many wind turbines as previously calculated will be needed to provide the same degree of reduction in Britain's carbon emissions.
A wind farm industry source admitted: "It's not ideal for us. It's the result of pressure by the anti-wind farm lobby."
For several years the BWEA – which lobbies on behalf of wind power firms – claimed that electricity from wind turbines 'displaces' 860 grams of carbon dioxide emission for every kilowatt hour of electricity generated.
However it has now halved that figure to 430 grams, following discussions with the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).
Hundreds of wind farms are being planned across the country, adding to the 198 onshore and offshore farms - a total of 2,389 turbines - already in operation. Another 40 farms are currently under construction.
Experts have previously calculated that to help achieve the Government's aim of saving around 200 million tons of CO2 emissions by 2020 - through generating 15 per cent of the country's electricity from wind power - would require 50,000 wind turbines.
But the new figure for carbon displacement means that twice as many turbines would now be needed to save the same amount of CO2 emissions.
While their advocates regard wind farms as a key part of Britain's fight against climate change, opponents argue they blight the landscape at great financial cost while bringing little environmental benefit.
Dr Mike Hall, an anti-wind farm campaigner from the Friends of Eden, Lakeland and Lunesdale Scenery group in the Lake District, said: "Every wind farm application says it will lead to a big saving in the amount of carbon dioxide produced. This has been greatly exaggerated and the reduction in the carbon displacement figure is a significant admission of this.
"As we get cleaner power stations on line, the figure will get even lower. It further backs the argument that wind farms are one of the most inefficient and expensive ways of lowering carbon emissions."
Because wind farms burn no fuel, they emit no carbon dioxide during regular running. The revised calculation for the amount of carbon emission they save has come about because the BWEA's earlier figure did not take account of recent improvements to the technology used in conventional, fossil-fuel-burning power stations.
The figure of 860 grams dates back to the days of old-style coal-fired power stations. However, since the early 1990s, many of the dirty coal-fired stations have been replaced by cleaner-burning stations, with a consequent reduction in what the industry calls the "grid average mix" figure for carbon dioxide displacement.
As a result, a modern 100MW coal or gas power station is now calculated to produce half as many tonnes of carbon dioxide as its predecessor would have done.
The BWEA's move follows a number of rulings by the ASA against claims made by individual wind farm promoters about the benefits their schemes would have in reducing carbon emissions.
In one key adjudication, the ASA ruled that a claim by Npower Renewables that a wind farm planned for the southern edge of Exmoor National Park, in Devon, would help prevent the release of 33,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere was "inaccurate and likely to mislead". This claim was based on the 860-gram figure.
The watchdog concluded: "We told Npower to ensure that future carbon savings claims were based on a more representative and rigorous carbon emissions factor."
The ASA has now recommended that the BWEA and generating companies use the far lower figure of 430 grams.
In a letter to its members, the BWEA's head of onshore, Jan Matthiesen, said: "It was agreed to recommend to all BWEA members to use the single static figure of 430 g CO2/kWh for the time being. The advantage is that it is well accepted and presents little risk as it understates the true figure."
This is now the figure given on the BWEA's website. The organisation will also be forced to lower its claim for the total amount of carbon dioxide emission saved by the 2,389 wind turbines currently operating around Britain.
But the association denied the change weakened the case for wind farms.
Nick Medic, spokesman for the BWEA, said: "Wind farms are still eliminating emissions. The fact is that fossil fuel burning power stations belch out CO2 and wind farms don't. That has not changed.
"The fact is we need to reduce carbon emissions, however you account for them. But there are people who just don't like wind farms and will use any argument against them."
Monday, December 22, 2008
Deputizing EPA?
EPA Goes Man-Hunting. By Steven Milloy
Fox News. Thursday, December 18, 2008
It’s little wonder why the FBI’s “Most Wanted” list doesn’t include anyone accused of breaking federal environmental laws. It’s hard to argue that a father-son team accused of illegally importing Alfa Romeo sports cars that don’t meet U.S. tailpipe emissions standards is the criminal equivalent of the likes of Usama bin Laden or the other hardened sociopaths for whom the FBI warns the public to remain on the lookout.
But the Environmental Protection Agency has now cured its apparent case of outlaw-envy with the launch of its own “Wanted” list last week. Hoping to “track down environmental fugitives,” the agency wants to “increase the number of ‘eyes’ looking for environmental fugitives.”
In addition to the Alfa Romeo Gang believed to be hiding out in Italy (so remain alert on your next visit to Tuscany), the EPA wants us to keep an eye out for Mauro Valenzuela, an airplane mechanic criminally charged for improperly loading oxygen canisters thought to have caused the tragic 1996 crash of ValuJet flight 592.
But converting the crash into an environmental crime seems a stretch. The EPA apparently views the canister loading as “illegal transportation of hazardous material.” In any event, Valenzuela’s boss and co-worker were eventually acquitted of the same criminal counts. The only reason Valenzuela also wasn’t acquitted was because he panicked and fled to parts unknown before trial. He is, in effect, a fugitive from his own innocence -- but he is wanted by the EPA nonetheless.
The rest of the EPA’s fugitives appear to be mostly hapless immigrants now believed to be “hiding” oversees in places like Syria, Mexico, India, Greece, Poland and China. They’re wanted for a variety of alleged infractions, including smuggling banned refrigerants, discharging waste into sewers, lying to the Coast Guard about a ship’s waste oil management system, transporting hazardous waste without a manifest, and creating false official documents.
While the EPA’s fugitives certainly appear to be a motley lot who may have broken a variety of environmental regulations, often unwittingly, one can’t help but wonder whether the EPA’s Wanted list is not only over-the-top, but where the agency is headed.
We, of course, don’t want people breaking environmental laws, however technical or trivial, but there’s hardly a moral equivalence between a food delivery man who, in a panic, drained 32 gallons of gasoline into a storm sewer and Islamic terrorists who have declared war on America.
The list’s creation seems a furtherance of the Greens’ larger campaign to plant the idea within the public’s mind that all environmental “transgressions” fall along a criminal continuum.
Unlike the FBI’s Wanted list, which spotlights a number of truly dangerous characters accused of causing actual harm to real people -- murder, kidnapping, rape, child molestation, armed robbery and the like -- the EPA’s fugitives are wanted for violations that seem to have caused little, if any, harm to anyone or the environment.
It’s too bad, however, that you can’t say the same thing about the EPA’s Enforcement Division.
In September 1988, the EPA had John Pozsgai indicted for removing more than 5,000 old tires from his property and spreading dirt where the tires had been. Although Pozsgai’s land was bordered by two major highways, a tire dealership and an automobile salvage yard, the EPA considered his land a federally protected “wetland” because of a drainage ditch running along the edge of his property. Though the ditch was mostly dry, it flooded during heavy rain, and the EPA considered it a stream. When Pozsgai filled the ditch without a permit, EPA undercover agents secretly filmed the dump trucks that delivered the topsoil. Though his actions didn’t create any pollution, endanger any species or water quality, Pozsgai was sentenced to three years in prison and fined more than $200,000.
In 1997, nearly two dozen federal agents, armed with semiautomatic pistols, showed up at James Knott’s wire-mesh manufacturing plant in Massachusetts. Knott was indicted on two counts of violating the Clean Water Act for allegedly pumping acidic water into the town sewer system. The EPA publicly condemned Knott and warned that his conviction could result in up to six years in prison and a $1.5 million fine. The case was subsequently dropped when it was discovered that the EPA had omitted vital information from the search warrant information indicating that Knott wasn’t violating the law.
What is the future of eco-crime? A man in the U.K. was fined $215 for leaving the lid of his trash can ajar by more than three inches. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom proposed last July to deputize garbage men to fine people as much as $1,000 for mixing trash with recyclables.
Garbage cops, however, pale in comparison to the call earlier this year by NASA’s global warming alarmist, James Hansen, to put the CEOs of oil and coal companies on trial for “high crimes against humanity and nature” -- a sentiment first broached in 2006 by a blogger for Grist magazine who called for a “climate Nuremburg” for those who have questioned the need for global warming regulation. Is this really the direction in which we want to go?
It could just be that the real threat to society comes not from a couple of guys selling a few European sports cars that don’t meet stringent U.S. tailpipe standards, but those who use the environment as an excuse to commit crime like, say, the elusive Earth Liberation Front (ELF) terrorists whose arson and vandalism targets have included homes, university buildings, a ski lodge, SUVs, SUV dealerships and more. What’s the EPA doing about ELF?
If the EPA needs a Wanted list, how about making it a “Help Wanted” list in search of Enforcement Division employees with some perspective?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
