Ramping up the Air War 2006, here’s another attempt to set the record straight on air quality:
“Activist groups like the American Lung Association don’t stay in business by telling people that everything is okay or that things are getting better,” said Joel Schwartz, visiting fellow with the American Enterprise Institute and JLF adjunct scholar. “They stay in business by keeping people scared and keeping them thinking that air pollution is a serious and urgent problem that’s a tremendous threat to their health.”
This tactic is not new for the Lung Association, Schwartz said. “The Lung Association has a history of exaggerating air pollution levels, obscuring positive trends, and exaggerating health risks. That’s one of the reasons why most people think air pollution has been getting worse, and that it’s still a serious threat to their health, when just the opposite is the case.”
The John Locke Foundation will soon release Schwartz’s policy report, “The Health Effects of Air Pollution: Separating Science from Propaganda.” It challenges conventional wisdom about the harmful health effects of air pollution.
Among the key findings: asthma and air pollution are not positively correlated. Schwartz found that asthma rates grew substantially from 1980 to 1996, even while air pollution levels declined.
“No matter where you look, whether in North Carolina or anywhere else in the United States, we’ve had declining air pollution and rising asthma,” Schwartz said. “So unless lower air pollution is the cause of more asthma, air pollution certainly can’t be involved.”
And here’s the other thing to watch. Since we are coming off of three very low ozone years in a row — the lowest since monitoring began, Schwartz notes — 2006 might come in higher by comparison come October. If it does, and only time will tell, that must be kept in perspective. It might just be an upward blip in an overall downward trend for the state and the county. Conversely, should 2006 be another mild ozone season — well, at some point the chicken little routine gets very old.
