EPA Science Panel Considering Guidelines That Upend Basic Air Pollution Science | Hacker News Reader

EPA Science Panel Considering Guidelines That Upend Basic Air Pollution Science

npr.org

72 pointsUltramanoid24 comments

Just a reminder example on why air pollution matters -- "Air pollution causes huge reduction in intelligence" --https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/aug/27/air-poll...

Here's a google-scholar search if you really want to dive deep- https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C33&q=air...

Read some of THOSE articles and you'll encounter interesting tidbits like "The evidence was also sufficient for the association between pre- or postnatal exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and autism spectrum disorder, and limited evidence was encountered between nitrogen oxides and autism spectrum disorder."

Seems like the simple solution would be to fill the homes and offices of the 7 advisory members with the level of particulate contamination they feel is safe. Let them eat their own dog food.

It's easy to declare something safe that others are exposed to when your own wealth and position means you and your family won't face it.

At a public meeting Thursday that ran nearly two hours long, multiple members of that committee, including Chair Tony Cox and Steven Packham of the Utah Division of Air Quality, said they do not agree that breathing air polluted with soot can lead to an early death.

I wonder if they smoke, and overall how healthy they are...

I wonder who's lining their pockets

It may not even be money. There are a lot of ideologues out there who will do the job for free.

I think it is important to remember that elected representatives are analogous to legal counsel—- they are duty bound to do everything they can to advocate for the wishes of their clients or constituents. The constituents who elect public servants do not make their decisions lightly (perhaps the economy of a certain district would benefit from more liberalized industrial emission regulations). It doesn’t matter if the public servants believe what they say, they know they have to advocate these policies to best serve their constituents.

The question is who they view as their constituents. Often it's not the voters but only a very small subset. In modern Washington politics they will also put the priorities of their party above the voters.

Public servants (in the USA, regardless of party) who do not have the support of a majority their (voting) constituents seldom keep their jobs past the next election.

You still can misinform the majority of the constituents to stay in line with the interests of the small number of the people you really listen to. I would argue this is happening with health care, tax cuts and a lot of subsidies.

That's pretty much all politics, for the history of mankind.

Nothing new there.

On the one hand, I want strong air pollution control policies. Death or no, I don't like to see smog in this SLC valley.

On the other hand, I don't want an distorted views on evidence. We know what we know and if we aren't sure, we should say so. It's not good to misinterpret data no matter how righteous your goals are.

Particulate inhalation is currently one of the leading causes of death of women in third world countries (due to smoke from cooking).

Also, there was this thing called black lung disease the UK had a problem with during the industrial revolution...

There has been scientific consensus on this for centuries, if not millenia.

https://m.phys.org/news/2019-03-epa-ideas-scientists.html

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/363/6434/1398

Also tony cox has not only accepted funding for research from oil companies, but given his papers to them for proofreading and editing before publishing. He’s an oil industry shill.

Who's paying Cox? I can almost taste the tinge of corporate interest.

Isn’t the federal government paying him enough these days?

The problem with greedy people is that it is never enough - not even if they have more than enough to retire on, not even if it is more than they can spend. Cynically it is a feature and not a bug to the corrupt - otherwise they might start developing a conscience when they realize there isn't anything to meaningfully gain as returns diminished.

Everyone else is getting away with double dipping, he wants a piece of the pie too

Step 1: Be a shill for large corporate interests. Step 2: Be appointed to a powerful government oversight board and spew FUD intended limit oversight of large corporate interests. Step 3: (Profit) Return to industry after your stint in government to an even larger payday for services rendered.

Starting on page 9 of his 75-page bio [0], work for many firms and associations in many industries, including some that routinely produce particulate pollution such as e.g. American Petroleum Institute, National Mining Association, American Chemistry Council, Engine Manufacturers Association, Western States Petroleum Association, Philip Morris, Xcel Energy, Goodyear Tire, Exxon Biomedical Sciences, Mobil Oil, etc. is described. I know this guy has been working a long time, but he must have been really busy to get all this stuff done!

[0] http://cox-associates.com/index_htm_files/Coxbio.pdf

I find this a bit surprising.

Is anyone familiar with the literature on this, and able to point to a relevant review article?

Also, am I right in thinking that some of the diesel car emission concerns related to Nox, rather than particulate emissions?

They are raising FUD about the research. One of the guys has a PhD in medical psychology and appears to be a right wing nut. There is a nice quote in the article:

"It's kind of like the same issues that came up with tobacco denial of health effects or denial of climate change health effects," Frey says. "There's a very small community that have scientific credentials but are moving outside their area of expertise to try to raise doubt after doubt after doubt on issues where they really don't have the strongest competence."

A lot of the fake research recently uncovered at Duke University was related to studies of the effects of pollution, ozone, and particulates.

It is clear that they don't want to know the inconvenient truth. Even a pendantic spinned "technically gains from reducing soot are overestimated because other unrelated causes would kill most before the other problems would even develop".

It would be far more promising and interesting if say throughly trained athleted or the right rare gene combinations could autorepair lungs without medical intervention to ensure no lasting damage or significant cancer risk. Humans have lived in deserts for millenia so that would be a niche adaptive trait too even if not reproductively overwhelmingly relevant. Of course that would imvolve actual science.

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