HO HUM! MORE JUNK SCIENCE

This time about damaged babies

Pregnant women who live in areas with high levels of air pollution may give birth to slightly smaller babies, according to U.S. government researchers. A new study of more than 18,000 full-term infants born in California in 2000 found that a mother's exposure to fine-particle air pollution seemed to make a difference in her baby's birth weight and the infant's risk of being below average in size. Fine particulate matter, called PM2.5 by scientists, is composed of microscopic substances such as acids, metals and organic chemicals, and can be seen in the form of a hazy sky. It is given off by the burning of fuels from sources such as cars, power plants and some industrial processes.

In the study, babies born to women who lived in areas with the highest levels of PM2.5 were 26 percent more likely to be small for their gestational age compared with infants born to women from low-pollution areas. The absolute difference between these groups of infants was modest. Among women with the least exposure to fine-particle pollution, 8.5 percent had a baby who was small for gestational age. That compares with 9.2 percent of women with the highest pollution exposure. Similarly, the difference between the groups as far as average birth weight was slight, noted the study's lead author, Dr. Jennifer D. Parker of the National Center for Health Statistics in Hyattsville, Maryland. "But the results are consistent with other research," she said in an interview with Reuters Health. Therefore, the "body of evidence" points to an effect of air pollution on birth weight, according to Parker.

She and her colleagues report their study findings in the January issue of the journal Pediatrics. According to Parker and her colleagues, PM2.5 levels may influence birth weight either indirectly through effects on the mother's health or by directly affecting fetal development. The exact reason for the link between fine-particle pollution and birth weight is not yet clear, however, Parker said. For their study, she and her colleagues analyzed data from air pollution monitoring stations in California and looked at birth records for 18,247 full-term infants whose mothers lived within five miles of a monitoring station during pregnancy.

The women were split into four groups based on their exposure to fine particulate matter and to carbon monoxide. Average birth weight was lowest in the group with the highest exposure to particulate matter, though the difference between this group and the group with the highest average birth weight amounted to 42 grams, or less than two ounces. A limitation of breaking exposures into four broad groups like this is that it cannot determine anything about "extreme" exposures, Parker noted. It's unclear, she said, whether air pollution might have a greater impact on birth weight when a woman works amid car exhaust at a highway toll plaza, for example.

OK. It is not at all clear from the above that any of the results are more than random but let's presume that there is a real effect there. Why might it be? Might it be because poorer people live in more polluted areas because such areas are cheaper? Might it be that poor people in general have lower birthweight babies because of poorer nutrition or other reasons? Brain-size is correlated with IQ (smaller brains mean lower IQ) so work out a few more possible connections from that for yourself. For example: Might clever people be generally richer and not live in such undesirable areas? Might that mean that the poor people in such areas are overall a bit dumber? Might that mean that they have babies with smaller brains? Wouldn't smaller brains tend to mean lower birthweight? You can be sure that such politically incorrect hypotheses were not examined above

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GLOBAL COOLING IN NEW ZEALAND

If one-off events in places like Antarctica are proof of global warming, why are not opposite one-off events elsewhere proof of global cooling?

Yes, it was a shocker. Snow, frost, hail and a tornado marked the first month of summer, with the coldest temperatures recorded in December since 1945. National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research figures for last month show it was the fifth coldest since records were established in 1853. The national average temperature was just 13.4C - 2.2C below normal and more like spring than summer. The record-breaking low temperatures not only kept the summer clothes in the cupboard but slowed the growth and ripening of berries, stone fruit and crops. Southerlies produced dramatic amounts of rain, with more than double normal rainfall in eastern regions from Hawkes Bay to Southland. Rainfall was also well above average in Auckland, Coromandel, Waikato, Ruapehu and Wanganui.

Despite that, less than three-quarters of average rainfall was recorded in sheltered parts of Fiordland and south Westland. And if you thought there was a dire shortage of sun, there was. Auckland recorded only 174 hours of sunshine - 83 per cent of the normal figure and the third lowest since records began in 1963. Of the four main centres, Wellington was the sunniest and Christchurch the driest.

Niwa principal climate scientist Dr Jim Salinger said the above-average number of lows centred south of the Chatham Islands produced the strongest south-to-southwest airflow over New Zealand on record. But don't despair. Things are going to improve, apparently. Dr Salinger said northern New Zealand could expect more westerly winds, more settled weather and warmer temperatures late this month and next. The large number of lows was unlikely to repeat itself in January. "Last holiday period, Christmas and New Year were perfect. This year it has been the opposite," Dr Salinger said. "Each season plays itself out differently than the previous year. My expectation is that January will improve."

Coldest December since 1945. Lowest temperature of minus 3.7C recorded in Southland on the 20th. Frost in inland areas of the North Island and the South Island. Gale force southerlies brought hail to Auckland, Port Waikato, Hawkes Bay, Tasman and Canterbury. Snow in the South Island to 600m and light snow on the Desert Road in the Central North Island. Eastern regions from Hawkes Bay to Southland had more than double their normal rainfall.

Source

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

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