ANOTHER SET OF VARIATIONS ON A PERENNIAL GREENIE THEME

You will only have to read the first sentence of the latest "news" report below to know that you have heard that sort of thing many times before. The excerpt below is from The Washington Post but a similar one also appeared in The Guardian, of course. Why do they keep repeating the same old fairy-tales? I guess they just like the publicity that the Left-leaning media give them. And I guess there are always young readers who have NOT heard it all before. For the benefit of young readers therefore, let me point out that the same sort of claims were being made 30 years ago and the predictions of doom made then have all been just about the reverse of the truth -- since that time we have got greatly better off and have even more resources than we ever did before. How do I know such claims were already common 30 years ago? Because I wrote a book over 30 years ago that included extensive debunking of such claims. See the relevant chapters here and here and here and here and here. And if anybody does not know about the bet that Julian Simon had with Paul Ehrlich, the full story is here. And note that the latest "report" is put out by what is probably the world's most corrupt organization: The United Nations -- though The Guardian does not mention that for some strange reason

"Many of the world's ecosystems are in danger and might not support future generations unless radical measures are implemented to protect and revive them, according to the most comprehensive analysis ever conducted of how the world's oceans, dry lands, forests and species interact and depend on one another. The new report collates research from many specific locales to create the first global snapshot of ecosystems. More than 1,300 authors from 95 countries participated in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, whose results are being made public today by the United Nations and by several private and public organizations. "Only by understanding the environment and how it works, can we make the necessary decisions to protect it," said U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan in a statement marking the report's release. "Only by valuing all our precious natural and human resources, can we hope to build a sustainable future."

The effort brought together governments, civil society groups, industry and indigenous people over a four-year period to examine the social, economic and environmental aspects of ecosystems. The report was assembled by the U.N. Environment Program and included scientists from many universities and organizations, including the World Bank. Jonathan Lash, president of the nonprofit World Resources Institute, which helped put together the report, said it "created for the first time a set of leading ecosystem indicators."

Although food production is up, the report said, many other benefits that humans obtain from ecosystems are threatened, and some environmental changes can produce sudden, unexpected deteriorations in water quality, climate and health. "Human actions are depleting Earth's natural capital, putting such strain on the environment that the ability of the planet's ecosystems to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted," the authors said. The report cites widespread and growing problems such as the collapse of fisheries in some parts of the world because of over-exploitation, the creation of "dead zones" around the mouths of some rivers because of nitrogen runoff from farms, and environmental degradation in some dry-land ecosystems.......

Environmental advocates such as Nadia Martinez, a research fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, a nonprofit think tank, applauded the report's findings but said she is concerned that governments could implement its market-based recommendations while ignoring its caveats. For example, she said, imposing a cost on clean water would disproportionately affect the poor."




ASBESTOS HYSTERIA NAILED

It's only massive exposure to asbestos that has ever been shown to be harmful

El Dorado County's chief of environmental enforcement says federal officials will release unnecessarily alarming findings about baseball and other sports activity kicking up levels of naturally occurring asbestos on some local playgrounds. Among those alarmed by Jon Morgan's statements in a "special notice/press release" Tuesday were the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials who conducted the study of the El Dorado Hills playgrounds.

The EPA fired back a press release denouncing Morgan's press release. "The claims Jon Morgan makes in his press release are irresponsible, false, and display a lack of understanding of the complex nature of the challenges posed by asbestos," said Dan Meer, who supervised the EPA study. The battle of the press releases comes as the EPA and other agencies prepare to release studies assessing risks of asbestos exposure from everyday activities in foothill communities laced in places with the fibrous minerals. The EPA designed the air tests in October particularly to gauge the asbestos exposure of children at play.

Government contractors in protective jumpsuits with respirators and wearing air monitors played sports that could raise dust containing the invisible, cancer-causing fibers from native rock churned up by development. Sampling of the air and soil occurred on dirt baseball diamonds and the children's playground at the El Dorado Hills Community Center, and on sports fields at Jackson and Silva Valley elementary schools and Rolling Hills Middle School.

Morgan, who alternately has criticized and welcomed the EPA's help, said in his press release Tuesday that the soon-to-be-released test results "may unnecessarily scare the daylights out of every man, woman and child in El Dorado County. EPA lacks accountability, common sense and fails to communicate to the people of El Dorado County," Morgan said.

Meer said the results completed to date should "concern" residents but not "scare" them. Meer said EPA officials gave Morgan and other county officials a "sneak peek" at some of the preliminary test results earlier this month in preparation for their public release in late April, after the federal agency has received and validated all test results. Accurately interpreting and communicating the test results will be difficult, he said.

More here

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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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