A new American Lung Association (ALA) television ad supports the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposed new rule requiring a 30% reduction in CO2 emissions from power plants by 2030, pushing the lie that CO2 emissions are harmful to human health.
The ALA ad, entitled “a mother’s instinct,” shows a child’s toy, a baby monitor, and a sleeping baby, then cuts to a shot of a power plant and states, “The Clean Air Act stops polluters from poisoning his air with arsenic, lead, and mercury. Now the loophole that lets them pump unlimited carbon pollution into his air is closing too…”
For such a short ad (31 seconds), the ALA managed to pack it with lies and misinformation.
First, the ad mentions a “loophole that lets them pump unlimited carbon pollution,” leading one to believe that there are previous regulations on CO2.
The ALA ad mentions “carbon pollution.” This, of course, is referring to CO2 (carbon dioxide), not plain carbon.
Carbon is an element and, in the form of grit and smog, really is pollution. But in developed countries its levels have fallen tremendously in the past 40 years and are now so safe that the costs of reducing them further outweigh the benefits. Carbon dioxide is a compound of carbon and oxygen and not only is non-toxic to humans and other animals but also is essential to life! In fact, humans and other animals exhale it, and plants “inhale” it.
As the Capitol Research Center’s Maria Gerard reports in her August 7 article, “at any given time there is a greater concentration of carbon dioxide in someone’s lungs (12,500 per parts million) than is found in the air surrounding him (400 ppm).”
That point bears expanding: CO2 concentration in a person’s lungs is over thirty times higher than in the surrounding air.
No matter the reductions in CO2, there will be no improvement in air quality. None! Zero! Zilch! Nada!
The ALA has been coopted by the EPA, spouting the rhetoric as effectively (or more so) than the EPA.
Why?
$20 million. That’s the amount of taxpayer money paid by the Environmental Protection Agency to essentially buy the American Lung Association.
As Gerard points out in her article, “James Bennet of George Mason University writes in Pandering for Profit: The Transformation of Health Charities to Lobbyists that ‘the ALA has responded by using every possible means to advance the agency’s (EPA) regulatory authority by advocating tougher air quality standards.’”
The ALA even participated in a joint conference call press conference supporting the Clean Air Act CO2 proposal with President Obama and Gina McCarthy (EPA Administrator).
This type of behavior, by both the ALA and the EPA, is unethical. They are intentionally misleading the public, and it needs to stop.
For more from the Cornwall Alliance on the EPA’s proposed CO2 rule click here, here, and here.
Featured Image Courtesy of Detanan/freedigitalphotos.net
