[Editor Note: This is the second of three posts on the human harm from pseudo-science. Part I yesterday introduced the history of scientific fraud as a precursor to the much more sophisticated misdirection of today. Part III tomorrow will consider climate-change controversies.]

Air Pollution – PM2.5

EPA exonerated glyphosate – and did so during the Obama era. That alone should be dispositive on the chemical’s dangers because, especially during the Obama years, EPA was the most dogmatic US government agency with regard to blaming industry for imagined, exaggerated or fabricated risks.

A prime example is PM2.5: particulate matter smaller than 2.5 microns – soot that’s a fourth the diameter of pollen. President Obama had promised that his EPA would shut down coal-fired power plants and bankrupt the industry. PM2.5 was their weapon of choice.…

“The wind industry has denied and ignored evidence directly linking wind turbines and sleep disruption leading to negative human and animal impacts worldwide. Expect WHO’s new Guidelines to give rise to new standards to mitigate if not eliminate this ongoing suffering.”

“The burden of environmental noise with wind turbines is not episodic or random: for the most part its effects are constant and unrelenting…. This is an undeniable health pressure of enormous magnitude.”

Abstract: While only “conditional,” acknowledgement is given to pulsation (impulsive amplitude modification, as Steven Cooper calls it) and ILFN (Infra and Low Frequency Noise), the new World Health Organization report underscores the failure of current regulations of dB to manage health impacts from industrial wind installations worldwide.

The other irrefutable conclusion is that the wind industry has been given a regulatory path to profits with an unfathomable license to hurt in the form of sleep deprivation (and associated disease) for a very long time. …

“A carbon tax is not a fundamentally un-libertarian idea. Jonathan H. Adler, a professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law … has argued for the use of carbon taxes as part of a market-based approach to tackling climate change.”

– Eric Boehm, “The Republican Carbon Tax Bill Would Create Power Commission with Access to All Government Data.” Reason, July 24, 2018.

It was titled “A Conservative’s Approach to Combating Climate Change.” Published in The Atlantic (May 30, 2012), its author did an about face on his prior beliefs on climate alarm and the role of government policy (see his “‘Greenhouse Policy without Regrets'”).

The 1,800-word new view of Jonathan Adler did not so much refute as bypass his prior views on the nature of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and government energy policy.…

“Solar may be the way to go for millions of poor people around the world, at least for starter off-grid energy. I rely on solar power for my nifty water fountain and fun outdoor Christmas tree lights. But I don’t try to power my refrigerator, hot water heater, washing machine, or other household appliances with solar.”

For prosperity and human flourishing, how much energy is enough? American settlers survived and over time prospered burning wood for cooking and heat. Later energy innovations brought higher-density energy from the earth, with coal, oil, and natural gas providing industrial and household heat and electricity.

Across the developing world though, hundreds of millions still burn wood and dung for cooking and heat. Lack of clean energy killed some 124,000 in India in 2015, according to Lancet: Pollution Due To Burning Of Cow Dung & Wood As Fuel Killed 1.24 Lakh People In One Year  (IndiaTimes, updated June 4, 2018)

Indoor pollution, which is not often seen as potentially harmful, is actually fatal.