2017 American Political Scene

[zraver]

This has nothing to do with healthcare, I had mentioned this was about climate change



http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-w...climate-change

Wait, so a warmer, wetter, and greening world is going to cause the loss of a 1/4 of the south's gdp?

[antimony]

Wait, so a warmer, wetter, and greening world is going to cause the loss of a 1/4 of the south's gdp?

It won't. It is a Chinese hoax. Don't worry about it. Do away with all environmental regulations instead.

[DOR]

Wait, so a warmer, wetter, and greening world is going to cause the loss of a 1/4 of the south's gdp?

Warmer weather encourages malaria, and allows some viruses to thrive.

[astralis]

also more weather events like typhoons/storms/hurricanes.

colder places like Canada may benefit, but places like Mississippi or South Carolina, not so much.

[tbm3fan]

If they did it while understanding the consequences, then they deserve it. If they did it without understanding, then they deserve it even more. Whoever does not want Trumpcare should be frantically following up with their legislators asking for keeping Obamacare or going single payer.

While Trump got just 48% of all votes cast by the public that number is not all hard core supporters. Exit interviews showed some simply taking a chance, period. While others being Republican, and when their health care was pointed out (Republican state) they actually hoped he would leave it alone. Nonetheless, I'm sure some Senators will be coming back from those Republican states that will be hard hit and will talk a new tune. When 50% of all children are on Medicaid who wants to tell little 3 year old Melissa that her replacement heart valve costs too much for the new budget.

Understanding can be many things and not everyone is equal especially when issues are cloaked intentionally to confuse.

[tbm3fan]

On the plus side real competition might drive costs down and increase access.

You have absolutely no idea do you? Health care doesn't work that way and never has responded to basic economics. Competition is a term that has no meaning. Just looking at the pharmaceutical industry where innovation drives drug prices higher including old drugs that have been paid off for one example.

[zraver]

You have absolutely no idea do you? Health care doesn't work that way and never has responded to basic economics. Competition is a term that has no meaning. Just looking at the pharmaceutical industry where innovation drives drug prices higher including old drugs that have been paid off for one example.

So a drug company pushes to have specific laws passed that advantage it over competitors and this makes you think competition wont work.... The US allows drug companies to change just a single molecule that has zero effect but it does extend patents preventing the arrival generic competitors and this makes you think competition doesn't work. The US health care industry is one of the most heavily regulated sectors of society, there is no free market at play.

Asty, according to the AGW crowd the planets been warming but we are in the middle of a historic land fall hurricane drought.

DOR, The US did a bang up job of eradicating mosquito diseases once before, bring DDT back. It doesn't hurt the environment.

[snapper]

You have absolutely no idea do you? Health care doesn't work that way and never has responded to basic economics. Competition is a term that has no meaning. Just looking at the pharmaceutical industry where innovation drives drug prices higher including old drugs that have been paid off for one example.

How can competition drive up prices?

[DOR]

So a drug company pushes to have specific laws passed that advantage it over competitors and this makes you think competition wont work.... The US allows drug companies to change just a single molecule that has zero effect but it does extend patents preventing the arrival generic competitors and this makes you think competition doesn't work. The US health care industry is one of the most heavily regulated sectors of society, there is no free market at play.

Asty, according to the AGW crowd the planets been warming but we are in the middle of a historic land fall hurricane drought.

DOR, The US did a bang up job of eradicating mosquito diseases once before, bring DDT back. It doesn't hurt the environment.

Do the words “toxic, dangerous to the environment, likely carcinogenic” have any meaning to you? Ever heard of a book called, Silent Spring?
(Hint: it was key to kicking off something that today we celebrate as the environmental movement.)

After you’ve read that book, consider that mosquito immunity to DDT had made it pretty ineffective by the 1970s. The industry had to turn to tobacco economists like Roger Bate to find anyone who was willing to say using DDT was better than not using it.

[GVChamp]

ROFLMAO:

They found that if warming continues at recent rates, it could shave 3 to 6 percentage points off of the country's gross domestic product by century's end — the warmer it gets, the bigger the hit to the economy.

So our ancestors 75 years from now MIGHT have missed a year of growth. In comparison, think about Americans in 1942 essentially saying they have to drop everything, raise taxes massively, cut carbon emissions by 80%, not develop air conditioning, and give up this whole car thing, because we all might have 2016 income levels instead of 2017 income levels.

There's only ONE reasonable conclusion from that article, and it's "Drill, Baby, Drill."

The article even points this out:

Even if it's accurate, a climate change cost of 6 percentage points or even more in the national GDP will be dwarfed by an economy that will grow many times over by 2100.

PS, part of that economic hit to Florida, is....people moving out of Florida, not Florida becoming dramatically poor.


Climate change is a lot of heartburn over very little effect for advanced nations. There are some tail risks that are nightmare scenarios. For the most part, it means we'll have somewhat more drought, somewhat more pollution deaths than we would otherwise, and more water stress. Big whoop.

The big problems are for undeveloped states in Africa and South Asia. Particularly since both regions are expected to grow massively. Maybe EU should drop its anti-GMO stance and we can get some more drought resistant crops?

[DOR]

Federal court blocks Trump EPA on air pollution
The Washington Post, July 3, 2017, by Juliet Eilperin and Steven Mufson

An appeals court Monday struck down the Environmental Protection Agency’s 90-day suspension of new emission standards on oil and gas wells, a decision that could set back the Trump administration’s broad legal strategy for rolling back Obama-era rules.

In a 2-to-1 ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit concluded that the EPA had the right to reconsider a 2016 rule limiting methane and smog-forming pollutants emitted by oil and gas wells but could not delay the effective date while it sought to rewrite the regulation.

The agency has proposed extending the initial delay to two years; the court will hold a hearing on that suspension separately.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...=.4b197b981d27

[antimony]

While Trump got just 48% of all votes cast by the public that number is not all hard core supporters. Exit interviews showed some simply taking a chance, period. While others being Republican, and when their health care was pointed out (Republican state) they actually hoped he would leave it alone. Nonetheless, I'm sure some Senators will be coming back from those Republican states that will be hard hit and will talk a new tune. When 50% of all children are on Medicaid who wants to tell little 3 year old Melissa that her replacement heart valve costs too much for the new budget.

Understanding can be many things and not everyone is equal especially when issues are cloaked intentionally to confuse.

So "Hope and Change" is now "Hope and Chance"? If the electorate is going to treat Presidential Elections like a fucking joke then they deserve everything catastrophe coming out of it. Little Melissa's parents can rejoice in the fact that they now have "choice" and "access" to Healthcare, or they can start going after the Senate and House assholes who are doing this to them.

[snapper]

I think it's pretty clear that some sort of 'global warming' is happening; whether it is humanity's fault or not is debatable... and I do not know. If we can switch to 'renewable energy' great because long term it is cheaper! Consider if you put a geothermic heating system in your house... no more heating bills.... ever. Sure you might want to light a log fire in winter for the 'atmospherics' and cooking on gas is preferable in my view to electricity but it would not be necessary to keep warm etc...

[zraver]

Do the words “toxic, dangerous to the environment, likely carcinogenic” have any meaning to you? Ever heard of a book called, Silent Spring?
(Hint: it was key to kicking off something that today we celebrate as the environmental movement.)

After you’ve read that book, consider that mosquito immunity to DDT had made it pretty ineffective by the 1970s. The industry had to turn to tobacco economists like Roger Bate to find anyone who was willing to say using DDT was better than not using it.

Did you hear the "ting" when the trap was sprung?

Is DDT toxic, anything is toxic at high enough levels but DDT is less toxic than many OTC's and caffeine. There are zero poisoning deaths attributed to DDT. http://www.acsh.org/news/2016/02/11/...isonous-is-ddt

Is DDT a carcinogen? NO, no equivocation here at all, DDT does not cause cancer. World Health Organization, DDT in Indoor Residual Spraying: Human Health Aspects (Geneva: WHO, 2011), 71

Silent Spring was a best seller, as science it is junk.

Does DDT affect ocean photosynthesis? NO, the study that showed it did required 500ppb and a saltwater alchohol solution to reach that level of contamination. At its height DDT in the ocean was 1.2ppb DDT can be dissolved in seawater at concentrations higher than 1.2 ppb if the water contains other components, and of course DDT that is not dissolved can still be carried in suspension. But even so, Wurster was unable to find any examples in nature of water with DDT levels at 500 ppb, even though he took samples from locations that had very recently been treated with DDT, and the highest concentrations he found were short-lived and very localized — hardly sufficient to pose a serious threat to the world’s oceans. Wurster, “DDT Reduces Photosynthesis by Marine Phytoplankton,” 1475.

DDT does cause egg shell thinning, but mosquito control is far different from mass spraying on everything. Even with mass spraying most bird species benefited from the reduced parasitical disease vectors. Birds counts taken before DDT and after at the time Silent Spring was written showed an increase in bird populations. ATSDR, “Toxicological Profile for DDT, DDE, and DDD,” 134, D24–D26. /National Audubon Society, 1942, The 42nd Christmas Bird Count, Audubon Magazine; National Audubon Society, 1961, The 61st Christmas Bird Count, Audubon Field Notes 15, no. 2. The Audubon Society keeps its data freely available online at http://birds.audubon.org/historical-results.

It is not a stretch to say DDT has saved more lives than all antibiotics combined. It may well be the single most beneficial non-fuel chemical ever created.

Mosquito resistant to DDT, yup, but these populations emerged after decades of mass spraying (DDT is still used around the world). There is no reason to think that spot sprays to control out breaks where these populations do not exist would be ineffective. In addition even resistent populations still suffer a 50% repellant rate so its value is not zero. http://www.mosquitoreviews.com/DDT-r...osquitoes.html

[JAD_333]

Silent Spring was a best seller, as science it is junk.

And what's amazing is that it continues to be accepted as gospel by environmental groups. You cannot reason with most of these people. During the HMO debate, I could not get one of them to show me scientific proof that HMOs caused cancer and/or genetic damage to humans, and most of the people making the argument couldn't pass grade school science.

Interestingly, the EPA itself did a study of DDT in 1971 and found claims that it was a carcinogen were false. The National Science Foundation (NSF) had come to the same conclusion earlier.

Responding to their pressure, in 1971 the newly-formed Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) launched an investigation of the pesticide. Lasting seven months, the investigative hearings led by Judge Edmund Sweeney gathered testimony from 125 expert witnesses with 365 exhibits. The conclusion of the inquest, however, was exactly the opposite of what the environmentalists had hoped for. After assessing all the evidence, Judge Sweeney found: “The uses of DDT under the registration involved here do not have a deleterious effect on freshwater fish, estuarine organisms, wild birds, or other wildlife.... DDT is not a carcinogenic hazard to man.... DDT is not a mutagenic or teratogenic hazard to man.”[20]

Accordingly, Judge Sweeney ruled that DDT should remain available for use.

Unfortunately, however, the administrator of the EPA was William D. Ruckelshaus, who reportedly did not attend a single hour of the investigative hearings, and according to his chief of staff, did not even read Judge Sweeney’s report.[21]

Instead, he apparently chose to ignore the science: overruling Sweeney, in 1972 Ruckelshaus banned the use of DDT in the United States except under conditions of medical emergencies.[22]

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/public...-silent-spring

A case of politics winning out over science.