Aknauta
01-16-2003, 01:04 AM
action.org
January 15, 2003
Energy Abundance—Bane or Boon to Human Health?
by Tom Randall
Recently, on a Chicago public television talk show, a young woman confronted me for my opinion that energy should be cheap and plentiful.
She insisted that air pollution from the burning of fossil fuels was killing more and more Americans each year. To remedy this, higher taxes she recommended that higher taxes be levied on these forms of energy to restrict its use. Her rebuttal to me, “What does extra cost mean when lives are at stake?”
Of course, she was referring to studies “showing” the thousands of “premature” deaths caused by the fine particulate and other pollutants produced by the burning of fossil fuels and the resulting need to produce cleaner electricity, regardless of cost. There have been many of these studies and they always leave one question unanswered:
Those who think cheap, abundant energy is unhealthy should give the matter another thought (http://www.acton.org/ppolicy/comment/article.php?id=121)
January 15, 2003
Energy Abundance—Bane or Boon to Human Health?
by Tom Randall
Recently, on a Chicago public television talk show, a young woman confronted me for my opinion that energy should be cheap and plentiful.
She insisted that air pollution from the burning of fossil fuels was killing more and more Americans each year. To remedy this, higher taxes she recommended that higher taxes be levied on these forms of energy to restrict its use. Her rebuttal to me, “What does extra cost mean when lives are at stake?”
Of course, she was referring to studies “showing” the thousands of “premature” deaths caused by the fine particulate and other pollutants produced by the burning of fossil fuels and the resulting need to produce cleaner electricity, regardless of cost. There have been many of these studies and they always leave one question unanswered:
Those who think cheap, abundant energy is unhealthy should give the matter another thought (http://www.acton.org/ppolicy/comment/article.php?id=121)