Gregg Easterbrook likes to confuse you:

Gregg Easterbrook penned an OpEd that ran in the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday. The thrust of the piece was that Bush isn't so bad on the environment. Let's analyze the essay:

Category			Our comment
General		Michael Leavitt has been nominated for EPA administrator.
Data that has absolutely nothing to do with Bush	1.	Air polution is down 48% since 1970.
	2.	Acid rain is down 41% since 1980.
	3.	Nitrogen oxide emissions are down 33% since 1990.
	4.	Emissions from aging power plants are down 40% since 1980.
	5.	All forms of water pollution have been declining for decades.
	6.	The number of lakes and rivers that are safe for fishing and swimming have doubled since 1970.
	7.	Toxic emissions from industry have declined 50% since the mid-1980s.
	8.	The forested acreage of the United States has been expanding, not contracting, for more than a decade.
	9.	No U.S. animal species has fallen extinct since full implementation of the Endangered Species Act in the late 1970s.
	10.	All environmental trends have been positive for years or decades.
	11.	Twenty years ago, from 1979 to summer 1983, Los Angeles had 467 Stage One alerts, from 1999 through this summer, Los Angeles recorded just one Stage One ozone alert.
Criticism of Bush	1.	Senators Lieberman and Jeffords.
	2.	There are critics of Bush's "new source rule" for aging power plants.
	3.	There are critics of Bush's new forest policy.
	4.	The New York Times.on the "new source rule".
	5.	The Los Angeles Times spins most environmental news negatively.
Criticism of Bush (by Easterbrook)	1.	Bush has failed to address global warming and SUV fuel economy.
Lukewarm support of Bush	1.	Bush's new forest policy leaves most important decisions to local managers from the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. Though they may abuse their new discretion, it's also possible they will use it wisely.	Hardly a ringing endorsement.
	2.	Bush's forest policy is hard to project — but regardless, something had to be done to reduce the wildfires plaguing the West.	Something? Anything? That's a defense without any reference to wisdom of the policy.
Bush has no choice	1.	Bush made it easier to drill for oil and gas on public lands because the public is unwilling to make a commitment to energy conservation.	Debatable.
Support of Bush	1.	All forms of air pollution except greenhouse gases declined under Bill Clinton and continue to decline under George W. Bush.	We believe that pollution has gone up (a bit) in places like Southern California - largely due to the increase in SUVs.
	2.	The forested acreage of the United States has been expanding continues to expand under Bush.
	3.	He ordered that diesel fuel be reformulated to reduce its inherent pollution content.
	4.	He ordered that new diesel trucks and buses meet significantly stricter emissions standards.
	5.	He imposed new emissions standards on a range of previously unregulated machines.
Easterbrook on the critics	1.	The Bush environmental record has been relentlessly distorted.	No evidence presented in essay.
	2.	Democrats are bashing the president for political reasons.
	3.	Environmental lobbies are exaggerating the case against Bush.	No evidence presented in essay.
	4.	Democrats and environmentalists only serve to discourage the president from proposing higher vehicle mileage standards or meaningful global warming rules.	That is highly debatable.

The reader is presented with eleven items that have nothing to do with Bush's environmental policies. It's 20% of the essay [Total words: 1015, Nothing to do with Bush: 214]. Easterbrook is a journalistic disgrace.

posted by Quiddity at 10/16/2003 08:56:00 AM