By Norman E. Kjono

From an August 29, 2003 Los Angeles Times story:  "The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) yesterday said it would not force automakers, oil companies or others to reduce "greenhouse-gas" emissions from motor vehicles, a decision that might complicate efforts by states to limit the release of carbon dioxide.  The EPA denied a 1999 petition from environmental groups, which had asked the agency to use its powers under the Clean Air Act to regulate carbon dioxide and other gas emissions from new vehicles. Instead, the agency concluded that carbon dioxide, hydrofluorocarbons and other emissions did not meet the legal definition of "air pollutants" under the Clean Air Act."

The EPA refuses to classify emissions from burning hydrocarbons in automobiles and busses as air pollutants. Of course, the fact that hydrocarbons come from burning oil rather than tobacco wouldn't have anything whatsoever to do with that EPA conclusion . . . Considering that the Bush administration cabinet and its senior officials could serve simultaneously as the board of directors of oil and utility corporations, there may be a strong message indeed in the EPA's present conclusion about air pollution. The message appears to be that in today's political culture legitimate science bends to the will of vested economic interests. But we've know that for years now, at least since the December 1992 EPA report on secondhand smoke. So the current EPA ruling is more of a confirmation of the obvious than a new or honest scientific work product.

Well, that's interesting. I suspect that secondhand smoke can no longer be classified as an air pollutant, either!

Notably the EPA refuses to classify carbon dioxide as a pollutant, and also refuses to classify many other emissions from burning hydrocarbons as pollutants, too. Many of the constituents of secondhand smoke are also emissions from hydrocarbons and automobile exhaust. Hydrocarbon exhaust from cars and buses also contains many toxic substances that secondhand smoke does not. 

We should take the EPA at its word, and rely on its science. Every constituent of diesel and gasoline combustion that is also found in tobacco smoke must now be eliminated as an air pollutant. An air quality constituent that is not a pollutant in one form of emission cannot be a pollutant merely because it is emitted from a different source. In short, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide cannot be benign when emitted as part of diesel exhaust, but dangerous when emitted with tobacco smoke. By eliminating those constituents of tobacco smoke that the EPA now decrees to be non-polluting, we will eliminate secondhand smoke as even an alleged health hazard. It must be true, after all the EPA says so in its own rule making and based on its own scientific standards.

"Aha!" the crafty antis proclaim. "But diesel exhaust doesn't have nicotine, so ETS is still a health hazard and a known human carcinogen!"

The answer to that one is straightforward: the EPA did not conclude that nicotine was a carcinogen in its December 1992 report on secondhand smoke, it irresponsibly and unscientifically concluded that secondhand smoke was a "known human carcinogen." Given that now, according the the same EPA's identical scientific standards, many -- perhaps most -- secondhand smoke constituents can no longer be regarded as air pollutants, perhaps it is well past time for the EPA to revisit its own report on secondhand smoke. 

Such is not likely to occur. The core values of the anti mentality are to twist statistics and to manipulate science to acquire for themselves what they could not otherwise get through honest, legitimate, or even lawful means. The rush for the antis comes from their "above the law" ability to engage in manipulation and deceit, to "get away" with what could not be done by honest means, because their cause is "justified." 

So we the people will be sucking down "non-polluting" diesel exhaust for decades to come, while antis proclaim a world wide mandate to eliminate tobacco smoke in the name of public health. And many of our less perceptive personal-preference-mandate-driven fellow citizens will simultaneously gulp down vast quantities of carcinogenic diesel bus exhaust while running in blind panic away from secondhand smoke. 

Which is actually a good thing: over time those who are so driven by their personal preference that they cannot comprehend simple logic and sound science about air quality constituents will eliminate themselves. This merely demonstrates that our world is presently occupied by antis and normal people. However, the behavior of the antis and their supporters also proves that there is cosmic justice: those who choose to believe the EPA and rely on its science set themselves up for self-elimination through self-deception; those who reject the anti mentality and its participants or supporters have sense enough to protect their own interests and therefore survive. In due course, the cosmos will consequently be populated by and large with those who avoid delinquient self-deception in pursuit of personal ego and economic gratification. 

Perhaps many will stridently object to the above characterizations regarding the anti mentality. We feel for those who object, but somehow just can't quite rach them: antis also promote and their supporters also proclaim an equally inane and unfounded "scientific conclusion:" nicotine in tobacco is a deadly and addictive carcinogen, but that same nicotine with the same pharmacological properties is "safe and effective medicine" in pharmaceutical gums, patches, lozenges, and inhalers. 

With so many antis and their supporters successfully selling the "deadly but safe" contradiction about nicotine, we should not be surprised that the same bunch of delinquents and their self-serving supporters now choose to pump a similar "nonpolluting pollutants" contradictory bucket of swill about hydrocarbons. But why shouldn't they? After all, it worked with nicotine, why not pull one over with hydrocarbons as well? 

It is not surprising that activists, politicians and bureaucrats will manipulate science to get what they want, we have let them get away with that for years. What is surprising is that we let them get away with it again, now that the pattern of manipulation and deceit is so blatantly clear.