Tuesday, May 5, 2015

Surprise

Much like many issues on the left, they are willing to basically invent the science in order to push their pet schemes on us.

Here's the money quote (emphasis mine):



part of its justification for the rule was based on the effect that mercury would have on children born to an entirely hypothetical population: 240,000 women of child-bearing age who consume 300 pounds of freshwater fish that they or their families have personally caught each year. ....     the EPA never actually identified a member of this population -- it merely assumed that such women existed.

To determine the harm that mercury would have upon these children, the EPA utilized a computer model which predicted that the mercury would lower the I.Q. of the children by a miniscule 0.00209 points. On top of that, says Michaels, the EPA claims the loss of 0.00209 I.Q. points will cost those children up to $6,000,000 a year due to reduced earnings.

So let's see. 
  1. A woman who consumes 300 pounds of personally caught freshwater fish a year, that's about a pound a day
  2. a loss in IQ of 0.00209, so that's 0.0000209% of their current IQ
  3. a loss of $6,000,000 a year in reduced earnings
And you wonder why I am skeptical about government regulation of the environment.  I may not be 100% sure of what private conservation efforts would look like in a libertarian society, but they sure as hell would be better than this.


http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=25363&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DPD


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