When it comes to environmental topics, the biggest failing of the lazy, old media is not what they tell you, but what they leave unsaid. Yesterday’s release of the American Lung Association’s State of the Air 2010 report provides textbook examples of how mainstream journalists can’t, or won’t, take the time to do their jobs. Most MSM stories covering the ALA report read like slightly modified versions of an ALA press release, which, one suspects, was probably the case. Consider this talking point that the ALA kindly provided:

The report finds that unhealthy air posed a threat to the lives and health of more than 175 million people—roughly 58 percent of the population.

Forbes’ Tim Kiladze dutifully regurgitated this misleading talking point back to readers:

The ALA found that over 175 million Americans, or 58% of the population, live in counties with unhealthy levels of either ozone or particle pollution.

air_pollution

That sounds pretty authoritative, doesn’t it? Downright scary too. Fifty-eight per cent of the population is at risk? But, having been trained in the sciences rather than journalism, when I read something like that, I can’t help but wonder: why aren’t people dropping in the streets if things are so bad? Or, put another way, what does a subjective term like “unhealthy air” actually mean?

Predictably, CNN added its voice to the chorus of doom, saying:

Despite some gains, more than half of the United States’ population lives in cities where pollution levels make the air unhealthy to breathe, an annual report says.

There’s that troubling word again: “unhealthy.” With a little bit of research, one can find the ALA’s State of the Air 2008 report pretty easily. A nice point of comparison, no? According the 2008 report:

Two of every five people—42 percent—in the U.S. live in counties that  have unhealthful levels of either ozone or particle pollution.

Ergo, according to ALA, the number of Americans breathing unhealthy air increased by sixteen per cent over a two year period, from 42% to 58%. This suggests two things: a) air pollution emissions over that two year period must have increased, and b) the concentrations of air pollutants in the atmosphere must have gone up as well. The only problem is that neither of those things actually happened.

During the two year period covered in the two ALA reports, air pollution emissions decreased and the concentrations of air pollutants in the atmosphere dropped as well. Specifically, if we look at the two air pollutants that ALA specifically calls out, nationwide ozone (aka: smog) concentrations dropped by over five per cent in those two years and fine particulate concentrations were reduced by almost eight per cent, according to USEPA data.

Having done this research (which took me all of fifteen minutes) I wonder why an enterprising reporter might not smell a rat in the ALA’s claim that the number of Americans breathing “unhealthy air” increased by almost 50 million people over a two year period, when the amount of actual pollution in the air decreased substantially in the same time frame? The answer leads us back to that troubling word: “unhealthy.”

clean air

For ALA, other environmental groups and their cheerleaders in the MSM, what denotes “healthy” involves a constantly moving and conveniently ever-shrinking target. Whenever we are close to meeting a particular goal, the Agency creates a new, more stringent standard. This is known within the environmental industry as “job security.” The air didn’t get any dirtier over the two years covered by the ALA reports. It was rather the definition of dirty – excuse me, “unhealthy” – that changed; USEPA created tighter air quality goals once again. ALA, the Sierra Club and the other environmentalist groups understand this is how the game is played of course, but they’re hardly going to point such uncomfortable facts out to MSM journalists who swallow whole everything they have to say.

If we compared the air today to the standards that EPA said defined “healthy air” in 2005 (or in 1996, depending on your take with regard to a complex – and ultimately pointless – regulatory fine point) nobody in America would, by that definition, be breathing “unhealthy air” today, not one single, solitary soul. On the other hand, if USEPA Administrator Lisa Jackson gets her way and the EPA cranks down even further to create an insane, new and virtually unachievable definition of what makes “clean air,” practically everybody in the United States will be breathing “unhealthy air” very soon.  When that happens, the air won’t have changed a bit – history tells us it will only continue to get cleaner – but ALA and their allies will have been handed an invaluable marketing tool with which to sell their tales of gloom, and the lazy old media will happily play their part by refusing to question any bit of the prevailing narrative.

When people criticize my contrarian stance on air pollution, because they just know that air pollution is a bigger problem than ever, I like to point them to the following graph. It shows air pollution trends over the last thirty eight years and it clearly demonstrates that America has been spectacularly successful in reducing air pollution while accommodating both economic growth and increased travel. It’s not something an industry group came up with. This graph comes from the USEPA itself:

comparison

Ah, but it’s always that way when it comes to the environment. The old media can’t be bothered to investigate ecological issues if doing so involves anything more than reading the self-serving press releases generated by environmental groups. Some people wonder why there is such a backlash when it comes to MSM coverage of the “global warming” debate. For those of us who have been paying attention to environmental issues of any kind over the years, the only wonder is that somebody would lend any credence to the old media’s take at all.