Because he’s a serial liar:
President Barack Obama claimed that coal could create “the kinds of air pollution” that is “creating asthma for kids,” in speaking at a town hall event in Annandale, Va., on Tuesday. However, the National Institutes of Health says that “the exact cause of asthma isn’t known” and that “asthma is different for each person.”
“The challenge with coal is that although it’s very cheap, it’s also dirty”
— noted Obama. Which, wow. Same challenge as buying labor union votes, or getting GE and other corporate cronies to go along with the whole green sham as a way to launder ever more money for the Dems. Only without the “cheap” part!
Serendipity!
But I digress:
— “And it can create the kinds of air pollution that not only is contributing to climate change but is also creating asthma for kids nearby,” Obama said in answer to a question about balancing deficit reduction with government spending on clean energy.
“You got asthma? Okay. And so sucking that stuff in is not ideal,” said Obama. “So what we’ve said is, let’s invest in clean coal technology that potentially can capture some of these particulates and some of the carbon dioxide that’s going into the atmosphere.”
Asthma, however, is not caused by coal, or the emissions from coal-fired power plants, as the president suggested. According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) the true cause of asthma is unknown, although scientists believe it is caused by a confluence of genetic and environmental factors or early viral infections.
“The exact cause of asthma isn’t known. Researchers think some genetic and environmental factors interact to cause asthma, most often early in life,” the NIH states on its Web site.
“These factors include: An inherited tendency to develop allergies, called atopy (AT-o-pe); parents who have asthma; certain respiratory infections during childhood; contact with some airborne allergens or exposure to some viral infections in infancy or in early childhood when the immune system is developing,” states the NIH.
The NIH did say that respiratory irritants, such as air pollution, can trigger an asthma attack, but not that air pollution causes the disease. The NIH also noted that not all asthma sufferers are affected by the same triggers, meaning that, for some, air pollution may have no effect at all.
Unlike, say, socialism. Which affects everyone, spreading misery around “fairly.” Unless you happen to be part of the administrative ruling class. In which case, well, it’s only fair that you get more, what with all the time you spend helping everyone else by redistributing all that wealth you’ve taken off the “rich.”
That’s tiring work — and certainly worthy of special dispensation, no? After all, some pigs are more equal than others…
I don’t know enough to comment at this time, but I’d say the President spoke stupidly.
Now gimme a beer summit! I’ll have Fat Tire.
I have asthma and don’t live near a coal-fired power plant. I want compensation anyway.
Obama lies? You don’t say.
The smartest president ever continues to beg the question.
It’s truthy, though.
Darth, if you ever make it Colorado, I’ll take you to the New Belgium (brewer of Fat Tire) brewery. Just a half hour car ride from the house.
I also have asthma, and let me tell you who’s screwed the asthmatics.
The emergency inhalers have had their optimal formula dicked with a few years back. They can no longer use aerosol because the shit ruins the environment and creates ozone holes or something.
http://www.9and10news.com/Category/Story/?id=145986&cID=1
So if someone has an asthma attack and needs an emergency inhaler, the enviroweenies are the ones dicking with it.
The new inhalers work… I’m sure clever people found a viable alternative for now (until they ban whatever is in them now too)… maybe they don’t work as well. I haven’t had to use one since they switched, but I’ve been warned by doctors to expect them to ‘feel’ like they weren’t working, if I had to use one.
Coal fired plants aren’t dicking with my lungs at the possible cost of my life, environmentalists and bureaucrats are.
Yeah, entropy, I have the same problem with my inhalers. Unfortunately, even though I use a long lasting inhaler to control my asthma, I still need the rescue inhaler on occasion.
That’s not true. CFCs are not the only thing that can be used as a propellant.
Probably the one they’ve switched to is not working the same way, and will have to be dicked with a few times to get it right. Of course what you’d actually want is something that adequately nebulizes the medicine, but aerosol propellants are just a handy, compact way of doing that.
That bit about coal causing asthma is precious. What causes asthma? Allergies, among other things. And allergies can hit you just about any time in life, because your allergic reactions can be a function of e.g. stress levels.
That’s not true.
What part of what you quoted isn’t true? It’s all true.
Well except for the part where it’s ruining the ozone. That’s BS, if you ask me, but that’s what the claim is.
Maybe you inferred, from how I phrased it, something you know to be exaggerated in terms of actual consequence.
Live by the sword, die by the sword. IYKWIMAITYD. I have squeaky, wheezing moral authority and I’ll not be taking sass from anyone who hasn’t asthma.
By my shoddy, impromtu statistical estimate, this regulation and it’s ineffective delivery of inhaler medication is killing 3000 asthmatic children per year or something.
No no, he meant that coal particulates trigger asthma attacks in preexisting cases, right?
Just as he meant that pediatricians and surgeons collude to take out tonsils unnecessarily.
The part that made CFCs and aerosols synonymous. That part.
I’d recommend that they use nitrous for propellant. That way you could get a little buzz on while waiting for your asthma symptoms to subside.
For the smartest President EVAH, who claims to heart science-y stuff, he sure is a dumbass. And a clumsy fucking liar. /spit
Exposure to cat dander causes me a bit of asthmatic response. Not that I’m saying we need a regulatory regime calling for the destruction of kittens, but if you get right down to it, Morris the Cat hasn’t co-signed any of my insurance payments.
Don’t worry, we’ll soon get all of those nasty electric plants shut down. After all, we Americans deserve to get what we got coming.
Think we’re exceptional – HA!
Obumbles is hardly alone. Widely and heavily aired TV and radio ads opposing CA Prop 23 (the ballot proposition that would have suspended recently-enacted regulation of CO2 emissions until the economy recovered) sponsored by the American Lung Association claimed that CO2 emissions “caused” asthma, among many other horrors. These were in addition to the ads claiming that second-hand cigarette smoke from three apartments away, or even across the damned street, “caused” asthma.
Just to be clear, those ads I referenced clearly claimed “caused asthma”, not “triggered asthma attacks”.
Spiny – I really feel for you. I cannot imagine having to live with that kind of BS.
You know, when the miners come up for the day, their skin is black as, well, you know. Wonder why Obama didn’t mention that little side effect of one of the cheapest energy sources in the world.
Actually, science is a lot closer to showing that a too-clean environment with underexposure to certain bacterial endotoxins causes asthma than coal particulates.
Have your kids roll around in the dirty, dirty dirt next to that coal plant and they’re less likely to have asthma.
The hygiene hypothesis is awesome.
I thought it was mouse and rat turds that caused asthma? That was what the last report I read about it claimed, anyway, although I’m oversimplifying.
The general conclusion was that there’s a higher rate of asthma where overall cleanliness is not a priority, and things like mouse and rat turds are common. Bad housekeeping can be bad for your kids’ health, in other words.
JD,
The ongoing “Tobacco-Free California” tax-funded ad campaign has to be the biggest load of horseshit I have ever witnessed.
I take that back, Michael Moore’s schlockumentaries are right up there with them in the horseshit department.
Don’t you h8ters all realize that the “incompetent” Obumble has just discovered the cause of asthma.
Not like the science-hating administration before it. Noooooo.
/sarc
I heard tobacco smoke was used by indians, and I guess some 1/2 kenyans… as a natural remedy for asthma and other breathing things. Now tobacco is used for recreational purposes in the wh but coal isn’t OK even in my weber grill.
Either way, somebody’s gonna have to ride back and get a shitload of breathalyzers.
“The challenge with coal is that although it’s very cheap, it’s also dirty”
<a href=" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebe_Snow_(character)link
I thought it was mouse and rat turds that caused asthma? That was what the last report I read about it claimed, anyway, although I’m oversimplifying.
The general conclusion was that there’s a higher rate of asthma where overall cleanliness is not a priority, and things like mouse and rat turds are common. Bad housekeeping can be bad for your kids’ health, in other words.
This would tally with what I’ve read about there being increases in a few specific types of endotoxins in urban environments (also, pigeon crap, industrial solvents, black mold, etc.), but an overall decrease in variety. Kids who are raised on farms, on the other hand, are exposed to a broader range of animal poop, dust, dirt, unfiltered water, pollen, mold spores, and because of the repeated early immune challenges are less likely to have immune screw-ups like hayfever and asthma and autoimmune disorders in later life.
What it boils down to is if you don’t give the immune system enough foreign challenges to fight, it starts making shit up and attacking itself.
I think this is an important life lesson.
ftfy