Phil McKenna at InsideClimate News writes—Shift to Clean Energy Could Save Millions Who Die from Pollution—And Protect the Climate:
Extra investments to control deadly pollutants like smog and soot could cut worldwide deaths from air pollution in half in a few decades and end the growth of global warming emissions in just a few years, international experts declared on Monday.
In its first report ever to examine the links between these twin goals, the authoritative International Energy Agency said the solutions go "hand-in-hand."
With a 7 percent increase in energy related investment, it said, the world could cut air-pollution mortality from about 6.5 million today to 3.3 million in 2040. And the changes would bring about a peak in CO2 emissions by 2020, it said.
Along with spending on pollution control equipment, the keys, it said, are energy efficiency and the use of renewables like wind and solar.
The report marks a new movement among those who favor the long term goal of fighting global warming toward an equal and more immediate concern—protecting the health of the world.
"Clean air is a basic human right that most of the world's population lacks," said Fatih Birol, IEA's executive director in a statement. "No country—rich or poor—can claim that the task of tackling air pollution is complete." [...]
More than half of all Americans still breathe polluted air due to high ozone and particulate matter, according to a report published earlier this year by the American Lung Association. [...]
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At Daily Kos on this date in 2008—Fixing the millionaire's amendment:
In essence, the court just ruled that even though a millionaire can spend what he or she wants to say what he or she wants, the fact that his or her opponent gets to raise additional money is an infringement on the millionaire's free speech rights.
The problem is that, as the dissent says here, no one is stifling the millionaires' speech. They can still spend whatever they want to say whatever they want. This just enhances their opponents' speech.
The notion that enhancing your opponents' speech is infringing on your own is a brand new level of crazy, and I say that as someone who essentially agrees with Buckley that money equals speech. (Try to get your message out to a wide audience without spending a dime.)
Apparently, to conservatives, money only equals speech when it's rich people's money