EPA: Yup, greenhouse gases still unhealthy

Why do I have the feeling that we'll be arguing this point for the rest of my life and probably the lives of my niece and nephew, to boot?

Thought it worth pointing out that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today said that after "months of serious consideration" it has rejected 10 petitions that challenged its declaration last year that greenhouse gases represented a threat to human health and the environment.

The EPA made its controversial declaration last spring, a finding that was challenged when the whole Climategate situation suggested that much of the science around global warming was flawed. That the numbers were cooked, in some sense.

Here's what the EPA Adminstrator Lisa Jackson wrote in defense of the EPA's original finding AND in this latest affirmation of same:

"The endangerment finding is based on years of science from the U.S. and around the world. These petitions, based as they are on selectively edited, out-of-context data and a manufactured controversy -- provide no evidence to undermine our determination. Excess greenhouse gases are a threat to our health and welfare. Defenders of the status quo will try to slow our efforts to get America running on clean energy. A better solution would be to join the vast majority of the American people who want to see more green jobs, more clean energy innovation, and an end to the oil addition that pollutes our planet and jeopardizes our national security."

For your extra credit reading, the latest national State of the Climate data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was actually released this week, too. Its finding: Things were hotter in the 2000s than they were in the 1990s. What we are inclined to do about this, though, seems increasingly tied to politics and not to data.