The National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) highlighted in its Wednesday report about greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) that some researchers have linked climate change and air pollution to mental health ailments, a claim that experts who spoke to the Daily Caller News Foundation rebuked.
NASEM released a report on GHGs following the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) July 29 announcement that the agency is moving to roll back the 2009 Endangerment Finding, which several energy sector experts previously told the Daily Caller News Foundation was hastily assembled with potential political motivations. The report, titled “Effects of Human-Caused Greenhouse Gas Emissions on U.S. Climate, Health, and Welfare,” argued that different “psychological and mental health” problems might be downstream of climate change and air pollution in a move that cherry-picks data and stokes climate anxiety, according to energy sector experts that spoke with the DCNF.
“The report is right to say climate anxiety is a problem, but the authors don’t seem to recognize their role in stoking it. We’ve been hearing for decades that humanity is about to drive off a climate cliff, but the negative impacts of climate change are overstated, and trying to talk about any positive impacts will get you kicked out of polite society,” Director of Energy and Environmental Policy Studies at the Cato Institute Travis Fisher told the DCNF. “If we’re only allowed to speak in terms of global doom, of course that will damage mental health.”
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The NASEM report concluded that the current and future harm inflicted on human health and the environment by GHGs is “beyond scientific dispute,” and that increasing GHG levels are exacerbating the effects of climate change. NASEM also documented the potential connection between climate change, air pollution and mental health problems.
The NASEM report states that
PM2.5, or fine inhalable particles with diameters generally 2.5 micrometers and smaller as defined by the EPA, have been linked to increased rates of “mood and psychotic disorders” as well as suicide.
“The climate’s impact on mental health was not addressed in EPA (2009). Extreme weather events have been associated with increased rates of anxiety, depression, and mental health disorders. Air pollution (PM2.5) has been associated with increased prevalence of mood and psychotic disorders (e.g., schizophrenia) and suicide,” the report states. “Heat waves and high temperatures are associated with increased cases of suicide, hospital visits for mental health issues, crime and violence. Sleep (particularly deep sleep) is also affected by ambient temperature and humidity, which may be impacted by climate warming, and can further exacerbate mental health declines.”
Several energy experts explained to the DCNF that the association between air pollution and mental health is
not well supported and that highlighting the issue within this report is a prime example of aggravating the public’s climate fears. Notably,
several recent polls and
articles have documented the anxiety many young people feel over climate change.
“These types of adverse health impacts often get thrown around but have very little evidence supporting them. Two main points: the argument is affiliated with PM2.5 pollution, not greenhouse gases. Activists often conflate the two issues — air quality and climate,” Mandy Gunasekara, former Trump EPA chief of staff, told the DCNF. “The science used to suggest PM2.5 causes adverse health effects is the result of deceptive research tactics, testing biases, and irreproducibility. There are similar criticisms regarding heat waves. Claims of direct cause are questionable as they often do not account for pre-existing medical or physical conditions.”
Director of the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Energy, Climate and Environment Diana Furchtgott-Roth told the DCNF that PM2.5 is “regulated under a different statute, the National Ambient Air Quality Standards. That’s not greenhouse gasses.”
The EPA
announced that it will revisit the Biden-era National Ambient Air Quality Standards in March, though the move is independent from rolling back the Obama-era Endangerment Finding. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin argued that the agency is balancing air quality standards alongside reasonable regulation, and the agency noted that the U.S. has some of the
lowest PM2.5 levels in the world.
“The Endangerment Finding only relates to greenhouse emissions from motor vehicles and does not relate to any traditional air pollution and those standards would still remain in effect if this regulation is finalized,” a spokesperson for the EPA told the DCNF.
Zeldin
said on July 29 during an appearance on the conservative “Ruthless” podcast that if the EPA successfully rolls back the Endangerment Finding, it will amount to the biggest deregulatory move in the history of the United States. Several energy policy experts have
previously explained to the DCNF that not only was the Endangerment Finding established under contested science, but it has also been used to enforce numerous
crippling regulations. If the EPA is successful, many policy experts
believe it will lower costs and increase freedom for the consumer.
“Lies about climate change, not climate change itself, is what is causing psychological harm. Of course, many people being told climate change is killing them daily from media outlets they’ve been told to trust will come to despair,” H. Sterling Burnett, director of the Arthur B. Robinson center on Climate and Environmental Policy at the Heartland Institute, told the DCNF. “Climate change has no impact on mental health because people can’t ‘detect’ any change in the climate. Rather media hype and false stories illegitimate link climate change to individual weather events or anecdotal stories of hurting but misinformed people who’ve been misled to thinking climate change caused their suffering, while ignoring trend data showing no worsening weather and improving life spans and crop production.”
Notably, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman James Comer has launched an
investigation into NASEM’s review, citing possible “partisan aims,” and has asked NASEM President Marcia McNutt to provide the committee with all communications related to the proposed Endangerment Finding rule change, as well as information on the organization’s funding sources.
NASEM did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
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