The latest alarmist talking point is that “global warming will cause asthma in children.” To wit,  the Massachusetts League of Women Voters is running sleazy advertisements that essentially equate baby-abuse with Senator Scott Brown’s vote for excellent legislation that would strip the Environmental Protection Agency of the authority to regulate greenhouse gases. The purported link between baby-abuse and global warming is increased asthma.

It’s not just lobbyists. At a recent House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on global warming policy, Democrats on the panel—in particular, Reps. Henry Waxman and Jay Inslee—made much hay about the supposed increase in asthma suffering in a warmer world.

The media, too, is parroting this talking point. Here’s Brad Johnson at the Wonk Room:

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), after a recent vote to protect coal polluters at the expense of children’s health, is now attacking the League of Women Voters. The 91-year-old good-government organization is running television spots that hold McCaskill and Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) accountable for voting to block enforcement of Clean Air Act rules that limit greenhouse pollution, threatening the hundreds of thousands of children with asthma in their states.

Clearly, this claim that warmer temperatures will increase asthma is reverberating throughout the vast green echo chamber. But is it true? The claim is predicated on the hypothesis that global warming will cause longer growing seasons, which will result in the release of more pollen, an asthma trigger. OK…that makes some intuitive sense, and while there is peer review literature suggesting a link between asthma and pollen, there is also literature contesting such a link (“No association was found between visits for asthma attacks and airborne pollen levels,” Association of severe asthma attacks with weather, pollen, and air pollutants,” 0 V J Rossi, V L Kinnula, J Tienari, E Huhti, Thorax 1993; 48:244-248).

As I understand it, and as is intimated by the conflicting studies noted above, asthma is poorly understood. There does, however, appear to be agreement in the scientific community that asthma has many potential causes, including pollen, dust mites, cigarette smoke, and…cold weather. According to the peer reviewed literature, “A decrease in air temperature is an aggravating factor for asthmatic symptoms, regardless of the geo-climatic areas under study” (c.f., “Effects of Climate Change on Environmental Factors in Respiratory Allergic Diseases,” G. D’Amato and L. Cecchi, Clinical and Experimental Allergy, 38, 1264-1274). Cold weather triggers asthma directly, and also indirectly, by making people sick with cold and flu, which is another major asthma trigger (“Upper respiratory infections play a key role in exacerbation of asthma, contributing to the typical increase of hospitalizations and medical calls in cold months and during spring,” ibid).

Using a public health/medicine database search (EBESCO’s MEDLINE), I found peer reviewed research suggesting a link between global warming and asthma exacerbation due to increased pollen exposure caused by longer growing seasons, but I couldn’t find any study that also addressed the fact that global warming logically would mitigate asthma suffering caused by the cold. After all, if asthma hospitalizations peak during cold months, then doesn’t it stand to reason that global warming, which disproportionately affects winters, would decrease the number of these asthma attacks? If I’m wrong, and a study has considered the potential benefits of global warming for asthmatics, please send it my way: wyeatman@cei.org. Until I see otherwise, it seems to me that the green echo chamber’s alarmist asthma claims are based on only half the picture.

In any case, Americans shouldn’t be concerned. According to a recent peer reviewed article in the pre-eminent scholarly journal Science, global warming isn’t happening in the U.S.

Environmentalist lobbying outfits run some of the sleaziest political attack ads in the business. Their stuff would make Lee Atwater grin. My colleague Marlo Lewis wrote an excellent, extensive analysis of one such sleazy ad, from the folks at Move On. Another colleague, Chris Horner, caught Greenpeace apparatchiks rummaging through his garbage, no doubt looking for attack fodder.

Interestingly, industry refuses to defend itself from these black arts PR tactics. “Big Oil,” for example, runs silly ads denigrating its core business, like BP’s “Beyond Petroleum” campaign and Chevron’s “I will use less energy” commercials. Then there’s “Big Gas,” which promotes itself by talking about “Dirty Coal.” (Sigh.)

But that’s a separate issue. This post is about how the greens’ sleaze tactics are backfiring in Massachusetts. In that State, the League of Women Voters is running ugly advertisements that essentially equate baby-abuse with Senator Scott Brown’s vote for excellent legislation that would strip the Environmental Protection Agency of the authority to regulate greenhouse gases. Unfortunately, there’s nothing new about this zero class, wrongheaded attack analogy. Move On made the same insinuation in a similar, recent advertisement.

A cursory internet search suggests that these advertisements are dishonest. The League of Women Voters/Move On’s accusation is based on a supposed link between increased temperatures and asthma attacks. I googled “asthma+attacks+U.S.+peak+months” and, at the top of my search results, was this 2008 report from the Minnesota Department of Health, from which the first sentence reads,

“In Minnesota, asthma hospitalization rates follow seasonal patterns. The greatest number of hospitalizations is seen in the fall months, usually September, with a smaller peak in the spring. The lowest rates are generally seen in July.”

Maybe Minnesotans are not representative of American asthma patients, but if they are, then this whole warming-asthma link seems dubious to this non-scientist.

Sen. Scott Brown, who deserves kudos for his Senate vote to rein in the EPA’s power grab, decided to make an issue of these unfounded, underhanded attacks. He wrote an oped to defend himself. Regarding his Senate vote, he correctly noted,

“Burdening our businesses with even more bureaucracy will kill jobs, and that is the last thing our economy can afford right now when we are barely starting to recover.”

For a detailed discussion of why Sen. Brown is right, click here. As for the League of Women Voter’s tactics, Sen. Brown wrote,

“By misrepresenting one of my many votes and running a shameful attack ad, the LWV has put its reputation at risk. It has gone into the gutter and become part of the negative politics that voters have rightly rejected.”

Sen. Brown is a politician, so his decision to politicize the League of Women Voters’s sleazeball ads was politically based, likely backed by polling data. This apparent blowback against the League of Women Voters is the subject of a Boston Globe column today, by Joan Vennochi. Here’s the gist,

“But the anti-Brown attack ad launched recently by the League of Women Voters isn’t going to help. It may thrill the liberal base, but it also threatens to chill the independent swing vote that both a Republican and a Democratic candidate need to win in Massachusetts.

Why is Brown drawing attention to the League’s ad a full 18 months before election day? Not because it hurts him, but because it helps him. It reminds people of the unflattering “League of Women Vultures’’ moniker that detractors like to use to describe the organization. And, its depiction of a coughing, rasping child who is suffering because of Brown’s vote against air pollution standards illustrates the same old stereotypical scare tactics that turn off voters of all ideological persuasions.”

Hear, Hear!