Over-Zealous Reporting Ruins Story Lines

An article says 800 million children a year die from indoor smoke, but here's the catch- there are only 56 million deaths annually worldwide. An estimated billion people still live without electricity while three billion use animal waste, wood, charcoal or even coal to cook food, risking toxic fumes and lung disease. However, every man, woman and child on the planet could finally have access to regular and sustainable energy within a decade, according to a top UN officials, reports Ed King. (1)

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Under the Sustainable Energy 4 All (SE4ALL) initiative these people should have access to electricity and cleaner cooking facilities by 2030. Launched in 2011, it's an initiative driven by UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon with three objectives: Ensuring universal access to modern energy services; Doubling the rate of improvement in energy efficiency; Doubling the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix. Sounds like a great humanitarian act well worth undertaking. However, poor reporting puts a real damper on this initiative. Here's what Ed King adds to his article: “The deaths of 800 million children a year are linked to indoor smoke, while only 58% of health care facilities in sub-Saharan Africa are connected to a grid, according to UN data.” (1) If these truly are UN data, one has to really doubt everything that was reported, since there are only a total of 56 million deaths annually. Yet, the article links the deaths of 800 million children a year to indoor smoke. Bad reporting, poor proof-reading sloppiness, poor fact gathering, lies, or intended exaggeration. Who knows?

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Even EPA folks can get carried away by the numbers game. John Brignell observes, “During a speech at a conference sponsored by pollution control officials, Mary Nichols, EPA's assistant administrator for air and radiation, claimed that the EPA's proposed air pollution standard for ozone and particulate matter would save (hang on to your hat) 59 million lives. You may wish to be reminded that 2 million Americans die every year from all causes. I stand to be corrected but I think that this qualifies for the Guinness Book of Records.” (2) One last case of over-exaggeration, and more: Environmentalists often bristle when charged with being addicted to gloom an doom messages, but every now and then an environmental group will confirm the stereotype. In April 2006, Greenpeace mistakenly posted an incomplete draft press release on its web site that read: “In the twenty years since the Chernobyl tragedy, the world's worst nuclear accident, there have been nearly [FILL IN ALARMIST AND ARMAGEDDONIST FACTOID HERE].” (3) John McPhee notes. “In the war strategy of the conservation movement, exaggeration is a standard weapon and is used consciously on broad fronts.” (4) I would add that in many cases it isn't just exaggeration that is used but outright lying and falsification of data. References

1. Ed King, “Kyte: universal energy access possible by early 2020s,” climatechangenews.com, January 28, 2016
2. John Brignell, Sorry Wrong Number, (Great Britain, Brignell Associates, 2000), 217
3. Alan Mazur, True Warnings and False Alarms: Evaluating Fears About Health Risks of Technology, 1948-1971, (Washington, DC, RFF Press, Resources for the Future, 2004)
4. John McPhee, Encounters With the Archdruid, (New York, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1971), 37

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