Automobiles parked in the sun will heat up, sometimes dangerously, because of the greenhouse effect. The visible light from the sun heats up the interior of the car and the heat (infrared radiation) cannot escape because it cannot pass through glass. The closed interior, even with the windows “cracked” a bit, effectively prevents convective heat loss.

Back in 2002, the Department of Geosciences at San Francisco State University conducted an experiment to see how much vehicles would warm. (See full paper here) Below is a graph of results for a dark-colored car and a light-colored car. You can see that the cars heat quickly to uncomfortable and even dangerous levels. So, even if you think “I’ll just be gone a minute” don’t leave children or pets in the car.

The graph above shows results when the outside temperature was just about 75̊°F. The greenhouse heating effect becomes dangerous much more quickly when the outside temperature is warmer. If, for instance, the outside temperature is 90̊°F, the inside can get to 110̊°F within 15 minutes.

The table below compares the heating results over time between a car with closed windows versus a car with windows open 1.5 inches. You can see that “cracking” the windows does not make much difference, especially for longer time periods.

(h/t Anthony Watts)

When federal agencies can’t justify an action through normal channels, they seem to invite lawsuits from environmental groups, the settlement of which allows the agency to obtain court sanctioned, negotiated settlements that bypass input from affected parties and the public.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce notes that this tactic is most often used by the EPA and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and somewhat less often by U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, the Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the U.S. Department of Commerce.  The Sierra Club is the most often used partner in this scam, closely followed by the WildEarth Guardians, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Center for Biological Diversity.

This “sue and settle” tactic is made possible due to the structure of environmental laws which not only get the Feds what they want, but also enriches environmental groups while at the same time hindering the legitimate function of the government agency.  For instance, the Endangered Species Act is used as a money generator for such groups.  The structure of the law makes it easy for environmental groups to game the system.  According  to attorney Karen Budd-Falen, “Species are listed by a petition process, which means that anyone can send a letter to the federal government asking that a species, either plant or animal, be put on the ESA list. The federal government has 90 days to respond to that petition, no matter how frivolous. If the federal government fails to respond in 90 days, the petitioner – in the vast majority of cases, radical environmental groups – can file litigation against the federal government and get its attorneys fees paid. The simple act of filing litigation does not mean the species will get listed or that it is warranted to be protected; this litigation is only over whether the federal government failed to respond to the petition in 90 days.  Between 2000 and 2009, in just 12 states and the District of Columbia, 14 environmental groups filed 180 federal court complaints to get species listed under the ESA and were paid $11,743,287 in attorneys fees and costs.”  The burden of responding to the many lawsuits causes government biologists to spend much less time on conservation work.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce opines that “As a result of the sue and settle process, the agency intentionally transforms itself from an independent actor that has discretion to perform its duties in a manner best serving the public interest into an actor subservient to the binding terms of settlement agreements, which includes using congressionally appropriated funds to achieve the demands of specific outside groups. This process also allows agencies to avoid the normal protections built into the rulemaking process, review by the Office of Management and Budget and the public, and compliance with executive orders, at the critical moment when the agency’s new obligation is created.”

A major concern is that the sue and settle tactic, which has been so effective in removing control over the rulemaking process from Congress, and placing it instead with private parties under the supervision of federal courts, will spread to other complex statutes that have statutorily imposed dates for issuing regulations, such as Dodd-Frank or Obamacare.

The Chamber says that it is important to fix this culture of “sue and settle” because: “Congress’s ability to act on or undertake oversight of the executive branch is diminished and perhaps eliminated through the private agreements between agencies and private parties. Rulemaking in secret, a process that Congress abandoned 65 years ago when it passed the Administrative Procedure Act, is dangerous because it allows private parties and willing agencies to set national policy out of the light of public scrutiny and the procedural safeguards of the Administrative Procedure Act.”

Read the full report from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce here.

A press release on EurekAlert caught my eye because it looked suspicious. The headline: “Children living near toxic waste sites experience higher blood lead levels resulting in lower IQ.” That assertive headline implies a rigorous study that tested the blood lead levels of many children, but, as we will see, the assertion is an assumption based on computer modeling, not testing.

We often see ominous headlines similar to the one above in the mainstream media. They can cause great concern. But it pays to look at the details. The headline is qualified in the first sentence of the press release with the phrase “may experience higher blood lead levels” but many of the media reports went with the headline. This headline came from a press release by the  Mount Sinai School of Medicine (see the entire press release here).  So, what methods did the researchers use to justify even the modified description?

The operative paragraph in the press release is this one:

“Researchers measured lead levels in soil and drinking water at 200 toxic waste sites in 31 countries then estimated the blood lead levels in 779,989 children who were potentially exposed to lead from these sites in 2010. The blood lead levels ranged from 1.5 to 104 µg/dL, with an average of 21 µg/dL in children ages four years and younger. According to Dr. Chatham-Stephens, first author of the study, these higher blood lead levels could result in an estimated loss of five to eight IQ points per child and an incidence of mild mental retardation in 6 out of every 1,000 children.”

There are many precise numbers implying rigorous research. But, the phrases “estimated the blood levels,” “potentially exposed,” and “could result” should raise a red flag.

The whole thesis of this research is based on guesswork and assumption. The researchers did not measure lead levels in children’s blood; nor did they test IQ levels; and they did not interact with 779,989 children. Further investigation reveals that all the numbers, including the reported blood lead levels, are extrapolations from computer modeling.

The paper title is “The Pediatric Burden of Disease from Lead Exposure at Toxic Waste Sites in Low and Middle Income Countries.” I could not find the full published paper, but I did find the abstract here. From the abstract we find that the numbers reported in the press release are indeed products of computer modeling, not from actual measurement. The paper in question is apparently a subset of a larger study by the same authors:“Burden of disease from toxic waste sites in India, Indonesia, and the Philippines in 2010″ which is available online. The methodology described there confirms that no blood tests were performed. So, all those impressive looking precise numbers in the press release are mere artifacts of the assumptions used in a computer model.

The point here is that while the contention of the research might be correct, the reality is that we don’t know because the researchers, as far as I can tell, never validated the modeling with ground truth. We know no more now than we did before the research was conducted and the relationship postulated.

I think stories like this reflect poor practice in both journalism and science. I also noted that the study was done in conjunction with the Blacksmith Institute, an advocacy group, so there may be some promotional incentive for the press release headline.

The principle danger from this kind of study, besides worrying the public, is that policy makers may read only the headlines and propose inappropriate solutions to problems that may not exist.

A version of this article first appeared in the Arizona Daily Independent.

See also:

Be wary of statistical traps