CPI #4

March 22, 2000
  • Ratio of extreme weather related disasters worldwide, 1990s versus 1950s, a probable result of global warming: 5:1.1
  • Number deaths worldwide attributed to extreme weather during the 1990s: 330,129.2
  • Federal campaign contributions from oil and gas, mining, electric utilities, and auto industry in the 1998 elections: $48.2 million.3
  • Federal campaign contributions from environmental groups in 1998 elections: $814,712.
  • Status of U.S. approval of 1997 Kyoto Protocol global climate change treaty, which requires Senate ratification: stalled.4
  • Estimated number of hogs killed by Hurricane Floyd in North Carolina in September 1999: nearly 30,000.5
  • Ratio of North Carolina hog farms located in an area with highest minority population compared to those areas with highest white population, adjusted to account for fact that farms are likely to be located in rural areas: 6:1.6
  • Chance that a North Carolina hog farm is located in an area where households depend on wells for drinking water: 1:3.7
  • Contributions and "issue-ad" expenditures by hog industry to influence North Carolina elections in 1996 and 1998: $3 million.8
  • Contributions to federal campaigns from livestock and poultry industry in 1998: $3.5 million.9
  • Status of federal legislation that would strengthen environmental regulation of livestock operations: stalled.10

 

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1 “Storm Warning: Global Warming And The Rising Costs Of Extreme Weather,” U.S. Public Interest Research Group Education Fund, April 6, 2000.
2 ibid.
3 Includes federal PAC, soft and individual contributions ($200+), 1998 election cycle, “The Big Picture,” Center for Responsive Politics, www.opensecrets.org/pubs/bigpicture2000/index.htm.
4 President Bill Clinton has not sent the Kyoto Protocol treaty to the Senate for ratification. The Senate has indicated, in a 95-0 vote, that it will not accept the treaty in its current form.
5 Alan Scher Zagier, “Deluged,” Planning, February 1, 2000, no. 2, vol. 66, p. 8.
6 Steven Wing, an associate professor of epidemiology at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, compared North Carolina Division of Water Quality on hog operations and 1990 U.S. Census data. Because farms generally are located in rural areas, he developed a statistical model that estimated the number of hog farms that would be expected in Census block groups based on their population density, and then compared them with how many hog farms there actually were. He found that the 20 percent of census block groups with the highest proportion of non-whites had about six times as many hog farms as would be expected compared to the 20 percent of block groups with the lowest proportion of non-white people. See: News Release, “Research reveals environmental injustice in N.C. communities with large hog farms,” University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, no. 179, March 11, 1999, www.unc.edu/news/newsserv/research/wing2.htm.
7 ibid.
8 Analysis by Democracy South, Chapel Hill, NC, April 2000.
9 The Big Picture, Center for Responsive Politics..
10 H.R. 684, introduced by Rep. George Miller (D-CA) in February 1999, has 21 cosponsors. It has been stuck in the House Transportation Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment ever since.