The National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) recently criticized the National Resources Defense Council's (NRDC) new study, which claims that future ozone smog levels will increase due to human-induced global warming, as "fundamentally flawed, leading to false conclusions."

"Contrary to the report's dire warnings, smog will go down regardless of warming," said NCPA senior fellow H. Sterling Burnett. "Smog has been reducing for the last 25 years, and it will continue to do so because of the stringency of air pollution regulations and technological improvements."

According to NCPA, NRDC used smog-forming emission levels from the mid-1990s to predict smog levels in the 2050s and 2080s. However, NCPA contends that volatile organic compounds (VOC) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) "have actually dropped by at least 50 percent and 25 percent respectively over the past 10 years," thus leading the center to argue that NRDC modeling estimates "don't even apply now, much less 50 or 80 years from now."

"We've already taken actions that will eliminate most remaining smog-forming pollution over the next 20 years or so," said NCPA adjunct scholar Joel Schwartz. "Given the actual emissions reductions already achieved, along with future reductions already in the pipeline, not only will air quality not get worse, warming or not there's no way to stop continued improvements. Indeed, global warming or not, no claim by environmental activists is more ridiculous than the claim that air pollution will increase."

Contact: Sean Tufnell, NCPA, phone 800-859-1154, e-mail stuffnell@ncpa.org.