Obama administration highlights health benefits of carbon plan

In an apparent effort to make its plan to cut US power plant carbon emissions more relevant to the average person, the Obama administration has focused firstly on the plan’s purported health benefits and secondly on its effects on climate change.

For example, rather than giving his usual weekly televised address from the White House, President Barack Obama spoke about the new carbon plan from the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, DC, where he had visited children with asthma and other medical conditions.

“Often, these illnesses are aggravated by air pollution—pollution from the same sources that release carbon and contribute to climate change,” Obama said in his address. “And for the sake of all our kids, we’ve got to do more to reduce it.”

Obama went on to give more detail about the new guidelines, which he said …