🚀 go-pugleaf

Ron Johnson wrote:
> On Wed, 29 Aug 2007 23:14:40 -0500, Jer <gdunn@airmail.ten> wrote:
> 
>> Read 'em and weep...
>>
>> http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/GlobalWarming/Story?id=3536910
> 
> Although I believe in  protecting the environment, the first thing I
> noticed in that story was them miss labeling steam in the picture as
> smoke.  I darned sure want to get to the bottom of the warming trend
> and learn whether this is natural temperature cycling or not, but we
> need to make sure our sources don't have an agenda.
> 
> That might as well have been Bush or Bill O'Reilly explaining the
> picture.
> 
> Ron


I see your point about the image, and I also point out the image caption 
indicates this is a cement plant.  Cement plants produce smoke, not 
steam.  So, if the image is disingenuous, it's not just steam in lieu of 
smoke, it's not even a cement plant.  This is likely steam from a power 
plant, which is either nuclear or coal - the latter being a major 
contributor to CO2 production in China almost surpassing U.S. CO2 
levels.  China is #2, right behind the U.S. at #1.  China's air also 
suffers from sulphur dioxide (SO2) due to their reliance of high-sulphur 
coal, creating enough acid rain to poison three of their seven rivers 
beyond drinkable levels and preventing foliage growth enough to strip 
huge expanses of topsoil to erode into those same rivers, and turning 
hundreds of thousands of farmland acres to dusty deserts.

About the image: This image is a "stock" product that Reuters apparently 
owns the copyright to.  Other media may also use this image for a 
variety of reasons, and they'll rent their use of the image from the 
copyright holder with a one time fee, or a perpetual fee for long term use.

My cite is of an ABC posted article, but you'll notice the article 
carries a Reuters copyright.  I googled the caption and as typical, this 
article has been cited by other news agencies, text and image, all with 
a Reuters copyright symbol.  I don't have the software here to inspect 
the image for an embedded watermark key, but since all cites I found 
attribute to Reuters, I'll accept that.  On the planetark.com site, the 
article attributes photo and story to Stringer Shanghai.  A "stringer" 
is an independent contributor of material to news agencies (Reuters has 
been in trouble in that area before), and Shanghai is in China - hence 
the "Stringer Shanghai" attribute.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the use of this image here may well be a 
poor choice, but the accompanying article isn't about steam - it's about 
China's environmental pollution and their contribution to a growing 
global problem, which even the Chinese themselves don't dismiss as a 
major issue of their own making.  I choose to focus my attention on the 
article itself, the gist of which is not in dispute.

-- 
jer
email reply - I am not a 'ten'