🚀 go-pugleaf

On Fri, 31 Aug 2007 08:26:45 -0500, Jer <gdunn@airmail.ten> wrote:

>Ron Johnson wrote:
>> On Thu, 30 Aug 2007 07:44:33 -0500, Jer <gdunn@airmail.ten> wrote:
>> 
>>> 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.
>> 
>> Well, I wasn't picking on ya, but that darned sure looks like steam.
>> If it is a nuclear or coal plant, that it really IS steam.
>> 
>> That is not to say that coal plants don't give off some bad things,
>> sulfur, carbon dioxide, just to name a couple.
>> 
>> Oh well, at least we are talking here again.
>
>
>I just don't want you or anyone to completely miss out on knowing 
>something that may be important because some doofus chose a poor image 
>to paste up next to the story - personally, I don't need a visual to 
>know about something.  Sure, I know any one thing can be faked, but I 
>don't think the scientific community is faking this issue.  Do they have 
>an agenda?  You bet.  Do the politicians have an agenda?  You bet.  Does 
>business have an agenda?  Count on it.  Everyone has an agenda, as well 
>they should, especially on this important issue.
>
>Do I believe humans are contributing to climate change?  Yes, I do.  Do 
>I believe the planet is on the cusp of natural climate change cycle? 
>Yes, I do.  Do I believe the latter is more important than the former? 
>No, I do not.  I know we can't do anything about natural climate change, 
>but we can do something about our contribution to it.  Even if climate 
>change wasn't an issue, is it smart to continue pouring toxins into the 
>same environment that supports our lives?  our future?  Without a 
>healthy environment, we're toast.  Nobody disputes that.  Or at least 
>nobody that cares.
>
>Humans have been screwing up their environment since the day they 
>started walking upright, including me.  But over the last two decades or 
>so we've somehow managed to learn a lot.  The question now is, what do 
>we do with this new knowledge?  Use it to improve our environment and 
>ourselves, or hide it somewhere and keep doing what we've always done 
>when we don't like it?  One's answer depends on one's agenda.
>
>Something's gotta change.  We've been on the road of self-denial for a 
>while now, and we're on the road to self-destruction now.  We keep 
>allowing ourselves to get wrapped around an axle about shit that just 
>don't matter long term.  Yup, the U.S. is a large well-funded outfit, 
>but they're not the only outfit that matters.  We need to stop our 
>global thinking about someone else's destruction, and start our global 
>planning to improve everyone's future.  Anything that interferes with 
>that latter premise is our enemy.

Well thought out and articulated, or as the red necks would say, damn
them was some mighty perty words.

I can agree with you put that way, that we are in a combination of
natural and man made warming.   I must admit, I haven't spent much
time looking at it that way.

But that makes more sense than the versions put oout by the political
extremes.

Ron