On Aug 19, 6:28*pm, "E.A." wrote:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090819/..._contamination

Quote: "The main source of mercury to most of the streams tested,
according to the researchers, is emissions from coal-fired power
plants. The mercury released from smokestacks here and abroad rains
down into waterways, where natural processes convert it into
methylmercury — a form that allows the toxin to wind its way up the
food chain into fish."

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Those who think they have insight on nature's (macro) workings just
because they fish and hunt (micro activities) should study that
article and think again. The ecologically-ignorant are constantly
claiming "we understand nature better than you (implying city-
dwellers) because we TAKE stuff from it all the time." They don't see
that takers aren't sages, and often have conflicts of interest with
larger concerns.

Rustic know-it-alls keep overlooking the difference between the whole
picture and tunnel-vision. The ability to cast a line and sight a gun
in a local pond or woods does not educate you on the global status of
all species. It doesn't even come close. Someone shooting plentiful
deer in Michigan would have no knowledge of shrinking elephant
populations, unless it came from evidence collected in Africa.

Likewise, one can't learn global CLIMATE patterns by observing a
backyard WEATHER station and calling Glenn Beck when there's a colder
than normal day. That sort of myopia gets delivered with smug
intensity by "skeptics" of any scientific evidence that Man is messing
up the globe. They only know what makes them feel righteous in their
own hamlets. Of course, not everyone in rural Amurrica is
scientifically-illiterate, but the prevalence of Flat-Earthism is
higher.

It's not easy to grasp the full impact of human overpopulation on the
planet, especially if you were born and raised in a sparsely populated
area. You don't experience the "feel" of overcrowding and the
mindlessly growing needs of the human race. With global annual growth
of 75,000,000+ people, the needs of civilization extend planet-wide,
even if they aren't obvious things like farmland as far as the eye can
see. Millions of acres of cropland and pasture are mere extensions of
big population centers, which would fail without all that open land.
Yet people keep suburbanizing that very farmland, calling it "economic
growth" because housing-starts are a "leading economic indicator" (of
mindless overcrowding).

Getting back to the main topic, two "invisible" examples of human
impact are coal plant CO2 emissions and mercury that ends up in fish.
The typical AGW-denier also dismisses the need for stronger
particulate pollution laws. It's called compound ignorance.

E.A.

http://enough_already.tripod.com/

Nature gives you everything and owes you nothing.

Thank you for illustrating a number of very valid points, for once.

There are plenty of real honest reasons for regulating industry,
including the coal energy industry. Directly polluting the environment
with actual known pollutants like mercury is unacceptable.

Just don't try to pretend that CO2 has anything to do with climate
change. Or that man is altering the climate with CO2. Or that CO2 is
some kind of pollutant, because it most definitely is not.

And don't try to claim that wild fires is proof of agw. Or that a hot
summer, 1998 for example, is proof of anything related to climate. Or
that an ice shelf that collapses every few years is a sign of
catastrophic anything. Or that Mann's cherry-picked and manipulated
fudged numbers mean anything. Or that Hansen has any credibility as a
scientist. Or that the IPCC is anything other than an ideologically
motivated bunch of activists and politicians.