Rant
So for the past couple weeks, I've been tossing around the idea that somebody (maybe me, if I had more time) should start a site based on the discussion of environmentalism based on science, economics, and engineering. The rationale behind this is that while I consider environmental issues to be extremely important, there are a huge number of people in the green community who have some severely distorted ideas about, well, pretty much everything. I see a lot of opinions out there that are just plain unworkable, almost to the exclusion of environmental strategies that might actually help us save this planet.
But today I got more worked up than I've been in a very long time, by a series of posts on TreeHugger, one of the bigger green blogs, about a car that "runs on water":
Fill Her Up... With Water?
Genepax Water Car: Too Good to be True? Yeah
Survey: Can a Car Run on Water?
When the first post was made, it was embarrassing. The car described in that article is obvious lunacy, and for TreeHugger to have a writer who couldn't recognize that reflects more than a little poorly on them, but when they ran the second post acknowledging it was a hoax it seemed like it was behind them.
But then WEEKS after their correction, they ran the "survey" asking what their readers thought of the car, and it made me sick to my stomach. The "survey" isn't really a survey; it's a quiz, with one correct answer and three incorrect answers. There is no opinion involved in this question.
Only 42% of respondents answered the question correctly.
This blew my mind, because I always figured environmentalists in general and TreeHugger readers in particular were educated and relatively well-grounded in science. You don't have to be a scientist to understand this; even a high school education in chemistry and physics should be sufficient. This is the audience that's supposed to understand this stuff.
Considering these results, it seems clear that TreeHugger needs to work much harder at educating their readers, and also at factual reporting in the first place. The first article should never have been posted, the second should have come down much harder on the issue, and the fact that the "survey" backpedals far enough to even insinuate that this car could possibly work just blows my mind.
Having a basic understanding of physics, chemistry and biology is necessary to have an informed opinion about the environment. The combination of energy and climate change is the greatest crisis humanity faces going into the 21st century, and it's clear that the obstacles to solving these issues are colossal if most of us don't have even a basic understanding of what energy is and how it works. Just the stuff they teach in high school would be more than enough, but apparently even that is asking too much.
Now I'm in the embarrassing and uncomfortable situation of having to count myself part of a movement of which the majority apparently doesn't have a clue what's going on. Calling a site "TreeHugger" was supposed to be reclaiming the word, asserting that environmentalists aren't a bunch of nutjobs out of touch with reality. It seems we are after all.
But today I got more worked up than I've been in a very long time, by a series of posts on TreeHugger, one of the bigger green blogs, about a car that "runs on water":
Fill Her Up... With Water?
Genepax Water Car: Too Good to be True? Yeah
Survey: Can a Car Run on Water?
When the first post was made, it was embarrassing. The car described in that article is obvious lunacy, and for TreeHugger to have a writer who couldn't recognize that reflects more than a little poorly on them, but when they ran the second post acknowledging it was a hoax it seemed like it was behind them.
But then WEEKS after their correction, they ran the "survey" asking what their readers thought of the car, and it made me sick to my stomach. The "survey" isn't really a survey; it's a quiz, with one correct answer and three incorrect answers. There is no opinion involved in this question.
Only 42% of respondents answered the question correctly.
This blew my mind, because I always figured environmentalists in general and TreeHugger readers in particular were educated and relatively well-grounded in science. You don't have to be a scientist to understand this; even a high school education in chemistry and physics should be sufficient. This is the audience that's supposed to understand this stuff.
Considering these results, it seems clear that TreeHugger needs to work much harder at educating their readers, and also at factual reporting in the first place. The first article should never have been posted, the second should have come down much harder on the issue, and the fact that the "survey" backpedals far enough to even insinuate that this car could possibly work just blows my mind.
Having a basic understanding of physics, chemistry and biology is necessary to have an informed opinion about the environment. The combination of energy and climate change is the greatest crisis humanity faces going into the 21st century, and it's clear that the obstacles to solving these issues are colossal if most of us don't have even a basic understanding of what energy is and how it works. Just the stuff they teach in high school would be more than enough, but apparently even that is asking too much.
Now I'm in the embarrassing and uncomfortable situation of having to count myself part of a movement of which the majority apparently doesn't have a clue what's going on. Calling a site "TreeHugger" was supposed to be reclaiming the word, asserting that environmentalists aren't a bunch of nutjobs out of touch with reality. It seems we are after all.