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Saturday, Jul 4, 2009
...on your hands, LW.
I agree that that imprecise language is annoying and we're far too lazy in describing what is going on in the world. Thanks for a great letter!
How does using imprecise language get magnified into giving up one's soul and all independent thought to the rule of the mob?
People use sloppy language all the time -- it doesn't (necessarily) mean that they aren't thinking for themselves, it may just mean that they are trying to maximize the efficiency of their communication (i.e. expressing their ideas more succinctly by omitting unnecessary words).
-Jeremy
Methane is a green-house gas of importance, and methane is also carbon-based, so it makes sense to call it a carbon problem.
Here is my ignorance-based pet peeve, I will post it here instead of write a letter:
"Steep learning curve"
A learning curve is not something you climb. It is an X-Y relationship between time spent learning and the amount learned in that time. A steep learning curve means you lear a lot in a short amount of time. Guess what: this is desirable, it is good if you can learn a lot in a short amount of time! A steep learning curve is good! It is not something you climb!
I have a pet peeve about people who have pet peeves.
You have come to believe that this is very important, at least important enough to get quite angry about. I don't think it's very important. When I get too angry about something that's not very important I do my best to take a good long look at me. Something always turns out to be going on that I need to not be dodging around by getting too angry about something that's not very important. But that's me.
Best.
(More, for free: google "Rabid Fanatic" +"Monty Johnston")
Shall I practice willful ignorance of the metaphor here and ask why you only make buildings in one color?
You are seeing/hearing language change right in front of you. Like watching "collectable" replace "collectible." That one used to really bother me, but conventions change, and that is life. We all know what green means now. We are getting used to what carbon means.
Two more important points:
1. No one can "make you" feel guilty. Is there something you feel bad about?
2. Regardless of how right you may be, you are not in control of the way other people use the word carbon. You can only control your own use of the word. If you start adding the 'dioxide' back in, maybe other people will too. Or maybe they will just give you weird looks, like the looks I give people who insist on pronouncing 'Feng Shui' as though they were native speakers of Mandarin. (Do you do that too???)
Choose your battles carefully, or you're going to be a very unhappy person.
Carbon neutrality is about offsetting atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane with equal masses of sequestered carbon compounds.
Since carbon dioxide and methane are such a large part of the global warming problem, the processing of carbon compounds into carbon dioxide (and vice versa) is what "carbon neutrality" is about.
So, "carbon" here refers to carbon as an atomic element of each of these different compounds, not to molecular carbon.
Talking only about carbon dioxide doesn't really address the problem. Why does burning oil or wood create atmospheric carbon dioxide? Because of the carbon in the cellulose or the hydrocarbon chain. Why does planting trees remove carbon dioxide? Because they convert it into carbon-containing cellulose in order to grow. Why do we have a carbon dioxide problem now, when we didn't before? Because we've been burning carbon.
I hate buzzwords, too, but this is one instance where they're right.
If I remember correctly, carbon dioxide is not the only greenhouse gas. Methane ("carbon tetrahydride"?) is a greenhouse gas, as well as the various chlorofluorocarbons and the replacement refrigerants which, while they don't eat away at the ozone layer, nonetheless are greenhouse gases.
So basically, release of any gaseous carbon-containing gases into the atmosphere likely contributes to global warming.
A steep learning curve means that you must learn a lot to be productive/efficient/make progress. The X axis is progress, not time. If the X axis were time, it'd be learning rate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_curve
Oh dear lord this letter writer is a complete prat.
Honestly? Get over it, man. You'd be much more convincing if you knew what *you* were talking about. "Carbon-neutral" doesn't refer to elemental carbon in this case, but carbon compounds. Carbon "fixed" by plants doesn't tend to be in the form of carbon dioxide, but as part of glucose, starch, cellulose, etc. The carbon that we pump out of the ground isn't in the form of carbon dioxide either, but instead in long hydrocarbon chains. To examine how carbon dioxide (and methane!) gets into and out of the atmosphere, you need to look at the *entire* process, and all of the carbon compounds involved.
And on top of that, what does it matter if the term is slightly inaccurate in your mind? There is a need for short and catchy terms to define simple concepts in the public sphere. Marketing is important in this case to get action on this issue, whether we like it or not. And while to assume that it involves "indulgences" and obedience is, unfortunately, a lot closer to reality than people would like to believe, at least the public is motivated in this situation out of some kind of desire to help the environment, as opposed to some misguided quest for revenge.
Stop being a self-righteous snob, and try to do something worthwhile, 'kay? And Cary? If this is the best you can do, both for a letter and for your advice, you're really scraping the bottom of the barrel.
Here's a buzz word that's been around for decades and should be abolished: relationship. It's a perfect sound byte, for it suggests something definate ("we have a relationship") but is actually vague and contentless.
Anything that is not completely removed from the sphere of human interaction counts as a thing you have a "relationship" with. From the pecil you used for five seconds at the library to your partner of 50 years. Some self help books think they are very wise in saying "Everything is about relationships" and suggest that somehow this expressess a deep connection or maybe even "oneness." It's an empty pointless word.
Let's have marriages and romances and friendships and aquaintenceships, and dismiss this vague, empty term "relationship" forever.
The media outlet's use of Bush euphemisms sparks a much-needed debate on journalistic standards.
The Wasilla soap opera just gets weirder as Palin complains critics are "picking apart a good point guard"
And so are his Fox News pals, who lambasted Sen. Al Franken's "stolen election"
An inflexible right wing is allowing the Golden State to drown in debt. But it's not alone
Thanks for sharing, Governor. Now please take a cue from Norm Coleman, and go away
Salon headlines in your mailbox
