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IMO, the title should note that "oxides" does not include "Carbon Dioxide".
by marcusarmstrong 10y ago
IMO, the title should note that "oxides" does not include "Carbon Dioxide".
- JamilD 10y agoIt's also worth noting - for those that will inevitably use this to defend driving - that the environmental effects of cars extend way past dioxide emissions.
- mikeash 10y agoThat would run counter to the goal of these articles, which is to trivialize the importance of pollution from cars and make environmental activists look like fools.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- mortehu 10y agoThe original title is "Green finance for dirty ships", and the article uses the phrase "oxides of nitrogen and sulphur", rather than just "oxides". If anyone still doesn't know that CO2 is the biggest total contributor to global warming in recent times, I wouldn't put the blame squarely on this article.
- mikeash 10y agoThere is a shitload of politically-motivated anti-scientific propaganda out there written with the intent of confusing people into believing falsehoods about climate change. And there are a shitload of people who fall victim to it. Contributing to that misinformation is not a good thing.
- Angostura 10y agoAs something of environmental activist. No. These kinds of articles are useful because they highlight areas for campaigning that otherwise can be overlooked.
- mikeash 10y agoOcean shipping isn't a particularly big contributor to climate change, so "they highlight areas for campaigning that otherwise can be overlooked" is just another way of saying "they distract you from more important stuff."
- ascorbic 10y agoAnd why would they want to do that?
- mikeash 10y agoThey're politically invested against action taken to mitigate climate change, and the best way to push those policies is to convince people that climate change isn't important and the people who say it's important are either idiots or lying.
- ascorbic 10y agoThe Economist? You clearly don't read it. It's strongly in favour of action against climate change. They sometimes disagree about the best actions to take, and mostly oppose subsidies for renewables, but they certainly don't say it's not important.
- TheAdamAndChe 10y agoWhy? I thought Carbon Dioxide was one of the most innocuous oxides released by engines, both in environmental and health effects.
- aardvark291 10y agoThat's true. As a pollutant, carbon dioxide is almost entirely innocuous, except for its behavior as a greenhouse gas. In that role, carbon dioxide is the most significant driver of global warming: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas#Natural_and_anthropogenic_sources https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas#Natural_and_ant...
- pfarnsworth 10y agoMethane is worse.
- aardvark291 10y agoA methane molecule is 72 times worse than a CO2 molecule in terms of "global warming potential" over a 20 year time scale and around 7 times worse over a 500 year time scale). However, we put a lot more CO2 into the atmosphere than we do methane. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas#Global_warming_potential https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas#Global_warming_...
- mikesmith112 10y agoDoesn't that indicate methane is the low hanging fruit? I guess that assumes it's the same cost to prevent / recapture 1 molecule of methane vs. CO2... But if the next 20 yrs are the most crucial, methane sounds like a great target. seems likely; after that, technology will hopefully have stabilized our energy sources
- CydeWeys 10y agoThe total volume of emitted carbon dioxide, of which land vehicles are a major contributor, is a significant factor in global climate change. An insufficiently specific headline that can be read to imply otherwise is thus misleading.