6 ms·

The lede is false and misleading on its face. Excluding "carbon dioxide" from your list of "oxides" when discussing (and comparing with) automobile greenhouse g

by ajarmst 10y ago

The lede is false and misleading on its face. Excluding "carbon dioxide" from your list of "oxides" when discussing (and comparing with) automobile greenhouse gas emissions is absurd. The misleading claim is also clearly intentional, so none of the other claims can be accepted at face value. (No, shutting down 15 ships would not do more to address greenhouse oxide emissions than banning automobiles world-wide.) More than disappointing, and never should have been published.

rayiner 10y ago
This is why I don't consume news anymore except in connection with HN, Reddit, or Twitter. I'm convinced that one of the reasons journalists do such a crappy job of reporting on science is that they don't even realize that describing methodology and assumptions is more important than the punch line.
- dmoy 10y ago
  Important is a relative thing though. The headline is more important... for attracting readers and getting ad dollars. Which is sadly the priority.
- massysett 10y ago
  I'd understand if you said you replaced the popular press with academic journals or books by scientists. But Reddit and Twitter? That's an improvement??
  - rayiner 10y ago
    If you scroll down on Reddit (and especially HN), there is usually a top comment providing missing context.
- mockery 10y ago
  The article is titled "Green finance for dirty ships" - the misleading HN title (which doesn't show up anywhere in the article) _is_ the problem in this case, IMO.
- trentnix 10y ago
  Readers are pretty crappy at reading the news too. One would be wise to apply the same skepticism you have for science reporting on all reporting. Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know. ― Michael Crichton
- emn13 10y ago
  It's somewhat ironic that the article is perfectly clear and reasonable, and only the HN title which is misleading. Perhaps you should simply not read too much into HN titles?
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
thomasahle 10y ago
> Ocean-going vessels produce just 3% of its greenhouse-gas emissions. But the industry is dirtier than that makes it sound. By burning heavy fuel oil, just 15 of the biggest ships emit more oxides of nitrogen and sulphur—gases much worse for global warming than carbon dioxide—than all the world’s cars put together. It starts out with the pretty clear statement, that in terms of green house emissions they are small, but that doesn't make them not a problem. Isn't that a fair thing to point out? Shipping should absolutely do more towards stopping pollution. Maersk is an example of a company that at least keeps this in mind - http://www.maerskline.com/en-bs/expert-blogs/guest-blogger/big-ship-means-big-pollution-right http://www.maerskline.com/en-bs/expert-blogs/guest-blogger/b...
russell_h 10y ago
The headline is: > Green finance for dirty ships Regarding "oxides" it says: > By burning heavy fuel oil, just 15 of the biggest ships emit more oxides of nitrogen and sulphur—gases much worse for global warming than carbon dioxide—than all the world’s cars put together. The HN headline is definitely misleading, but I'm struggling to see what you find so objectionable about the article. That sentence, which you haven't even attempted to refute, is simple and specific, and merely sets the stage for an article about finance. The article certainly never claims that "shutting down 15 ships would not do more to address greenhouse oxide emissions than banning automobiles world-wide". It's only mention of oxides or automobiles is in the sentence above.
- ajarmst 10y ago
  Because they speciously choose to compare ship emissions to cars, which emit almost no oxides in the limited classes they select (because almost all their emissions are in the excluded category). This is an bald attempt to make the problem sound extreme. If they are compared to other sources of oxide emissions, it doesn't sound quite so bad. For example, for nitrous oxide, sewage accounts for fully a third as much as fossil fuels. Burning of biomass accounts for just as much. Agriculture emits SEVEN TIMES as much as fossil fuel combustion. Of course, I only chose Nitrous oxides, which allows me to make this bold statement about how terrible agriculture is. They are cherry-picking misleading data to advance a thesis. That's not acceptable.
  - emn13 10y ago
    Ships are more like cars than they are like agriculture; so the comparison isn't insane. Especially since it demonstrates that cleaner combustion is possible even in tricker (smaller) circumstances. I'll go out on a limb and speculate that even fairly hefty price increases in shipping fuel (e.g. were bunker completely phased out) would barely budge end-consumer prices.
    - ajarmst 10y ago
      But, in this particular domain (non-carbon oxides) ships AREN'T like cars---that's the whole thesis of the story.
emn13 10y ago
The problem is in the hackernews title, not the article. Perhaps a better hacker-news onliner would have been "Just 15 of the biggest ships emit more sulphur- and nitrogen-oxides than all the world's cars"
dang 10y ago
We changed the title from "Just 15 of the biggest ships emit more oxides than all of the world's cars". I'm not sure how it ended up there—maybe the Economist originally had it?—but if the submitter wrote it, that's bad and violates the HN guideline about titles.
- DanBC 10y ago
  A similar story with that title was posted a while ago. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10716102 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10716102 And the industrytap link has been posted to HN a few times: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=industrytap.com%20ships&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=industrytap.com%20ships&sort=b...

by ajarmst 10y ago

rayiner 10y ago

This is why I don't consume news anymore except in connection with HN, Reddit, or Twitter. I'm convinced that one of the reasons journalists do such a crappy job of reporting on science is that they don't even realize that describing methodology and assumptions is more important than the punch line.

dmoy 10y ago
Important is a relative thing though. The headline is more important... for attracting readers and getting ad dollars. Which is sadly the priority.
massysett 10y ago
I'd understand if you said you replaced the popular press with academic journals or books by scientists. But Reddit and Twitter? That's an improvement??
- rayiner 10y ago
  If you scroll down on Reddit (and especially HN), there is usually a top comment providing missing context.
mockery 10y ago
The article is titled "Green finance for dirty ships" - the misleading HN title (which doesn't show up anywhere in the article) _is_ the problem in this case, IMO.
trentnix 10y ago
Readers are pretty crappy at reading the news too. One would be wise to apply the same skepticism you have for science reporting on all reporting. Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know. ― Michael Crichton
emn13 10y ago
It's somewhat ironic that the article is perfectly clear and reasonable, and only the HN title which is misleading. Perhaps you should simply not read too much into HN titles?

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

thomasahle 10y ago

> Ocean-going vessels produce just 3% of its greenhouse-gas emissions. But the industry is dirtier than that makes it sound. By burning heavy fuel oil, just 15 of the biggest ships emit more oxides of nitrogen and sulphur—gases much worse for global warming than carbon dioxide—than all the world’s cars put together. It starts out with the pretty clear statement, that in terms of green house emissions they are small, but that doesn't make them not a problem. Isn't that a fair thing to point out? Shipping should absolutely do more towards stopping pollution. Maersk is an example of a company that at least keeps this in mind - http://www.maerskline.com/en-bs/expert-blogs/guest-blogger/big-ship-means-big-pollution-right http://www.maerskline.com/en-bs/expert-blogs/guest-blogger/b...

russell_h 10y ago

The headline is: > Green finance for dirty ships Regarding "oxides" it says: > By burning heavy fuel oil, just 15 of the biggest ships emit more oxides of nitrogen and sulphur—gases much worse for global warming than carbon dioxide—than all the world’s cars put together. The HN headline is definitely misleading, but I'm struggling to see what you find so objectionable about the article. That sentence, which you haven't even attempted to refute, is simple and specific, and merely sets the stage for an article about finance. The article certainly never claims that "shutting down 15 ships would not do more to address greenhouse oxide emissions than banning automobiles world-wide". It's only mention of oxides or automobiles is in the sentence above.

ajarmst 10y ago
Because they speciously choose to compare ship emissions to cars, which emit almost no oxides in the limited classes they select (because almost all their emissions are in the excluded category). This is an bald attempt to make the problem sound extreme. If they are compared to other sources of oxide emissions, it doesn't sound quite so bad. For example, for nitrous oxide, sewage accounts for fully a third as much as fossil fuels. Burning of biomass accounts for just as much. Agriculture emits SEVEN TIMES as much as fossil fuel combustion. Of course, I only chose Nitrous oxides, which allows me to make this bold statement about how terrible agriculture is. They are cherry-picking misleading data to advance a thesis. That's not acceptable.
- emn13 10y ago
  Ships are more like cars than they are like agriculture; so the comparison isn't insane. Especially since it demonstrates that cleaner combustion is possible even in tricker (smaller) circumstances. I'll go out on a limb and speculate that even fairly hefty price increases in shipping fuel (e.g. were bunker completely phased out) would barely budge end-consumer prices.
  - ajarmst 10y ago
    But, in this particular domain (non-carbon oxides) ships AREN'T like cars---that's the whole thesis of the story.

emn13 10y ago

The problem is in the hackernews title, not the article. Perhaps a better hacker-news onliner would have been "Just 15 of the biggest ships emit more sulphur- and nitrogen-oxides than all the world's cars"

dang 10y ago

We changed the title from "Just 15 of the biggest ships emit more oxides than all of the world's cars". I'm not sure how it ended up there—maybe the Economist originally had it?—but if the submitter wrote it, that's bad and violates the HN guideline about titles.

DanBC 10y ago
A similar story with that title was posted a while ago. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10716102 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10716102 And the industrytap link has been posted to HN a few times: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=industrytap.com%20ships&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=industrytap.com%20ships&sort=b...