It's worse than meaningless because it distracts from more damaging issues because "Wow! Heavy!" If I have 10kg of mercury and I dump it in a river, that meas

It's worse than meaningless because it distracts from more damaging issues because "Wow! Heavy!" If I have 10kg of mercury and I dump it in a river, that measures 10kg of toxic waste. But if I have pile of 10 million kg of rock that contains 1kg of mercury, it's reported as a million times worse for 1 tenth the toxin.