3 ms·

A single coal plant does not threat "most life on earth".

firtoz 3y ago
A single typical nuke doesn't cause extinction either
arghwhat 3y ago
And that attitude is why we are in a "death by a thousand cuts" scenario. Even just the single plant alone is incredibly harmful: Coal power plants are estimated to cause an average of 25 (direct and indirect) deaths per PWh, 33 for brown coal. A 2GW power plant makes 17PWh per yeah, which extrapolates to 432 deaths per year. https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldwide-by-energy-source/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldw...
- gunapologist99 3y ago
  Those statistics are complete fiction.
  - Retric 3y ago
    Hardly, pollution deaths get lumped into many other statistics but you can work backwards. It’s the same basic math as figuring out how many cancers were caused by Hiroshima. Individually some people would have gotten cancer either way so you can’t guarantee some specific person died from that exposure, but you can compare populations and find statistically significant differences.
    - gunapologist99 3y ago
      > you can compare populations and find statistically significant differences. No, you can't. There are far too many variables involved, people confuse correlation with causation, ignore the null hypothesis, and most of all: the people doing these calculations in the first place (on either side) have an axe to grind.
      - defrost 3y ago
        The people doing these studies have access to the same data, access to multiple bomb detonation exposure data, and have a broad background in terms of axes to grind. The bulk of those involved want to know the true risks and aren't motivated to under or over report. Discrepencies in results stand out. Here's one study (third in a series, IIRC) on the two bombs in Japan. https://bioone.org/journals/radiation-research/volume-187/issue-5/RR14492.1/Solid-Cancer-Incidence-among-the-Life-Span-Study-of-Atomic/10.1667/RR14492.1.full https://bioone.org/journals/radiation-research/volume-187/is... You can be specific in your objections, quote the parts you take issue with, etc.
      - GildedIgel 3y ago
        Maybe _you_ can’t but this is well studied and robust. Do you also disagree with excess death calculations from the pandemic?
        pfannkuchen 3y ago
        I actually did find the excess death calculations to be questionable. The formula for expected deaths I saw used in the media was “the average of the last 5 years of deaths”. That seems like an incredible oversimplification. Population growth and age demographic trends alone would cause the actual expected deaths to trend upwards over time, and not capturing that would make this formula underestimate expected deaths (and therefore overestimate excess deaths). I did not see this problem addressed anywhere, did anyone else?
        gattilorenz 3y ago
        That very much depends on the source. Look at our world in data’s formula [1], and you will see it does take into account that 2020 won’t have the same death as 2019, by using a linear model with previous years. Sure, there might be a sudden and expected increase in population growth (and especially in the 70+ people), but one would have to have to explain how that happened… [1] https://ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-covid#what-is-excess-mortality https://ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-covid#what-is-ex...

A single typical nuke doesn't cause extinction either

And that attitude is why we are in a "death by a thousand cuts" scenario. Even just the single plant alone is incredibly harmful: Coal power plants are estimated to cause an average of 25 (direct and indirect) deaths per PWh, 33 for brown coal. A 2GW power plant makes 17PWh per yeah, which extrapolates to 432 deaths per year. https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldwide-by-energy-source/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldw...

gunapologist99 3y ago
Those statistics are complete fiction.
- Retric 3y ago
  Hardly, pollution deaths get lumped into many other statistics but you can work backwards. It’s the same basic math as figuring out how many cancers were caused by Hiroshima. Individually some people would have gotten cancer either way so you can’t guarantee some specific person died from that exposure, but you can compare populations and find statistically significant differences.
  - gunapologist99 3y ago
    > you can compare populations and find statistically significant differences. No, you can't. There are far too many variables involved, people confuse correlation with causation, ignore the null hypothesis, and most of all: the people doing these calculations in the first place (on either side) have an axe to grind.
    - defrost 3y ago
      The people doing these studies have access to the same data, access to multiple bomb detonation exposure data, and have a broad background in terms of axes to grind. The bulk of those involved want to know the true risks and aren't motivated to under or over report. Discrepencies in results stand out. Here's one study (third in a series, IIRC) on the two bombs in Japan. https://bioone.org/journals/radiation-research/volume-187/issue-5/RR14492.1/Solid-Cancer-Incidence-among-the-Life-Span-Study-of-Atomic/10.1667/RR14492.1.full https://bioone.org/journals/radiation-research/volume-187/is... You can be specific in your objections, quote the parts you take issue with, etc.
    - GildedIgel 3y ago
      Maybe _you_ can’t but this is well studied and robust. Do you also disagree with excess death calculations from the pandemic?
      - pfannkuchen 3y ago
        I actually did find the excess death calculations to be questionable. The formula for expected deaths I saw used in the media was “the average of the last 5 years of deaths”. That seems like an incredible oversimplification. Population growth and age demographic trends alone would cause the actual expected deaths to trend upwards over time, and not capturing that would make this formula underestimate expected deaths (and therefore overestimate excess deaths). I did not see this problem addressed anywhere, did anyone else?
        gattilorenz 3y ago
        That very much depends on the source. Look at our world in data’s formula [1], and you will see it does take into account that 2020 won’t have the same death as 2019, by using a linear model with previous years. Sure, there might be a sudden and expected increase in population growth (and especially in the 70+ people), but one would have to have to explain how that happened… [1] https://ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-covid#what-is-excess-mortality https://ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-covid#what-is-ex...