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by zazen 2637 days ago
Their journalism is usually quite sound, precisely because they take a restrained and level-headed approach to their subjects, rather than rushing to cry wolf about possible worst-case scenarios like people in the vast majority of online forums including, at this point, this one.

The real way to make an impact on the world isn't by shouting as loudly as you can about whatever the issue of the week is. People tune out, and soon you're just shouting into an echo chamber.

1 comments

There's a point where the evidence is so strong and from such geographically distinct and separated places that it's best to assume it's a global problem. Waiting any longer would be too long and reminds me of this comic: http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4036/4254681996_27b1ed7ff0.jp...

We know there's a crisis with plastic in our water and entering our food supplies, even killing our fish and birds. We know CO2 levels are rising. But there's one place where we don't have any data about these two problems: North Korea. Saying we should wait until we get data from North Korea to judge whether or not it's a global problem isn't restraint. It's being intentionally obtuse.

> Saying we should wait until we get data from North Korea to judge whether or not it's a global problem isn't restraint. It's being intentionally obtuse.

That's probably why no-one is saying that. Try to resist the temptation to set up exaggerated caricatures of your opponents' arguments as straw men: this does not lead to anything positive.

Only three continents have been surveyed and the results are massive decline in every single area. These are areas divided by oceans and thousands of miles.

The areas not surveyed are places where it’s quite difficult to carry out such a long term study, like Africa and the Middle East. Waiting for a 40 year study to be completed in central Africa, one of the locations mentioned in the article, is quite the delay, and it may not even be possible to do at the moment. Delaying actions in Germany and Indonesia to wait for this is, very simply, asinine.