Mercury No Problem, Warming "Myth", Says Harvard Professor

[hatrack]

Recent concerns about toxic mercury spewing from coal-fired power plants have been overblown by environmentalists in an effort to attack the energy industry, a Harvard University scientist told a convention of conservative state lawmakers in Seattle yesterday. Willie Soon, a physicist also known for asserting that global warming is a myth, told his audience at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center that proposals to crack down on mercury emissions in the United States are based on erroneous science and might harm people's health by scaring them away from eating fish.

"No babies are being poisoned," Soon told about four dozen members of the American Legislative Exchange Council, a group of state legislators and conservative policy experts meeting this week to share ideas and political strategies. About 2,000 members are in town this week. Interior Secretary Gale Norton is scheduled to speak today.

EDIT

Soon contends that less than 1 percent of the world's mercury comes from American power plants, with the vast majority coming from natural sources such as volcanic eruptions, supernovas in space and forest fires. But Soon has drawn fire recently because his studies on global warming have been partially funded by the petroleum industry. And the group he represented yesterday, the conservative Center for Science and Public Policy, is a wing of the Virginia-based Frontiers of Freedom, which in 2002 received nearly one-third of its $700,000 budget from ExxonMobil, according to The New York Times.

EDIT

"If you pay enough money, you can get anyone to say anything," said Robert Pregulman, executive director of Washington Public Interest Research Group, a nonprofit environmental group. "It is very clear this organization, and this guy in particular, have an ax to grind about any sort of regulation. To say it's not a problem is shortsighted, it's disingenuous and it's flat-out wrong." Soon, who was joined at the podium by John Wootten, a retired vice president of Peabody Energy of St. Louis, one of the world's largest private coal producers, took direct aim at recent proposals by the Environmental Protection Agency to curb mercury emissions from U.S. power plants by up to 70 percent."

EDIT

[lansing]

1. He maybe flat out wrong

I just see nothing that contradicts his statement

[NNadir]

2. This is a prime example of the logical fallacy of "Appeal to Authority."

One states "Harvard Professor" and one immediately assumes competance. However, it is generally true that a "Harvard Professor" with a chair in Etruscan art is completely unqualified to discuss, say, the genetic ramifications of blood groupings among South Americans.

This guy is a physicist and not a chemist. He may therefore have only a very primitive level of understanding of the nature of mercury complexes with lipoamide, and the effect of the workings of the Krebs cycle which is especially important to neurons.

Neither is he likely to have a very detailed knowledge of the chemistry of atmospheres.

I have no idea what area of physics he works in, but I'm going to guess - or hope - that his research involves very little involving the interactions of radiation with gases.

What he has to say on these matters measures pretty well his competance to discuss them.

[DrWeird]

3. Looks like he's an astrophysicist.

Which makes him about as qualified to talk about global warming and mercury emissions.

Apparently he's not a Harvard professor either, but a scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Plus a paid consultant for the George C. Marshall Institute, which opposes controls for carbon dioxide emissions, and his research is funded by the American Petroleum Institute.

Looks like another Bjorn Lomberg to me.

[hatrack]

4. If things are as he says, then why isn't he doing peer-reviewed papers?

Why is he addressing an assembly of cheesy political hacks and right-wing think-tankers rather than putting his stuff out in the scientific literature?

[hunter]

6. He's an astrophysicist.

He believes that global warming is caused by natural solar cycles and such. That doesn't sound entirely unreasonable, and it's a hypothesis that can be tested by examining historical records, which he has done to some extent.

HOWEVER, when he starts talking about mercury pollution from coal, he pretty much exposes his bare-assed biases for all the world to see. He is not an environmental chemist. To an environmental chemist his analysis of mercury in the environment must seem extremely naive.

I run into the same sort of thing with "Creation Scientists" who also happen to be electrical engineers, physicists, etc., who think this gives them some sort of scientific credibility.

I'm an amateur evolutionary biologist, and that's my educational background. I have a bachelor's degree in environmental science. It is frustrating when I talk to "creation scientists" who have very little understanding of everyday biology, and even less of geology. When they look at a rock, they see a rock, when the look at a plant or animal, they see a plant or animal. I look at these things and I can't help but see a history stretching back billions of years.

[lansing]

12. I'm trying

to get this straight in my head.

Do you mean, that a person that is a scientist, with a doctorate, may not know what he is speaking of?

Scientist by their description, means they know.

[DrWeird]

16. Not at all.

The only things scientists are experts on is their doctoral thesis.

As an astrophysicist, he's not particularly qualified to talk about global warming, or mercury emissions. At least anymore than the next guy.

[Fish08]

27. Most scientists spend their lives

covering one particular area of science and still only graze the surface or their chosen disipline. So no, scientist don't really know as such. For someone out of another field to jump in and give their "expert" opinion out of their subject is almost always a ridiculous excercise and one ruled by special interests. To fit with the current administrations ideology and big business they have repeatadly used this tactic to fool the layman. Its just a pity that the media gives unwarranted attention to these mostly bogus claims, and largely ignore published, peer reviewed scientific work of the experts who really know what their talking about.

[enki23]

5. mercury comes from "supernovas?"

that's his answer? for real?

i was under the impression that almost *ALL* atoms of the heavy elements on *every* planet have been ejected, at some point, by a god damned supernova. since the interiors of stars are the only places these heavy elements can form, and the major way that interiors of stars end up elsewhere is through supernovae... what the hell is his point?

[phantom power]

7. pretty much every element heavier than iron is created that way

As you say, what's the point?

[DrWeird]

8. Chewebacca is a Wookie from the planet Kashyyyk.

Ergo, no global warming.

[Donkeyboy75]

22. My doctoral thesis was in evolutionary biology of the Wookie.

Their planet is "Kashyyk."

Ergo, no global warming caused by HUMANS.

[NNadir]

10. I think its time for legislation banning supernovas.

They put out many toxic elements besides Mercury, including Lead, Thallium, Cadmium, not to mention Uranium and Thorium.

While we're at it, we ought to ban interstellar clouds and cosmic rays. They are responsible for the highly toxic element Beryllium.

[hatrack]

11. Don't forget gallium and praseodymium!!

Brothers and sisters, are you aware of the Godless threat of praseodymium?? Learn more by caling this toll-free number without delay!!!

[phantom power]

14. let us not forget Cesium

Oh Cesium
(Tune, Oh Christmas tree)

Oh Cesium, oh Cesium,
Thy spectrum doth us please-ium.
Thy sky-blue lines in plasma's fire,
Do dreams of icy lakes inspire.
Oh Cesium, oh Cesium,
Thy spectrum doth us please-ium.

Oh Cesium, oh Cesium,
When held, you never freeze-ium.
Thy gently smoking silver spheres,
When dropped in water, please the ears.
Oh Cesium, oh Cesium,
When held, you never freeze-ium.

Oh Cesium, oh Cesium,
You put us at our ease-ium.
You tend the seconds of the day,
So that our watches never stray
Oh Cesium, oh Cesium,
You put us at our ease-ium.

---Songs of Cesium #34

http://www.cs.rochester.edu/users/faculty/nelson/cesium/cesium_songs.html

[LibLabUK]

15. Hehehe...

The IUPAC spelling is caesium... I didn't realise until your post that the US spelling differed.

[NNadir]

17. I like that.

We need a song about Francium.

[hatrack]

18. That's "Freedomium" to YOU, buddy!!

Now, drop and give me twenty, you lousy Commie quantamist!! :evilgrin:

[NNadir]

20. I'll give you twenty as soon as I figure what a quanamist is. n/t

[hatrack]

25. Quantamist - one who buys into the radical relativism of quantum theory!

So, Niels Bohr dreamed this up? Hmm . . . yet another radical European theoretician ought to destroy America's moral fiber, I dare say!!

:toast:

[NNadir]

26. OK, I'll drop and give you twenty. But don't look. It won't be a pretty

sight.

[phantom power]

19. O Francium, O Francium

you warm up in my pants-ium...

[NNadir]

21. No offense, but if this is the best tune, we can be thankful for the...

...Internet.

Peut-je proposer:

Francium free verse

Francium Haiku

Francium comix

Francium culture.


From the last: "Francium is, of course, fiercely radioactive. Which makes it, admittedly, unstable; most of its thirty isotopes have a half-life of less than a minute. So it's transient. But aren't we all? C'est la vie, as francium itself would say with that inimitably gallic shrug of its shoulders. A short life, perhaps, but an intense one.

In matters of the heart, it is hot as hot."

[Donkeyboy75]

23. We'll call it the Glenn Seaborg bill!

[blindpig]

9. funny

that most of these scientist who take RW/coporatist/creationist positions are expounding out of their fields of expertise. Seems like most of those promoting creationism are chemist, not biologist or geologist. Shills & dingbats.

[lansing]

13. But!

They have Doctorates. So it seems that, even I know more about biology,
a person with a doctorate in sub-atomic particles caries more weight

[Donkeyboy75]

24. Are you being serious?

A critical thinking skill set is more important than a piece of paper, especially if venturing outside your field.