Hank Green: The Law of Incremental Suck (or Why to Never Give Up)

Crossposted from EcoGeek.org It seems like every month or so, I get a press release in my inbox saying something like "Scientists Say that The World Will Explode if We Don't Do X by Y." I have some news for you. 1. No one has any idea what will happen if we don't do X by Y 2. That headline was written by a journalist, not by a scientist Sure, in their models, scientists can see a precise date of when the gulf-stream will shut down or when the albedo effect will take over and global warming will be irreversible. But scientists recognize that models, however sophisticated, are not as sophisticated as the real world. Only a fool would take the date the model spit out and assume that that's the day of reckoning. Unfortunately, journalists (myself included) are often foolish. Our business is to get people to read things, preferably things that are true. But by the time it goes through three editors, each with a mind on the business, the chances of a headline with more units of ... (link)