Ask Jot

Chosen Answer by sp19

I had this book for one of my classes. In my opinion he's a bit of a socialist. With all his talk about taking care of the community. I really did enjoy the chapter about hyper-individualism though. He makes a lot of good points, but isn't that great of a book. Like you said he doesn't have many core sources, just his first hand accounts which I think are always helpful, but he needs more to make this book great.

Chosen Answer by animistpagan01

I'd certainly recommend "The End of Nature" and "The Age of Missing Information". Check Amazon for other titles, but I'd say these are his two most 'popular' titles.

Chosen Answer by bravozulu

It is meaningless erroneous unscientific alarmist blather. I might not be so harsh if his basic premise wasn't so incredibly ignorant. The pH is a logarithmic scale and that is how pH is measured. The concentration of hydronium ions may be increased by 30 percent but pH isn't measured by that scale. You don't say something is 30 percent more acidic unless you are just an alarmist. I guess to be an alarmists is to ignore actual customary English and scientific meaning and just insert what feels good to you. The pH varies considerably over time. It has been lower and higher. http://co2science.org/articles/V12/N22/EDIT.php The ocean isn't distilled water in a glass beaker though that probably comes as a surprise to alarmists based on how they seem to think that CO2 can actually acidify the ocean. It can't to any significant or probably measurable degree. pH is increased when you have more photosynthesis happening and it gets more acidic as decomposition occurs. The amount of carbon produced by humans probably increased the ocean carbon about a percent. There is about ten times as much calcium and a hundred times as much magnesium in the water. There is hundreds or thousands of times more calcium carbonate than carbon in solution or limestone that is in the seafloor that would resist any change of pH. I am certain the number is many thousands but couldn't find the reference. It is a reasonable number. All limestone used to be sea floor. For those that don't know, limestone will neutralize acid and release calcium carbonate into the water. That has a positive effect on life even though it contains that evil "poison" carbon. You don't get an acid ocean with that amount of limestone in it. The amount of limestone is many thousands of times higher than the amount of carbon in the ocean which dwarfs what humans have released into the atmosphere. Not sure how alarmists pretend to get around that little logical flaw except to pretend it doesn't exist and see how many schoolchildren they can frighten with their ignorant unscientific propaganda.

Chosen Answer by tom_terrific73

I did a www.dogpile.com search and found a few hits, but nothing promising, at: http://www.dogpile.com/info.dogpl/search/web/thesis%252BBill%252BMcKibben%252527s%252BDesigner%252BGenes%25252C%252Bpublished%252BOrion%252B2003/1/-/1/-/-/-/1/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/417/top/-/-/-/1 I suggest asking your public library's 'research librarian,' to see if he/she can find it.

Chosen Answer by M D

Try this: "Bill McKribben's article offers valuable information to help raise awareness about the serious issue of global warming." Your original sentence wasn't incorrect, but it was a bit awkward. Sometimes, it helps to add a few extra words to smooth the flow. I think the two words that end in "-ness" so close together also made it sound awkward.