The more I’ve written, the more critical I’ve become of others’ writing. When I read passages, regardless of content, in many a case not only do I find that they lack substantive data (otherwise known as “the essentials”), but also that they’re short on facts.
I feel the best way I can support this allegation is to provide a pointed and pertinent example.
Okay, so check this declaration out.
“The amount of CO2 emissions removed by shuttering such and such coal-fired power plant, is equivalent to taking 2 million cars off the road.”
That declaration, though quite common, doesn’t tell one all one needs to know, unfortunately.
The problem is we don’t know the time duration we’re talking about here.
Would it be correct to assume that the time duration in question is over the power plant’s entire lifetime? If you ask me, that’s a slippery slope.
Moreover, what kinds of cars with what miles-per-gallon-of-gasoline fuel rating must be factored in? The presumption being we’re not alluding to electric cars, although they could be included if the energy generated to create the electricity needed to recharge electric-car batteries is produced uncleanly, in this case meaning via the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil or natural gas, there, obviously, being variability amongst those three.
So, when I read (or hear) a declaration like: “The amount of CO2 emissions removed by shuttering such and such coal-fired power plant, is equivalent to taking 2 million cars off the road,” I have to take it with a grain of salt; there isn’t any other way one can look at this. The fact is, it lacks sufficient — and necessary — detail.
A better way of stating such declaration might be “The amount of yearly CO2 emissions removed by shuttering such and such coal-fired power plant, is equivalent to that which is produced by 2 million cars having an average 25 miles-per-gallon fuel economy rating.”
This replacement so-called “equivalency” statement may be a little longer in length, but it is more precise and puts things in further context, context introduced that wouldn’t be there otherwise.
Why it matters
It all comes down to getting the needed information in front of the public as a means to help the public become properly or better informed.
But, it isn’t just that. If I can assist in helping another writer improve on their own writing (what is also known as giving constructive criticism), I will take the opportunity to do so. At the same time, it is also my hope that other writers reciprocate and afford me that same consideration.
Bottom line, making one’s case by having the facts as well as the particulars is what this thread is all about.
And, now for something completely different
So now I want to direct your attention to a commentary I published on Jan. 1, 2017 on the Air Quality Matters blog. The post title is: “Air of discontent: An 878-word opinion piece for the record books.”
In one section, now retired and then Fresno Bee columnist Bill McEwen, in his “Top 10 stories of the year” story, cites then Sacramento Bee commentary and political writer Dan Walters who surmised: “All in all … it’s likely that the bullet train as envisioned, linking San Francisco and Sacramento in the north with Los Angeles and San Diego in the south, won’t materialize.”
As if to be echoing that, McEwen submitted: “Odds are that Californians won’t get the bullet-train system they voted for in 2008.”
Here is what I find most astonishing though. A little farther on in the same Fresno Bee piece, McEwen alluded to how the economy was being propped up by the at-the-time hundreds of millions of dollars materializing annually, injected into such and credited to California high-speed-rail construction.
So let me see if I have this straight. “‘Odds are that Californians won’t get the bullet-train system they voted for in 2008,’” and “…the economy was being propped up by the at-the-time hundreds of millions of dollars materializing annually, injected into such and credited to California high-speed-rail construction.”
It is those two ideas that are what seem at odds here and the reason for my laying this all out.
At any rate, you can read about that and more here.
