Brian Gongol
Even scientists don't like reading science articles with lots of equations
According to a study by a couple of British authors, "The density of equations in an article has a significant negative impact on citation rates, with papers receiving 28% fewer citations overall for each additional equation per page in the main text." But when authors moved their equations to the appendix rather than the main text, the effect went away.
China now emits almost as much carbon dioxide per person as Europe
The country has been the world's biggest single-nation source of carbon dioxide for half a decade now, and it's rapidly closing in on European levels of per-person production. If current trends continue, it won't be long before it eclipses US production per person. So, here's a question: Are there people who up until now have argued against controls on CO2 emissions, but upon learning that China's production rates are enormous and rising rapidly might change opinions and think that controls may be wise? The problem with greenhouse gases and global warming is that much of what we think is cloaked either in unknowables or in pre-conceived notions? There are some on the anti-controls side who will argue against any kinds of controls (no matter what the evidence) -- up until the point when the problem can be blamed more on somebody else (in this case, the Chinese). And there are others who are quite certain that no matter what the consequences, draconian limits must be imposed -- even if an argument can be made that it would be smarter to spend the same amount of money on a range of other life-saving programs than on global-warming projects.
