Canadian Politics Today

Beyond Ottawa => Provincial and Local Politics => Topic started by: Squidward von Squidderson on February 18, 2019, 02:47:14 pm

Title: Tar Sands Companies Fudge Environmental Assessments
Post by: Squidward von Squidderson on February 18, 2019, 02:47:14 pm
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/oilsands-environmental-impact-studies-flawed-inconsistent-science-edmonton-1.5023488
Quote
Dozens of oilsands environmental impact studies are marred by inconsistent science that's rarely subjected to independent checks, says a university study.

"It doesn't make any sense," says University of British Columbia biology professor Adam Ford, who published his findings in the journal Environmental Reviews.

"You would have to go out of your way to make it this bad. It's just a symptom of the state of the industry and it's definitely a signal that we can do better."


Oil companies covering up the true environmental costs of the tar sands...   what a shocker.   

They should be charged criminally for fudging these reports. 
Title: Re: Tar Sands Companies Fudge Environmental Assessments
Post by: ?Impact on February 18, 2019, 02:55:45 pm
They should be charged criminally for fudging these reports.

Unfortunately this is a huge problem in many industries, and goes back decades. I had a co-worker who studied environmental science, but got disillusioned as the majority of job prospects involved him fudging results for corporate concerns. His focus was on amphibian habitats, but construction companies wanted to figure out how to do the minimum like building fences to get their projects approved and then let the fences fall into disrepair. After a few years of that BS, he changed professions.
Title: Re: Tar Sands Companies Fudge Environmental Assessments
Post by: TimG on February 18, 2019, 03:01:19 pm
Oil companies covering up the true environmental costs of the tar sands...   what a shocker.
I don't see any difference from climate science where the mantra is "if the data does not match my theory then invent bogus adjustments to make the data match". The only difference is the CBC is not going to report on shoddy climate science.
Title: Re: Tar Sands Companies Fudge Environmental Assessments
Post by: Omni on February 18, 2019, 03:34:05 pm
I don't see any difference from climate science where the mantra is "if the data does not match my theory then invent bogus adjustments to make the data match". The only difference is the CBC is not going to report on shoddy climate science.

Maybe we should put you in charge of reporting shoddy climate science. Hint: you can find most of it among global warming deniers.
Title: Re: Tar Sands Companies Fudge Environmental Assessments
Post by: Squidward von Squidderson on February 18, 2019, 05:32:10 pm
I don't see any difference from climate science where the mantra is "if the data does not match my theory then invent bogus adjustments to make the data match". The only difference is the CBC is not going to report on shoddy climate science.

This is exactly what the flat earthers say...   people are "hiding the real data".... 

Also, anti-vaxers say this about the science that vaccinations cause autism...  "oh, they are suppressing the science".

Same difference between you and the other science-refuting nutbars.
Title: Re: Tar Sands Companies Fudge Environmental Assessments
Post by: eyeball on February 18, 2019, 06:07:27 pm
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/oilsands-environmental-impact-studies-flawed-inconsistent-science-edmonton-1.5023488
Oil companies covering up the true environmental costs of the tar sands...   what a shocker.   

They should be charged criminally for fudging these reports.
Thankfully we have deferred prosecution agreements now.

So I wonder how long it will be until they morph DPA's into financial instruments that can be traded like production quotas, carbon credits or bearer bonds?  Maybe it could be sold like insurance. 

If corruption is an absolute must and the economy just cannot live without it could we not monetize it in a way that we can at least account for the costs it comes with and tax it like any other vice we've grown comfortable with?
Title: Re: Tar Sands Companies Fudge Environmental Assessments
Post by: ?Impact on February 18, 2019, 06:16:17 pm
DPA's have been around in other countries for a while. Probably the US led with them about 30-40 years ago, but the UK, France, Japan, and Singapore also have them. Australia is working on legislation, comment period closed last summer but to the best of my knowledge it is still pending.
Title: Re: Tar Sands Companies Fudge Environmental Assessments
Post by: kimmy on February 18, 2019, 07:18:11 pm
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/oilsands-environmental-impact-studies-flawed-inconsistent-science-edmonton-1.5023488
Oil companies covering up the true environmental costs of the tar sands...   what a shocker.   

They should be charged criminally for fudging these reports.

Mr Ford isn't alleging any fudging, cover-up, or criminal activity.  He is criticizing a lack of uniform methodology in these impact studies.

 -k
Title: Re: Tar Sands Companies Fudge Environmental Assessments
Post by: Squidward von Squidderson on February 18, 2019, 07:31:43 pm
“You would have to go out of your way to make it this bad” implies lies. 
Title: Re: Tar Sands Companies Fudge Environmental Assessments
Post by: TimG on February 18, 2019, 07:53:21 pm
This is exactly what the flat earthers say...   people are "hiding the real data"....
Nobody is hiding the data. It is available and it is easy to see how climate scientists have consistently dealt with any differences between the models and the real data by adding ad hoc, subjective adjustments to correct "errors". These adjustments are often so large they turn what used to be data into a meaningless fiction. If these so called errors really do exist in the data then the correct answer is "we don't have any reliable data so we can't say anything". But that is not the answer they give. Instead the say "see the data matches our models after we added our "corrections". Complete BS.

If a drug company pulled these kinds of stunts in a drug trial they would be facing major lawsuits and possible criminal charges. But with climate science the legions of useful idiot run around screaming "denier" at anyone who points out how pathetically shoddy the science is.

All I am asking is that climate scientists be held to the same standards that drug companies are held to. Is that really too much to ask?
Title: Re: Tar Sands Companies Fudge Environmental Assessments
Post by: kimmy on February 18, 2019, 08:06:02 pm
“You would have to go out of your way to make it this bad” implies lies.

The text of the article makes clear that he's criticizing inconsistent methodology.   He was able to access all of these reports to compile his analysis.  And the basis of his complaint is that the reports use wildly differing methodology.

He's not alleging these reports are falsified, no matter how badly you wish he were.

 -k
Title: Re: Tar Sands Companies Fudge Environmental Assessments
Post by: Omni on February 18, 2019, 08:41:15 pm
Nobody is hiding the data. It is available and it is easy to see how climate scientists have consistently dealt with any differences between the models and the real data by adding ad hoc, subjective adjustments to correct "errors". These adjustments are often so large they turn what used to be data into a meaningless fiction. If these so called errors really do exist in the data then the correct answer is "we don't have any reliable data so we can't say anything". But that is not the answer they give. Instead the say "see the data matches our models after we added our "corrections". Complete BS.

If a drug company pulled these kinds of stunts in a drug trial they would be facing major lawsuits and possible criminal charges. But with climate science the legions of useful idiot run around screaming "denier" at anyone who points out how pathetically shoddy the science is.

All I am asking is that climate scientists be held to the same standards that drug companies are held to. Is that really too much to ask?

Trying to conflate bayer aspirin to NASA is about as dumb a concept as you have come up with so far.
Title: Re: Tar Sands Companies Fudge Environmental Assessments
Post by: Squidward von Squidderson on February 18, 2019, 08:48:21 pm
The text of the article makes clear that he's criticizing inconsistent methodology.   He was able to access all of these reports to compile his analysis.  And the basis of his complaint is that the reports use wildly differing methodology.

He's not alleging these reports are falsified, no matter how badly you wish he were.

 -k

Do you think these oil companies wanted to use the best science available in their pre-drilling environmental assessments?
Title: Re: Tar Sands Companies Fudge Environmental Assessments
Post by: TimG on February 18, 2019, 09:13:12 pm
Do you think these oil companies wanted to use the best science available in their pre-drilling environmental assessments?
So do you think that climate scientists use the best science available in their attribution studies or do you think they fudge the numbers to ensure they have something exciting to publish?

You seem to want to infer that profit motivated companies are going to cheat if they can but you refuse to consider the possibility that government funded scientists might do the same thing.
Why the shameless hypocrisy?
Title: Re: Tar Sands Companies Fudge Environmental Assessments
Post by: Omni on February 18, 2019, 09:17:12 pm
So do you think that climate scientists use the best science available in their attribution studies or do you think they fudge the numbers to ensure they have something exciting to publish?

You seem to want to infer that profit motivated companies are going to cheat if they can but you refuse to consider the possibility that government funded scientists might do the same thing.
Why the shameless hypocrisy?

Most scientists work for governments and so are not "profit motivated". Another rather dumb attempt from you.
Title: Re: Tar Sands Companies Fudge Environmental Assessments
Post by: Queefer Sutherland on February 18, 2019, 09:19:50 pm
Similar to what tobacco companies.  How many millions died from their lies & lobbying?

Read it and weep folks. Politics, including office politics, even follows its way into science.  I assume this has been around forever though:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/second-opinion-scientists-data-fudging-1.4861556
Title: Re: Tar Sands Companies Fudge Environmental Assessments
Post by: Omni on February 18, 2019, 09:24:07 pm
"The trend today is to Dumaurier"
Title: Re: Tar Sands Companies Fudge Environmental Assessments
Post by: kimmy on February 18, 2019, 09:25:17 pm
Do you think these oil companies wanted to use the best science available in their pre-drilling environmental assessments?

They might well not.  The basis of Mr Ford's complaint is the lack of standardization in requirements for these studies.  There aren't sufficient rules to follow, to set forth what "the best science available" even means when putting these impact studies together. That's what Mr Ford is calling for.

 -k
Title: Re: Tar Sands Companies Fudge Environmental Assessments
Post by: Queefer Sutherland on February 18, 2019, 09:51:59 pm
I have for years no longer read news articles about climate change, because i don't know who is writing the article, what their agenda is, or what the agenda of the scientist(s) and journals in question are etc., if any.  This comes from all sides of the spectrum. It's so easy for a journalist or news outlet to cherry pick a particular study or scientist to advance a certain narrative.  This is the sad state of the climate issue.

The only thing closest to what i can say I can logically trust is looking at what a very broad and strong consensus of the large majority of climate scientists think.

I certainly would never believe anything coming from a tar sands company or any energy company, nor most environmental groups for that matter.
Title: Re: Tar Sands Companies Fudge Environmental Assessments
Post by: TimG on February 18, 2019, 10:33:13 pm
The only thing closest to what i can say I can logically trust is looking at what a very broad and strong consensus of the large majority of climate scientists think.
Forget about consensus. In any field worthy of being called science there will no consensus as scientists stake out different ideas for explaining the observations. The only time consensus may matter is when you have repeatable studies such as double blind medical trials which provide independent confirmation of theories. We don't have those in climate science.
Title: Re: Tar Sands Companies Fudge Environmental Assessments
Post by: Queefer Sutherland on February 18, 2019, 11:07:23 pm
Forget about consensus. In any field worthy of being called science there will no consensus as scientists stake out different ideas for explaining the observations. The only time consensus may matter is when you have repeatable studies such as double blind medical trials which provide independent confirmation of theories. We don't have those in climate science.

But logically we as a society need to take a stance on climate change. Either acting or not acting is a choice, and it needs to be made and it needs to be based on something. 

There will be no consensus of all scientists, climate involves far too many variables for people to all agree on the impact of all these variables. But if most of them are doing any kind of proper job we should be able to see where most of them think we're roughly headed.
Title: Re: Tar Sands Companies Fudge Environmental Assessments
Post by: Omni on February 18, 2019, 11:12:37 pm
But logically we as a society need to take a stance on climate change. Either acting or not acting is a choice, and it needs to be made and it needs to be based on something. 

There will be no consensus of all scientists, climate involves far too many variables for people to all agree on the impact of all these variables. But if most of them are doing any kind of proper job we should be able to see where most of them think we're roughly headed.
97% of peer reviewed climate scientists agree. That's pretrty close to a consensus don't ya think?
Title: Re: Tar Sands Companies Fudge Environmental Assessments
Post by: Queefer Sutherland on February 18, 2019, 11:23:18 pm
97% of peer reviewed climate scientists agree. That's pretrty close to a consensus don't ya think?

Isn't it 97% of peer-reviewed papers, not scientists?

Quote
Several studies of the consensus have been undertaken.[1] Among the most-cited is a 2013 study of nearly 12,000 abstracts of peer-reviewed papers on climate science published since 1990, of which just over 4,000 papers expressed an opinion on the cause of recent global warming. Of these, 97% agree, explicitly or implicitly, that global warming is happening and is human-caused.[2][3] It is "extremely likely"[4] that this warming arises from "... human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases ..."[4] in the atmosphere.[5]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change#Scientific_consensus

But ok then you have to look at how much warming, the impact of the warming, not just the warming itself, and costs/benefits of all options.
Title: Re: Tar Sands Companies Fudge Environmental Assessments
Post by: TimG on February 18, 2019, 11:29:15 pm
But logically we as a society need to take a stance on climate change. Either acting or not acting is a choice, and it needs to be made and it needs to be based on something.
I could not disagree more since "acting" by wasting resources on showy gestures that accomplish nothing is worse that doing nothing. What we need is a rational approach to policy that is driven by what is economically and technically feasible. The trouble is rational action means change that is slow and deliberate while people addicted to alarm scream about how we are not doing enough. Rational action also requires the use of technologies which are available such as nuclear. People who claim to care about CO2 but reject nuclear are no different from people who say we should expand the of coal even when economically viable alternatives such as natural gas exist.
Title: Re: Tar Sands Companies Fudge Environmental Assessments
Post by: TimG on February 18, 2019, 11:32:43 pm
Isn't it 97% of peer-reviewed papers, not scientists?
Stats like this are bait and switch propaganda are useless when it comes to understanding what is known and what is not known. You will get 97% of scientists agreeing that CO2 is a GHG and so do most skeptics but if you ask a more relevant question such as whether CO2 is serious concern the percentage drops to 80% - still a majority but 20% is a significant number who think it is not a serious concern.

BTW - I have explained this distinction many times but Omni keeps posting this meaningless stat over and over like a bot. It is a good illustration why it is so difficult to have a rational discussion on this topic.
Title: Re: Tar Sands Companies Fudge Environmental Assessments
Post by: waldo on February 19, 2019, 12:15:39 am
Stats like this are bait and switch propaganda are useless when it comes to understanding what is known and what is not known. You will get 97% of scientists agreeing that CO2 is a GHG and so do most skeptics but if you ask a more relevant question such as whether CO2 is serious concern the percentage drops to 80% - still a majority but 20% is a significant number who think it is not a serious concern.

BTW - I have explained this distinction many times but Omni keeps posting this meaningless stat over and over like a bot. It is a good illustration why it is so difficult to have a rational discussion on this topic.

no - respective study percentages vary between 90%-100%; a key determiner is (should be) climate science expertise based on active publishing... and 'agreement' is certainly more than your trivialized "CO2 is a GHG". The real agreement aligns with an acceptance of IPCC tenets of Anthropogenic Climate Change. You know, that lil' thingee the waldo forever reminds you of... that lil' thingee you won't accept - that makes you a denier! Specifically, an acceptance that, "anthropogenic greenhouse gases have been responsible for “most” of the “unequivocal” warming of the Earth's average global temperature over the second half of the 20th century".

remind the waldo again: the study that speaks to your referenced 20% of 'scientists' stating they think CO2 is not a serious concern - thanks in advance...
Title: Re: Tar Sands Companies Fudge Environmental Assessments
Post by: Omni on February 19, 2019, 12:42:05 am
Stats like this are bait and switch propaganda are useless when it comes to understanding what is known and what is not known. You will get 97% of scientists agreeing that CO2 is a GHG and so do most skeptics but if you ask a more relevant question such as whether CO2 is serious concern the percentage drops to 80% - still a majority but 20% is a significant number who think it is not a serious concern.

BTW - I have explained this distinction many times but Omni keeps posting this meaningless stat over and over like a bot. It is a good illustration why it is so difficult to have a rational discussion on this topic.

So even if we assume for as moment your stat is verifiable, you would somehow claim some sort of victory on this discussion if only 80% of scientists say you wrong? That's funny.
Title: Re: Tar Sands Companies Fudge Environmental Assessments
Post by: cybercoma on February 19, 2019, 07:50:28 am
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/oilsands-environmental-impact-studies-flawed-inconsistent-science-edmonton-1.5023488
Oil companies covering up the true environmental costs of the tar sands...   what a shocker.   

They should be charged criminally for fudging these reports.
Private revenues, public expenses. The entire energy sector should be made public, since we're paying the costs of their operations anyway. We might as well be reaping the profits too.
Title: Re: Tar Sands Companies Fudge Environmental Assessments
Post by: cybercoma on February 19, 2019, 07:54:17 am
Mr Ford isn't alleging any fudging, cover-up, or criminal activity.  He is criticizing a lack of uniform methodology in these impact studies.

 -k
That's fine, but can he articulate the problems with the different methods? Just the fact that they're different isn't enough to throw them away. Understanding what those differences mean is more important.
Title: Re: Tar Sands Companies Fudge Environmental Assessments
Post by: kimmy on February 19, 2019, 10:24:40 am
That's fine, but can he articulate the problems with the different methods? Just the fact that they're different isn't enough to throw them away. Understanding what those differences mean is more important.

I don't think he's arguing that anything be thrown away.  He's calling for a more standardized approach. It looks to me like the main thrust of his argument is that they very wildly, which suggests that the regulatory bodies that evaluate these studies don't appear to have clear standards in deciding what's good or not good. Maybe they just put the report on a desk and measure how thick it is. I don't think he's saying that any particular methodology is crap, just that there doesn't seem to be any way of telling which reports are crap and which are not.  There might not be settled science on these issues yet. And maybe going forward one can look at all these reports with these different methodologies and find which ones were better than others.

 -k
Title: Re: Tar Sands Companies Fudge Environmental Assessments
Post by: Queefer Sutherland on February 19, 2019, 10:39:25 am
I could not disagree more since "acting" by wasting resources on showy gestures that accomplish nothing is worse that doing nothing.

Read again what i said:   "But logically we as a society need to take a stance on climate change. Either acting or not acting is a choice, and it needs to be made and it needs to be based on something. "

Not acting to greatly reduce CO2 and adapting to CC is a stance too, and it needs to be based on something.
Title: Re: Tar Sands Companies Fudge Environmental Assessments
Post by: waldo on February 19, 2019, 11:34:08 am
That's fine, but can he articulate the problems with the different methods? Just the fact that they're different isn't enough to throw them away. Understanding what those differences mean is more important.

full paper requires subscription/pay-per

Quantifying the impacts of oil sands development on wildlife: perspectives from impact assessments --- Mac A. Campbell, Brian Kopach, Petr E. Komers, Adam T. Ford --- Published 31 January 2019

Abstract

Quote
Anthropogenic landscape disturbances, including industrial development, can have significant impacts on wildlife populations. In Canada, federal, territorial, and provincial laws require major industrial development projects to submit detailed environmental impact assessments (EIA) reports as part of the project application process. These assessments are meant to establish baseline habitat conditions and predict which landscape components will be altered by the project and to what degree. Based on these changes, indirect predictions for wildlife impacts are made using a variety of models, which can vary in validation adequacy and often rely heavily on expert opinion.

In the oil sands region of Canada, wildlife species and habitat types used to make predictions are not comprehensive nor standardized between EIAs, despite a high degree of landscape similarity between projects. We extracted habitat model parameters, projected impacts, and anticipated mitigation effectiveness from 30 project EIAs. Despite all these projects occurring in the same natural region, we found very little agreement in the species used to assess wildlife impacts as well as the parameters used to model impacts on those species. Relative to unvalidated habitat models, we found that models receiving independent validation required half the habitat amount for proponents to conclude that the project will have an adverse effect.

Our analyses have exposed a number of areas where policy could improve the efficiency of the EIA process as well as the scientific rigour underlying regulatory decisions.
Title: Re: Tar Sands Companies Fudge Environmental Assessments
Post by: Squidward von Squidderson on February 19, 2019, 12:21:43 pm
I don't think he's arguing that anything be thrown away.  He's calling for a more standardized approach. It looks to me like the main thrust of his argument is that they very wildly, which suggests that the regulatory bodies that evaluate these studies don't appear to have clear standards in deciding what's good or not good. Maybe they just put the report on a desk and measure how thick it is. I don't think he's saying that any particular methodology is crap, just that there doesn't seem to be any way of telling which reports are crap and which are not.  There might not be settled science on these issues yet. And maybe going forward one can look at all these reports with these different methodologies and find which ones were better than others.

 -k

Projects in the same animal habitat didn't have the same species in their reports... 

This is not an oversight in some scientific methodology.    This is leaving entire species out of the oil company's environmental assessments...   hmmm...   I wonder how they missed that... 

Quote
"You would think that projects that are that close together, that are similar in nature, would have a more common set of shared species," he said.
------------------

Some 316 different mathematical models were used to measure habitat and they came up with different results from each other 82 per cent of the time.

Only 33 of the models were independently verified by field data or separate statistical methods. Ford found the assessments that used verification were about twice as likely to project serious lingering environmental impacts.

Since there's so much variation with so little checking, there's no way to tell which assessments are more accurate, Ford says.

"Given the largely inconsistent approaches used to measure and rank 'habitat,' we have no basis with which to measure the performance, accuracy, or reliability of most habitat models used in oilsands (assessment)," the paper says.

If they are using accredited biologists (RPBio), I hope they remove the accreditation of these biologists that are doing this shoddy, and dishonest,  work.

Quote
Ford says the current approach has real consequences for real people.

"There's people who live on this land (whose) culture and way of life is tied to those animals. And we're telling them we're pretty much making this up."

They're just "making this up".  And you're trying to defend the oil company's "scientific" work?   It's like defending big tobacco when they found no links between smoking and health.
Title: Re: Tar Sands Companies Fudge Environmental Assessments
Post by: TimG on February 19, 2019, 01:17:34 pm
Not acting to greatly reduce CO2 and adapting to CC is a stance too, and it needs to be based on something.
It is very important to accept that we do not and cannot know everything and large uncertainties exist. A lot of my issues with climate science could be resolved if people stopped talking about these various predictions of future outcomes as if they are foregone conclusions and instead frame them as possibilities that may or may not come true.
Title: Re: Tar Sands Companies Fudge Environmental Assessments
Post by: Omni on February 19, 2019, 01:21:31 pm
It is very important to accept that we do not and cannot know everything and large uncertainties exist. A lot of my issues with climate science could be resolved if people stopped talking about these various predictions of future outcomes as if they are foregone conclusions and instead frame them as possibilities that may or may not come true.

A rather feeble attempt to try to dismiss the actual science that shows what is happening to the climate.
Title: Re: Tar Sands Companies Fudge Environmental Assessments
Post by: ?Impact on February 19, 2019, 03:29:21 pm
I have for years no longer read news articles about climate change,

Problem solved, close your eyes and cover your ears and climate change is no longer.
Title: Re: Tar Sands Companies Fudge Environmental Assessments
Post by: Omni on February 19, 2019, 03:52:29 pm
Problem solved, close your eyes and cover your ears and climate change is no longer.

Yeah but hey, Donald Trump does the same thing. He ignores 13 of his own agencies and 300 of professional climate scientists. He just says "I don't believe it". So there ya go.
Mind you he also prefers to believe his buddy Vladi Putin over his own intel agencies. So there ya go.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/26/politics/donald-trump-climate-change/index.html

President Donald Trump on Monday dismissed a study produced by his own administration, involving 13 federal agencies and more than 300 leading climate scientists, warning of the potentially catastrophic impact of climate change.
Why, you ask?
"I don't believe it," Trump told reporters on Monday, adding that he had read "some" of the report.
Title: Re: Tar Sands Companies Fudge Environmental Assessments
Post by: cybercoma on February 20, 2019, 07:47:41 am
He's calling for a more standardized approach.
This doesn't work in research because data sources, research questions, and even research resources vary. As long as methods are clearly explained, someone educated in the field can understand what the limitations are.

It looks to me like the main thrust of his argument is that they very wildly, which suggests that the regulatory bodies that evaluate these studies don't appear to have clear standards in deciding what's good or not good.
One doesn't necessarily follow from the other. Varying methods doesn't undermine the findings. Varying methods just makes interpretation more work. Just because different studies use different methodologies, that doesn't mean their conclusions are not sound.

Maybe they just put the report on a desk and measure how thick it is.
Don't be facetious.

I don't think he's saying that any particular methodology is crap, just that there doesn't seem to be any way of telling which reports are crap and which are not.
They might all be good. It doesn't mean that some are crap and some aren't because they use different methods. It's just a matter of understanding what they're reporting and how they've come to those conclusions. It involves actually reading, understanding, and analyzing the material. All things the public doesn't have the time nor attention span to do.

There might not be settled science on these issues yet. And maybe going forward one can look at all these reports with these different methodologies and find which ones were better than others.

 -k
That's certainly what needs to be done. All I'm saying is that a wide range of methodologies is not necessarily a problem. If there is a problem with some of the methodologies then they should be pointed out. It's not enough to just observe that many different methods were used. In fact, using a wide range of methods and coming up with largely the same results would imply that the findings are accurate. If there's a wide range of results and just as much of a range of methods, then we need to take the time to analyze how the methods influence the results.
Title: Re: Tar Sands Companies Fudge Environmental Assessments
Post by: cybercoma on February 20, 2019, 07:52:52 am
Projects in the same animal habitat didn't have the same species in their reports... 

This is not an oversight in some scientific methodology.    This is leaving entire species out of the oil company's environmental assessments...   hmmm...   I wonder how they missed that... 
That's not a difference in methodology, if those species are relevant to the area under assessment. That's just bad science. So it should be the case that these environmental assessments are independently reviewed. The problem with that is that it will delay projects even further and cost the government even more money. All the conservatives who cry about their tax dollars aren't going to like that.

They're just "making this up".  And you're trying to defend the oil company's "scientific" work?   It's like defending big tobacco when they found no links between smoking and health.
Just so. These impact assessments should be done by independent third parties. Not those with a conflict of interest, ie, being paid by the oil companies.
Title: Re: Tar Sands Companies Fudge Environmental Assessments
Post by: Rue on February 20, 2019, 09:39:13 am
Mr Ford isn't alleging any fudging, cover-up, or criminal activity.  He is criticizing a lack of uniform methodology in these impact studies.

 -k

Would you stop being accurate and explaining the actual comment he made. This is a Liberal fiction forum. The world is according to Squid-Omni projections. Either that or the Mandela effect is kicking in and you are from another dimension. I can't handle it man. Are you Kimmy or Kimy?
Jif or Jiffy?
Title: Re: Tar Sands Companies Fudge Environmental Assessments
Post by: ?Impact on May 23, 2019, 07:12:52 pm
Also, anti-vaxers say this about the science that vaccinations cause autism...  "oh, they are suppressing the science".

Speaking of autism, I just learned there is a cure. Apparently the old MMS (Miracle Mineral Supplement) also known as CD (Chlorine Dioxide) is now being touted as a cure for autism. Those same people who preferred their (and other) kids die of measles instead of getting the vaccine are now feeding them bleach.