Less Than Two Percent

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

I like reading Alan Caruba’s blog, and I’m referencing here because (a) I hope you’ll start to read Alan Caruba’s blog and (b) Alan passes on (but does not create!) a little bit of under-information that needs to be revealed.

http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/

Quotes Caruba: It does note that “The University of Arkansas’ Applied Sustainability Center estimates the dairy industry contributes less than 2 percent of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.”

Whenever someone (again, in this case NOT Caruba!) tells you that something is “less than” or “more than”, be on the lookout.

Suppose that the contribution is 1.9 percent. Then the statement is true, and no harm is done.

But suppose that the contribution is 0.0009 percent. Then the statement remains true, since 0.0009 percent is indeed less than 2 percent, but Oh! How misleading it is.

It is, to coin a phrase, less than true.

In this particular case, when The University of Arkansas’ Applied Sustainability Center estimates … less than 2 percent …I suspect that someone is trying to hide a real fact.

In this case, perhaps the contribution is 0.0009 percent, and there really, really is nothing to fear from dairy cows. But then the government grants would not be forthcoming, would they?

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