I would comment on Dr. Heidi Cullen’s statement that meteorologists who are skeptical of catastrophic AGW should be deprived of their AMS certification, but I gave up on The Weather Channel years ago. Given their steady progress towards disaster infotainment (It Could Happen Tomorrow! [even though whatever it is is highly unlikely {but we won’t say anything about that}]) instead of actual science, this sort of thinking is inevitable. I am very disappointed with Georgia Tech, though. Dr. Cullen is listed under research staff in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. In light of recent publications and statements by the EAS chair, Judith Curry, and other researchers there, maybe it’s not so surprising, though they should really be more honest and take the “sciences” part out of the school’s name and replace it with something more accurate like “alarmists” or “statistics” or just plain “studies”. Or even more accurately, rename it the “E & A Grant Money Furnace”. But onwards to

The poison is in the dose, part 2

Mercury
Carbon dioxide
Iodine
Vitamins (any of them) now called "antioxidants"

Selenium
Fat
Salt
Cholesterol
Oxygen
Water

What do these things have in common? They have all been in the news recently and are all beneficial or harmless AT THE PROPER DOSE and toxic at higher doses. They have also all been needlessly either demonized or hyped in the media so that people have unrealistic fears and/or expectations about them. We looked at what happens to people who don't understand this about water in the previous post, i.e. , it's good for me so drinking a ridiculous amount won't hurt me. The same thing is happening with antioxidants, selenium (a mineral also classified as an antioxidant), and oxygen. Since small amounts of these things are beneficial and one can actually suffer from a vitamin deficiency, than large amounts must be even more beneficial and may even keep you from getting cancer, right? Well, probably not. But that doesn't stop desperate people from believing the hype and overdosing and killing themselves. "Oxygen bars" trade in on this same reasoning, though they haven't managed to kill anyone yet. But a large amount of oxygen is toxic and can cause lung damage and death, as all divers know.

The other things on the list are recognized by most people as toxic, but again most don't realize that this is only when thay are only in certain amounts and in certain forms. Several recent thermometer spills have revealed the silliness surrounding mercury. Yes, mercury vapor is toxic when one is exposed to a substantial amount over a long period of time, but the Occupational Exposure Standard for mercury is .025 mg per cubic meter of air over an 8 hour period. Elemental mercury such as what we find in thermometers has a very low vapor pressure (it evaporates VERY slowly at terrestrial temperatures and pressures), so even if you left the spilled mercury from a thermometer sitting on the floor in a sealed 1 cubic meter room with no air exchange, it would be over a year before enough vapor got into the air to be even marginally hazardous. But we still have silly overreactions and costly cleanups, some even getting the EPA involved.

Anyone who has been conscious for the past ten years knows how dangerous fat and cholesterol are. We see ad after ad for drugs to lower our cholesterol levels and for low fat foods, which we should all consume lest we have heart attacks and die. That there is not much actual evidence at all that high fat diets or high/low cholesterol levels (HDL or LDL) cause heart disease is hardly ever mentioned. That some dietary fat is necessary to good health, and that the body manufactures its own cholesterol independently of what we consume (which is vital for brain cells, BTW) also gets short shrift. Yes, TOO MUCH of anything is bad for you, but that doesn't mean that none at all is better.

Salt seems to be off the radar right now as a health hazard, though we went through a period in the 70s and 80s where it also was deemed dangerous even in small amounts by the health nannies. What's going on with salt right now is salt snobbery - sea salt is better than regular old Morton's, exotic pricey salts supposedly taste better and have more healthy minerals, etc. and don't have that artificially-added-by-evil-corporations iodine (which apparently ruins it for some reason). Again, this is a case where hype defeats reality. No matter where salt comes from it is sodium chloride - NaCl. Evaporating sea water to get the salt leaves you with NaCl, not anything else. It would be amusing to watch people paying ten and twenty times more than they need to for sodium chloride because they think it tastes better (!) than what us ignorant peons buy, but they also seem intent on taking us back to the days of iodine deficiencies, which the added iodine in table salt successfully eliminated. I really don't want to see people suffering with goiter or more mentally retarded young children for such a silly reason.

Lastly, British climate scientists have determined that there is "no safe level" of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. They've been playing with their computers again, and even though all climate models, including theirs, have been shown to be wildly inaccurate and incapable of even reproducing the known climate of the recent past, they somehow feel they can make statements like this. Unfortunately for their credibility, atmospheric CO2 is absolutely vital to all living things on this planet except for a few worms around deep sea vents. Plants can't photosynthesize without it and if they can't live, the rest of us are doomed. (Ever hear of "primary producers", guys?) I guess if we were all dead we would be "safe" in that nothing else could ever happen to us, but is this really what these guys are thinking? That since the addition of SOME CO2 in their model drives global temperatures higher IN THE MODEL , then ANY level of CO2 IN THE REAL WORLD is bad? [Hey, you, stop that breathing RIGHT NOW! You're adding CO2 to the atmosphere!] Do they really believe that levels of atmospheric CO2 are all that drive the climate, that it has nothing to do with that round yellow thing in the sky? Can anybody outside of Hollywood or Washington be that dense????

THE POISON IS IN THE DOSE!!!!!!!!!!