Environmental statistics blog, with analysis

[Envirostats]

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to share my environmental statistics blog with you, Envirostats.

http://envirostats.info

Envirostats is primarily an environmental statistics blog of cited statistics found on-line, doubling as an on-line database in its organization. Statistics are analyzed for reliability and scrutinized for proper wording, and additional information is supplied with the statistic presentation. However, other vital environmental resources are also centralized at Envirostats, like PDF reports, original articles by the author and links to other environmental websites. Envirostats is kept in the spare time of its author, updated at least three times per day… on average, of course. There are also Canadian and Nova Scotian foci among all the stats presented.

I hope you will find it interesting and useful for your environmental pursuits. Thank you.

Minh

 

[Tonington]

I liked this from the article on farmed salmon:

More than 200,000 tonnes of farmed salmon has been sold as wild worldwide during the past 12 months, researchers from the University of British Columbia have found. This means that one in six pieces of farmed salmon sold was mislabelled as wild – and priced accordingly – leaving shoppers £1m out of pocket.

200,000 tonnes is a lot of fish. Are they sure it's only a cost of £1 million? That doesn't work out to much per portion at all.

 

[eh1eh]

It all seemed a tad slanted. It was pretty easy for you to pick out the first inconsistansy.

 

[Envirostats]

thank you for your comments

Thank you for your comments. I could not find the original report so I am not sure if the million pound is the British share of it, or maybe the portions sellable, or difference between the same amount of wild salmon and farmed, or what.

A lot of the numbers on the environment these days are not good, or just seem not good simply because they look at total impacts by various populations. Where they are not positive, I don't pull the punches, either, even if I stay away from the projections business. That's for the psychics. The numbers often speak for themselves (and they are a jaded bunch, btw), but sometimes, they need a translator.

Not all the analysis are of the simple kind to just pick out an "inconsisTENCY" here or there, btw. Perhaps a sampling of the 420+ statistics would give a better distribution.

If the analyses are ever not to your liking, there are always the options of not reading and drawing your own conclusions, posting on your blog, commenting on the blog itself, etc. The idea is that it helps generate talk about the issues.

 

[Tonington]

If it is on UK sales only, when they say one in six pieces sold were mislabeled, and priced accordingly, that still seems trivial. UK salmon consumption was in the area of 356 million meals for 2006, on the fresh market.

 

[Envirostats]

UK salmon stat

Hi, thanks for the info on the British salmon consumption stat, though a value with avg quantity per meal and a reference would always be nice as it leaves me or the readers with no reference for credentials otherwise, which is why I always list a reference with my stats.

I don't often grab stats just from a press story, which was why I left the comment that I could not find the original source on the blog. Most of the other entries are not like that. Some original sources are there.

If the stat doesn't make sense, sorry, but if you need to sort it out, perhaps you could figure it out and inform me of the correct values, or just put your comments so other readers know to beware of that statistic, but I don't have the time or interest to hunt it down in this case. My motive to putting that statistic on the salmon there was to raise the issue that was no longer neglectable but still not highly prominent. The Guardian, like any other source I choose, has its own reputation to protect in reporting what it does, be it numbers or claims the UBC researchers made (and I had posted info by those researchers before) so I'll take it for what it's worth if I choose to accept it for my purposes. Note, though, I didn't list the 1 million pound vaue that was your initial query from the original story. You'll have to ask them about that.

For issues like energy, GHGs, and such, I'm much more scrutinizing. I'll leave it at that because really, I don't have the time to get this nit-picky over some stats, and won't for most stats because I want to be posting, not arguing. I have sufficient confidence in my abilities to sort through the numbers to stand by them, though always welcome all points of view on the blog and then let the readers decide for themselves seeing my posts and comments left by others.

Thanks again for your insight.

Minh

 

[Tonington]

Hey no worries. I too watch environmental stats with great interest.

I only queried the salmon stats as my area of study at university is Aquaculture and there is a great deal of negative press, some warranted. I'd switch majors to climate studies in a second if I weren't so far along in my studies. As it is, I'll have to continue as an amateur

Not sure if this is in your blog anywhere, I did a search, but it didn't hit. Some info on state renewable electricity standards.
http://www.uspirg.org/home/reports