If you subscribe to AOL, as you know when you login you are greeted with (besides the famous "You've Got Mail" audio) the visual of today's top news. While I in general like AOL, I have from time to time (not infrequently) found its top news headlines somewhat lacking in accurately capturing the story being reported. Today's AOL headline on the Shuttle astronaut's environmental observations proves no exception. First, the headline:
Damage Seen From Space-Astronauts Say Atmosphere Looks Like "Eggshell": Other Signs of Harm
When I read this headline, my first reaction was that pollution has actually caused our atmosphere to compress in size (!)-- the link to the Reuters story is the "Other Kinds of Harm" language that follows "Atmosphere Looks Like 'Eggshell".
Here, however, is the "eggshell" comment in the context of the Reuters story featured in the above AOL headline:
"Sometimes you can see how there is erosion, and you can see how there is deforestation. It's very widespread in some parts of the world," Collins said in a conversation from space with Japanese officials in Tokyo, including Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.
"We would like to see, from the astronauts' point of view, people take good care of the Earth and replace the resources that have been used," said Collins, who was standing with Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi in front of a Japanese flag and holding a colorful fan.
Collins, flying her fourth shuttle mission, said the view from space made clear that Earth's atmosphere must be protected, too.
"The atmosphere almost looks like an eggshell on an egg, it's so very thin," she said. "We know that we don't have much air, we need to protect what we have."
(emphasis added)
Reading Astronaut Collins' quote in context makes plain that she was observing, as a matter of historical fact, that the Earth's atmosphere is thin--something we have known since before "global" was ever put together with "warming" to coin one of today's favorite phrases. She was not saying, as implied by the AOL headline, that pollution has been a cause of the thinness of the atmosphere.
It is time for AOL to ask their headline writers to read the stories posted before writing the stories' headlines--something which the writers to date appear reluctant or too busy to do.
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