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Comment by anotherman554 | Hacker News Reader

"I've been seeing content on Tiktok where even 100 miles away they're seeing small dead fish which is apparently according to the folks making the videos a massive red flag."

I wouldn't bother watching a Tiktok video unless the video maker is an environmental professional. Otherwise this is just the blind leading the blind.

Here's a legal definition of environmental professional used by developers when they do a environmental assessment, from Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_I_environmental_site_ass...:

Someone with:

a current Professional Engineer's or Professional Geologist's license or registration from a state or U.S. territory with 3 years equivalent full-time experience;

a Baccalaureate or higher degree from an accredited institution of higher education in a discipline of engineering or science and 5 years equivalent full-time experience;

have the equivalent of 10 years full-time experience.

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There are plenty of other people who you might expect to give a reasonable update on how nature (in general) is dealing with something like a chemical spill. Gardeners, birders, fishers, even some walkers or runners are outside regularly and tend to have a feel for what is going on in the environment around them. There are people I trust when they say the fish are hiding in the afternoon because the river is too hot and they stop fishing to avoid causing too much stress. If one of them told me they were seeing dead fish more often after an event I would file that away as a mostly trustworthy source of information.

Tiktok is unverified with no reputation attached to it. People can and do fake things happening on Tiktok for views all the time. The parent comment claims "people have been showing" without linking any of the video evidence, which if it exists which makes this 3rd hand rumor already.

"hey look, here's a bunch of dead fish that weren't here yesterday"

"show me your degree"

"Prove it." would be my first respones. Followed by "Why are they dead?" and "Did you kill them yourself?" and "How often have you found dead fish anywhere?" and "How often do you look?" and "What killed these fish specifically?" etc

I guess falling back to "show me your degree" might be an easy way to answer all those questions at once.

I wouldn't assume the dead fish weren't there yesterday just because someone on Tiktok says so, for one thing.

Would you believe a random Tiktoker if they told you Elvis came back to life and camped with Aliens at the local park, the other day? If not, why is a video about dead fish more credible?

How do we know they’re dead from something specific? An expert could tell us the evidence for that. Some dipshit who posts a picture of some dead fish on TikTok can’t.

tears up your degree for your comments being against "professional ethics"

You are correct about that, but it's also worth noting that there's also no point listening to a corporate press release that's telling you everything is fine, either, because we don't put press officers in prison for lying.

We also usually don't have environmental professionals also working as press officers. If the press person even consulted with an environmental professional, the content has been filtered by both their lack of domain knowledge and their desire to put a good spin on things.

I will say the same thing about an environmental professional on the company payroll.

The problem I'm concerned about isn't ignorance, it is cynical CYA-ism and a giant conflict of interest.

You need a culturally-trusted institution to handle this sort of thing. I am not sure Ohio currently has one that can handle this, so I expect to not know anything until the lawsuits settle over the next decade.

What are your qualifications for making that statement?

Anyone with a high school degree should have been introduced to the concept of authoritative sources.

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