Quote:
Originally Posted by BigGerman
So you just ignore historical data because it doesn't "fit" your hypothesis? I hope you don't do any kind of scientific research.
We had a mini ice age during the middle ages, when we weren't burning all these hydrocarbons, and no one is sure what caused it. To act is if we know exactly what is causing climate change is naive, and possibly reckless, and could have greater consequences.
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You hope I don't do scientific research? I'll tell you exactly why your position is a total abuse of any rational scientific method.
What statistics and historical data can tell you is the probability that two sets of measurements belong to the same true population of data. Nothing more and nothing less.
Your position is utterly flawed on not one but two considerations. First of all, you assume that modern trends are a continuation of an ongoing historical cycle, i.e. you are assuming that the data we are measuring now is in fact part of the same population as data from previous historical cycles.
Second you also infer a causation from that assumption - that man is not effecting any climate change. Correlation can never demonstrate causation, it can only demonstrate the probability that two sets of samples do or do not represent the same true population of data.
The first assumption is hopelessly flawed past the point of any real scientific integrity. You cannot simply examine data alone, you must also consider the experimental conditions. The mere presence of a common pattern between current data and historical data, even when a high degree of statistical similarity exists - something I don't think anyone on either side is really able to adequately demonstrate anyway - is not interpretively useful if there are significant known variations in how the data is collected.
I am not "ignoring" historical data as you suggest. What I am saying is there are well known and major elements of the current experimental conditions - modification of the ozone layer, the presence of fluorochlorocarbons are just one aspect - that cannot simply be ignored and that have absolutely no historical precedent. Those factors alone are enough to suggest that there can be little confidence we are sampling from the same population no matter what sort of similarities you may find in the data.
So in addition to making basically a blind and utter leap of faith that the current trends reflect the same population of data as historical figures, you are also using that assumption to say that man is not causing climate change. I don't think you have any real statistical evidence that provide any probability numbers that the data is the same in the first place. But even if you did the second part is simply wrong. You are inferring a causation, or in this case the absence of a causation. Man could in fact be causing significant changes in the climate, some other factor could be causing significant changes that at the time the data was collected were offsetting man's impact. Historical data could never demonstrate that.
Honestly that anyone can think man cannot and is not having an impact on all aspects of the ecosystem, and yes certainly the climate as well, is simply beyond understanding. I don't think the models and theories are necessarily valid. I certainly do not support labeling feel good measures as "green" that are not sustainable and are more destructive of the environment like bio-diesel and ethanol.
But while you may find some disagreement about the impacts etc on the ozone layer I think you will find little dispute that man is capable of effecting a major change on our atmosphere at the highest levels. And when you consider other issues like acid rain etc there is essentially no credible dispute that man can and most certainly does alter the composition of our atmosphere on a planetary scale. To know that we are capable of altering our entire atmosphere, and yet to deny that we can change the climate is beyond any rational thinking and simply an incomprehensible position to take.
Everything has an action and reaction. I am sure you appreciate it takes time and real work to make your money, and that is a resource that needs to be managed wisely or there are real problems. If I were to say look, Obama can piss away all that money like there is no more tomorrow, but you can just make more, one man can't really fuck up something the size of the US economy, you certainly would feel like you know much differently.
But when it comes to the planet all of a sudden we are dealing with magic. Nothing just comes or goes away. The planet has to do real work and it takes a lot of time. But according to you all, 9 billion people can pump out essentially all the petroleum it took Nature hundreds of millions of years of time and work to make. That work was essentially compensation for a single global catastrophic event. But now we can burn it all up in what amounts to the blink of an eye, but Nature can just handle that now. We can't impact the climate, much less trigger a second catastrophic event by having taken all the energy and time Nature had to put into that process and basically shooting it all back out into the same environment in one big wad.
And all because you parrot your corrupt leaders and you despise and dispute anything that Al Gore might ever say. If Al Gore were to make a strong position that the world was round it would be perfectly reasonable to expect a large number of people to suddenly insist that it was in fact flat and that Al Gore was somehow going to profit on all the people who were in danger of sailing off the edge.
You are just as intoxicated on the koolaid, so they like the blue stuff and yours is red. You are most like the people you despise the most - the two sides of the same talking points, but at the end of the day exactly the same.
