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[–] aleksz 1 point 2 points (+3|-1) ago  (edited ago)

Deliberate confusing correlation with causation is a favorite trick of all demagogues and politicians. Few of them, of sheer stupidity really do not understand the difference but more often, they rely on overall ignorance of general public to push their agenda and sure enough - it works.

All you have to say "human-caused" climate change instead of just climate change and the goal is reached. How one proves causation? Very simple - just say get rid of all the data that contradicts the statement and provide the sub-set of data that corresponds to correlation between the growth of the human economic activity and some extreme weather events and voila: one causes another? And they even throw some probability numbers 80%, 95%! Very impressive!

But how do we know this? In the realm of science - there is no and there could not be definite prove of one process causing another process when there are thousands of factors affecting both. The famous example of correlation that has nothing to do with causation - Super Bowl Indicator for Dow Jones. It states that if the AFC champion wins Super Bowl - the Dow will be in the bear market for a year and NFC win - Dow is in bull market by the end of the year. This happened 80% of time since 1970'. Is there anybody seriously considering as fact that Football match causes stock market to rise or tank? Nope.

The same is true about the man-made climate change! The best assessment was made by George Carlin in his famous "Planet is fine... the people are fucked!"