tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5104479.post1709545898354074573..comments2023-05-27T23:20:32.194+10:00Comments on Marco's Blog: Where's the figures?Marco Parigihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00702055111711651319noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5104479.post-10560597730427155432007-05-26T07:11:00.000+10:002007-05-26T07:11:00.000+10:00Jaundicity- I like it! I usually avoid talking abo...Jaundicity- I like it! <BR/>I usually avoid talking about anything remotely controversial at work, as do we all, but yesterday global warming happened to come up in an after-work chat with one of my colleagues in the hard sciences and he turned out to be slightly more to the skeptical end of the 'skeptic-believer' spectrum than I am. I know the argument from authority is the weakest form of argument, but still found this gratifying.Dr Clamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14985493422534275997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5104479.post-8662660288879940192007-05-25T15:15:00.000+10:002007-05-25T15:15:00.000+10:00Having done a bit of statistics - particularly in ...Having done a bit of statistics - particularly in the biological field - I read stats with great jaundicicity (lexifabing a bit there). Without the data, or at least the design that was used to get the stats, I agree that statements such as you quoted are meaningless. They are only useful to push an agenda or sell a story to the unsuspecting public. If I had a dollar for the number of times I've seen such statements and checked and found a bunch of qualifiers, or even the screaming headline "treatment increases instance of disease by 1/2" carefully not followed by: (original disease prevalence 0.000002% of population, with treatment 0.000003%). I think its criminal to provide partial information to the public to get them to make supposedly informed decisions.Jennyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12909466417710679436noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5104479.post-28292687177181409792007-05-23T09:46:00.000+10:002007-05-23T09:46:00.000+10:00I think you are right, in the sense that it only t...I think you are right, in the sense that it only takes one nice big surprise event unrelated to weather/floods and people's focus will shift markedly. Just one nuclear explosion on any city anywhere, or an asteroid impact, and people will be thinking all the priorities were wrong elevating global warming so. I just think even disregarding these possibilities, all the efforts will only amount to slightly tempering the accelerating emissions.<BR/><BR/>And yes, it will be big bad USA's fault no matter what happens.Marco Parigihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00702055111711651319noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5104479.post-55164558213290007282007-05-23T07:45:00.000+10:002007-05-23T07:45:00.000+10:00I'm guessing by 2030 people will care as much abou...I'm guessing by 2030 people will care as much about global warming as they do about Rubik's cubes nowadays. As for who to blame, my guess is whatever happens, the US will get blamed, e.g.:<BR/><BR/>"If they had shut down their military industrial complex instead of hunting down those terrorists who wanted to destroy them, it wouldn't be pumping out all those emissions, accelerating global warming."<BR/><BR/>"If they had promptly hunted down those terrorists who wanted to destory them, all their major cities wouldn't be on fire, accelerating global warming."<BR/><BR/>"Their transition to an agrarian subsistence economy led to vastly increased rates of sheep flatulence, accelerating global warming."<BR/><BR/>"Their invention of a clean, cheap, carbon-free method of energy generation encouraged the rest of the world to think they could carry on with business as usual, accelerating global warming."Dr Clamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14985493422534275997noreply@blogger.com