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399 points gmays | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.207s | source
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teo_zero ◴[] No.42168076[source]
Don't take me wrong, I'm not in the denial camp, quite the opposite in fact. But I cringe when I read a non sequitur like this:

> “If you plot global temperatures against the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, they both fall on a remarkably straight line, much straighter than current theory would predict,” said Dr Jarvis. “That line tells you not only how much the Earth has warmed since pre-industrial times, but also how much of that warming can be blamed on human activity.”

How can a straight line tell us anything more than a mere correlation between the two measures, without any hint about which is the cause and which is the effect?

replies(2): >>42170821 #>>42170874 #
1. Aachen ◴[] No.42170821[source]
Thankfully we have isotopes to demonstrate the cause and effect relation. Why the article doesn't use that instead of this correlation logic, I don't know, so you're not wrong, but it doesn't seem very relevant to argue here about whether it's caused by us when that's well-established in other ways