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What? I never noticed I put those quotes... Weird. I just removed the quotes. ... On the main point. Yes, correlation is easy. Causation? I don't know, because

What? I never noticed I put those quotes... Weird. I just removed the quotes. ... On the main point. Yes, correlation is easy. Causation? I don't know, because I don't work in climate science. Is obvious correlation sufficient to establish causation in climate science?

missosoup 7y ago
Causation between years of consecutive drought and record-breaking temperatures leading to record-breaking wildfires is not hard to establish. Trying to deny that would require some impressive mental gymnastics. Causation between human activity and climate change resulting in that temperature anomaly, is fundamentally hard. Especially in a field like climate science where every model carries a big bundle of assumptions some of which are just educated guesses. But the models for anthropogenic climate change have been pretty bang on at predicting the temperature anomaly that we're seeing today. That doesn't formally prove causation but it's certainly enough evidence that we need to start acting to mitigate climate change now, there's no more 'complicated analysis' needed. At this point it's a bit like arguing over whether hitting the iceberg is really what's making the titanic sink, while standing on the submerging deck.
- datashow 7y ago
  Your first paragraph didn't mention climate change. Is it now established that record breaking temperatures are always caused by climate change? OK. I got downvoted on this. What is wrong here?
  - missosoup 7y ago
    Record breaking temperatures and an increasing global mean temperature anomaly is by definition climate change. What you're asking is the equivalent of 'is it now established that the deck of the titanic increasingly submerging underwater is caused by it sinking?'.
    - datashow 7y ago
      Sorry, I meant anthropogenic climate change. I didn't know that's the confusion.
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 7y ago
So, your suggestion is that the dry forests cause climate change? Or is it the fires? Or does a common cause cause climate change and dry forests and fires, but the forests drying out has nothing to do with temperatures? Like, are you seriously asking whether scientists have looked into whether high temperatures and low rainfall cause dry forests and whether dry forests burn more easily? Do you really think it is a big unsolved question in science whether hot air dries stuff and whether dry stuff burns more easily than wet stuff, and maybe it's actually dry stuff that makes air hot and the fire causes the things to have been less wet before they burned?
- salty_biscuits 7y ago
  That is beautiful. I think Judea Pearl has been a little too successful in getting people to question causality without being successful at getting people to think about causal reasoning.
- datashow 7y ago
  Is it possible some other climate factors, other than climate change, caused dry forests and fires? Are you saying without climate change, this Australia wildfire would never have happened?
  - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 7y ago
    > Is it possible some other climate factors, other than climate change, caused dry forests and fires? That's not just possible, it is obviously the case. But that's simply the wrong question. > Are you saying without climate change, this Australia wildfire would never have happened? No, I am obviously not saying that, and it is again the wrong question. The whole error here is thinking that there is one single cause. There isn't. Tons of factors contribute to in the end the fires that we are seeing now. As is unavoidably the case in such situations, you essentially never can directly relate any small aspect of the result to any particular causing factor. But that does not make it wrong to say "X caused Y". Smoking causes lung cancer. It is nonsensical to reply to that "Is it possible some other health factors, other than smoking, cause lung cancer?" or "Are you saying without smoking, we would not have any lung cancer?" Just because it is hypothetically possible that in some random year all lung cancer cases could have causes other than smoking, which we would never know, does not make it wrong to state that smoking causes lung cancer. We know statistically that smoking causes lung cancer, and we know statistically how many lung cancer cases we can avoid by not smoking. Whether any particular case of lung cancer was caused by smoking is simply completely irrelevant.

missosoup 7y ago

Causation between years of consecutive drought and record-breaking temperatures leading to record-breaking wildfires is not hard to establish. Trying to deny that would require some impressive mental gymnastics. Causation between human activity and climate change resulting in that temperature anomaly, is fundamentally hard. Especially in a field like climate science where every model carries a big bundle of assumptions some of which are just educated guesses. But the models for anthropogenic climate change have been pretty bang on at predicting the temperature anomaly that we're seeing today. That doesn't formally prove causation but it's certainly enough evidence that we need to start acting to mitigate climate change now, there's no more 'complicated analysis' needed. At this point it's a bit like arguing over whether hitting the iceberg is really what's making the titanic sink, while standing on the submerging deck.

datashow 7y ago
Your first paragraph didn't mention climate change. Is it now established that record breaking temperatures are always caused by climate change? OK. I got downvoted on this. What is wrong here?
- missosoup 7y ago
  Record breaking temperatures and an increasing global mean temperature anomaly is by definition climate change. What you're asking is the equivalent of 'is it now established that the deck of the titanic increasingly submerging underwater is caused by it sinking?'.
  - datashow 7y ago
    Sorry, I meant anthropogenic climate change. I didn't know that's the confusion.

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 7y ago

So, your suggestion is that the dry forests cause climate change? Or is it the fires? Or does a common cause cause climate change and dry forests and fires, but the forests drying out has nothing to do with temperatures? Like, are you seriously asking whether scientists have looked into whether high temperatures and low rainfall cause dry forests and whether dry forests burn more easily? Do you really think it is a big unsolved question in science whether hot air dries stuff and whether dry stuff burns more easily than wet stuff, and maybe it's actually dry stuff that makes air hot and the fire causes the things to have been less wet before they burned?

salty_biscuits 7y ago
That is beautiful. I think Judea Pearl has been a little too successful in getting people to question causality without being successful at getting people to think about causal reasoning.
datashow 7y ago
Is it possible some other climate factors, other than climate change, caused dry forests and fires? Are you saying without climate change, this Australia wildfire would never have happened?
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 7y ago
  > Is it possible some other climate factors, other than climate change, caused dry forests and fires? That's not just possible, it is obviously the case. But that's simply the wrong question. > Are you saying without climate change, this Australia wildfire would never have happened? No, I am obviously not saying that, and it is again the wrong question. The whole error here is thinking that there is one single cause. There isn't. Tons of factors contribute to in the end the fires that we are seeing now. As is unavoidably the case in such situations, you essentially never can directly relate any small aspect of the result to any particular causing factor. But that does not make it wrong to say "X caused Y". Smoking causes lung cancer. It is nonsensical to reply to that "Is it possible some other health factors, other than smoking, cause lung cancer?" or "Are you saying without smoking, we would not have any lung cancer?" Just because it is hypothetically possible that in some random year all lung cancer cases could have causes other than smoking, which we would never know, does not make it wrong to state that smoking causes lung cancer. We know statistically that smoking causes lung cancer, and we know statistically how many lung cancer cases we can avoid by not smoking. Whether any particular case of lung cancer was caused by smoking is simply completely irrelevant.