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I understand what they are trying to do. But the sheer inaccuracy of what they provide clearly negates the supposed benefits. Would you donate to a charity tha

I understand what they are trying to do. But the sheer inaccuracy of what they provide clearly negates the supposed benefits. Would you donate to a charity that mismanaged or wasted most of your money, if only just because donating to charities is good? Or wouldn't that mismanagement negate most of what is good about donating to that particular charity. I'm sure the people behind CO2Stats are not stupid. So they must be aware of the shortcomings and limitations of their service. Yet they continue to run the service anyways, calling it accurate. That is dishonest. (and no, questioning CO2Stats does not make me a conspiracy theorist)

Alex3917 18y ago
"But the sheer inaccuracy of what they provide clearly negates the supposed benefits." How? Do you understand what it is that they do?
- fluidrazor 18y ago
  People pay them to offset the carbon footprint of their site. Except if they are paying them an amount based on an inaccurately calculated footprint, that's a problem. If you wish to continue drinking the Kool-Aid, go ahead! It sure is tasty! But don't blame me when your teeth fall out.
  - lliiffee 18y ago
    Problems like this need to be solved. That is, the real world demands that we estimate things that cannot be estimated reliably. To take a less controversial example than global warming, consider the risk of avian flu. Clearly, we cannot get a reasonable quantitative estimate of the chance of a flu epidemic, or how many people it would kill, etc. Nevertheless, we are forced to decide what preparations (if any) to make anyway. Just because the problem is hard, doesn't mean it isn't worth attempting. I see no problem with what they are doing, as long as they are honest about the uncertainty in the estimates they hand to you.
    - fluidrazor 18y ago
      Putting the global warming debate aside, I totally agree with you. However, I don't see them being transparent. Furthermore, I think given the complexity of determining what they claim, the simplicity of their model is almost certainly not adequate. I like your Avian Flu example. I think in that case, we would both agree that there is a point at which preparations for such an event would be almost useless when there is a certain lack of information, when what we do know and what we don't know is so muddled that we are not even sure what direction to take. Obviously doctors and scientists are not blind here and know generally what direction to take in their preparations, just not to what scale. What I am arguing in terms of CO2Stats here is that the likely inaccuracy of their calculations just about voids what they are offering because you don't know that what you are getting is in the proper proportion or even that it actually helps to the degree that they say it does.
    - run4yourlives 18y ago
      There's a difference though between taking a best guess because we need to know, and selling a service based on your best guess without putting that methodology up for scrutiny. Without seeing how they calculate your imprint, they're basically working on the same "trust us" principle as the guys that sell that Q-ray bracelet.
- run4yourlives 18y ago
  Do you? I think that's his point.

Alex3917 18y ago

"But the sheer inaccuracy of what they provide clearly negates the supposed benefits." How? Do you understand what it is that they do?

fluidrazor 18y ago
People pay them to offset the carbon footprint of their site. Except if they are paying them an amount based on an inaccurately calculated footprint, that's a problem. If you wish to continue drinking the Kool-Aid, go ahead! It sure is tasty! But don't blame me when your teeth fall out.
- lliiffee 18y ago
  Problems like this need to be solved. That is, the real world demands that we estimate things that cannot be estimated reliably. To take a less controversial example than global warming, consider the risk of avian flu. Clearly, we cannot get a reasonable quantitative estimate of the chance of a flu epidemic, or how many people it would kill, etc. Nevertheless, we are forced to decide what preparations (if any) to make anyway. Just because the problem is hard, doesn't mean it isn't worth attempting. I see no problem with what they are doing, as long as they are honest about the uncertainty in the estimates they hand to you.
  - fluidrazor 18y ago
    Putting the global warming debate aside, I totally agree with you. However, I don't see them being transparent. Furthermore, I think given the complexity of determining what they claim, the simplicity of their model is almost certainly not adequate. I like your Avian Flu example. I think in that case, we would both agree that there is a point at which preparations for such an event would be almost useless when there is a certain lack of information, when what we do know and what we don't know is so muddled that we are not even sure what direction to take. Obviously doctors and scientists are not blind here and know generally what direction to take in their preparations, just not to what scale. What I am arguing in terms of CO2Stats here is that the likely inaccuracy of their calculations just about voids what they are offering because you don't know that what you are getting is in the proper proportion or even that it actually helps to the degree that they say it does.
  - run4yourlives 18y ago
    There's a difference though between taking a best guess because we need to know, and selling a service based on your best guess without putting that methodology up for scrutiny. Without seeing how they calculate your imprint, they're basically working on the same "trust us" principle as the guys that sell that Q-ray bracelet.
run4yourlives 18y ago
Do you? I think that's his point.