After Brexit - am I stupid or what?

Because they're using statistics to try to keep their jobs.

It's pretty simple really. You have a huge pool of data. You run an analysis over it. It doesn't paint the picture you want. You then decide that some of the data are irrelevant, because of some fabricated criteria. So you exclude those data, and run the analysis again. Repeat until it tells the story you want, publish.

Let's consider an example.

Climate change deniers look at the available data. It shows that the world was once warmer than it is now. It cooled down, then thousands of years ago started warming again, and has been warming since. See, climate change is natural, the data proves it.

Actual scientists take the same data, and the trend line it. They see that there is indeed a natural pattern to it rising, but around the time of the industrial revolution, the moving average starts to break away from the long term trend, and starts rising exponentially.

Same data, two different analyses with two different outcomes.

 

So how do you know its the climate change deniers who are skewing the data, it could be both sides, they are all using statistics to prove what they want us to believe.
Is it only the ones that are doing what a person thinks is true who are using the correct stats.

 

Because the climate change deniers use flawed analysis methods on a subset of data. They can do this because they know that most people don't study statistics beyond the very minimal amount they were forced to do at school.

 

Are you sure its not just you believing the bits you want to believe and denying the bits you dont.
I sometimes think we are all being brainwashed, not just about climate change but lots of other stuff, if you dont follow the designated line you become an outcast.
Thinking for yourself has become a thing of the past in this day and age.
Just take what went on during covid.

They will be expecting the government to give out guidance on when to change your underpants next.

 

Absolutely certain.

What your referring to has a name. The psychologists call it confirmation bias. Sadly a lot of people suffer with it.

I'm more interested in verifiable objective fact. I love data, and for every picture I see, I actively look for evidence that it's wrong. Then when I find it, I look for evidence to support both arguments, and I check sources. It's called critical thinking.

When there is an outlier in the data, I ask myself, is that an error, or has something happened that I've missed. Is the outlier really an outlier, or is there just a high degree of variability in the data. Is there a bias, if so what is it, why is it there, and can we control for it without compromising integrity.

It takes a lot of time and effort, which is why most people don't do it. But I actually enjoy it because I'm a geek.

 

I just tend to go by what I see in real life rather than what I'm told to believe, if what they say makes sense to me I go with it, if it seems a bit over done or for money raising reasons I get sceptical and follow my own thinking.
Its getting like living in Russia these days, the propaganda from the government and media, and I sometimes think the government is forced into action by the media, is getting overwhelming.

 

I hear what you say, and real life observations are of course perfectly valid pieces of the bigger picture.

But, what you personally observe directly is limited to the tiny chunk of the world you occupy. I don't mean that in a disrespectful way, the same is true for each and every one of us.

I personally have observed that in my tiny area of the world, winters have become milder, floods are no longer a talking point because they're not headline news anymore because they're quite common, and summer is achieving temperatures here that when I was a teenager would have been more characteristic of southern Spain. But as valid as each of our own first hand observations are, they're not reliable indicators of the state of the planet as a whole. I've heard other people remark how they've not really noticed any difference where they are. Again, equally valid.

But that's not how statistics work. Nobody would say, for example, 'most of the people I know support such and such football team, so I reckon most people support that team'. For the full picture, we need a comprehensive dataset, composed of data that represents the full picture. Consider this, the world population is roughly 50% female. If you wander down to the local Kwik Fit, count the people working there, then gender profile them, then you have a dataset. You could then do an analysis of that data and you might conclude that 80% of the population is adult males. The data is correct, the analysis is correct, but the sample is too small and has an inherent bias.

 

I'd be inclined to suggest that you are seeing what you are being told you should suspect, its so much in the news that everyday we get reports of this or that is the worst in 35yrs? or since records began,50yrs ago.
Which suggests its all happened before, but nobody made a fuss then.

 

Nope. When it comes to climate issues, I'm interested in two metrics. The long term trend, over hundreds of years based on data from multiple sources, and frequency, so how often we get data that deviates significantly from the baseline trend.

I believe the summer of 1976 was hellish. I was tiny then so can't remember it first hand, but I'm told I ended up in deep trouble when my parents misjudged the conditions while taking me out, and they had to use mucky water from a ditch to cool me down when I started showing scary signs.

So we could say the heatwaves we're reading about are normal because one happened 40 odd years ago. Or we could say there was a significant deviation from the average once 40 odd years ago, then another whenever the next one was, then another, and so on, but whereas it was a once a decade event a while ago, it's now more like once every five years, then once every two years, then every year, ie the frequency is increasing.

 

If we are killing the planet, as we know it, you are probably right, 8 Billion and counting is far too many, but that is a slightly different way of looking at it.
A way nobody wants to mention and are brushing it under the carpet.

I just think its all one way and any challenge to the official line is not allowed in our so called free society.
We might not send people to Siberia but upset the establishment at your peril.

 

I'm not exactly a cc denier and I appreciate that the timescale of change is speeding up. What really pees me off though, is the culture of personal guilt that is being promoted by governments and media alike. The western societies (and now the eastern ones) embraced consumerism, were actively encouraged into it, because it suited both governments and big business. So why is all the emphasis nowadays on us all, collectively and individually, changing our lifestyle in order to reverse or slow down something of that magnitude? And, surprise surprise, at least here in France, one of the 'solutions' being pushed is for the individual to spend money exchanging one form of polluting vehicle for another (less obviously polluting but no less damaging). It's societal manipulation, nothing more nothing less.
For every single measure or law introduced in the name of saving the planet, you only have to follow the money trail to see who profits from such measures and laws. That's not to mention the biggest destroyers on the planet, whether by greed and a flat refusal to change habits (USA) or the headlong rush of developing nations to 'catch up'. I'm saddened by the sheep-like acceptance of personal guilt and amused by the fervour of the belief that separating out your rubbish and letting dandelions and brambles take over your garden will somehow make everything alright

 

There's a petrochemical plant not far from us. I worked there for a while. There I learned some horrendous things. I will use them as an example but they're far from unique. It goes like this.

Crude oil is brought in by ship from the middle east. It then goes into the cracker, a giant cylinder that is heated at one end and cooled at the other. The crude oil splits, with different products at different layers. One layer is used to make plastic. A waste product is a gas called naphtha, an extremely flammable gas, some of which is stored, but a lot of it is vented off, burned in the flare stack.

I don't know if you've ever seen a flare stack close up. From a distance it looks like a big candle. Close up its pretty terrifying the first time you see it start up. It's a massive raging inferno. You can feel the heat from a couple of hundred metres away, and if you happen to be in the clients office right next to it at the time, you feel the whole building vibrating. All that while pensioners are scared to boil the kettle because of the energy costs.

Back to the cracker, so it's splitting oil to make products and waste. But the process itself uses a huge amount of energy. I mean huge. As in, they buy energy from the grid, but the grid can't meet the demand, so they also have their own power station on site to supplement it. By supplementing, I mean their onsite private power station could power all the homes in the two nearest towns, if it wasn't dedicated to helping the grid to fuel the cracker.

Another waste product is benzene gas. They have to contain this, but here's the twist, they're allowed to leak up to ten tonnes of benzene per year before they have to declare an incident to the environment agency. Benzene is a greenhouse gas, but we don't need to worry about that, given that it's also a potent carcinogen, and also acts as an anaesthetic. If a worker is suspected to have been exposed to benzene, the procedure is you don't even let them into the building until everyone is in gas suits. If he's still alive by then you stick him in the decontamination room before getting medical help.

Back to the products of the cracker. The best bit is the plastic, which comes out of production as tiny pellets. These are bagged up in bulk bags and carried by road to the port. Some inevitably gets spilled. It goes by ship usually to China where other energy intensive processes turn it into the plastic crap that everything is either made of or packaged in. Then it's back on a ship again, to sail back here or elsewhere.

That's basically the story of one plant of very many.

They are clearly getting worried about the general population's growing awareness of the environmental impacts of our obsession with plastic. My youngest son came home from school one day and excitedly told me how plastic is brilliant for the environment, and can save the planet. Of course I asked questions, but I already had my suspicions. The PR people from the plant had been in to give a talk, clearly sent to ensure another generation would grow up with a plastic addiction. The same company sponsors a load of local events and services, with promotional materials portraying blue skies and beautiful countryside and happy people. They really have brainwashed people. If anyone questions their behaviour, you become public enemy number one, threatening to destroy their livelihoods and turn the local area into a ghost town forever. It doesn't matter that lots of other industry sectors are creating opportunities in the area, they don't exist as far as some people are concerned, because the local petrochemical company is, in the minds of many, literally propping up the whole area.

So after all that energy use, non biodegradable waste, and mass brainwashing, we have to feel guilty about accidentally putting two cups worth of water in the kettle when we want a cuppa, or accidentally putting the KitKat wrapper in the wrong bin.