Now, I admit that I'm on the fence when it was comes to the casual factors associated with Global Warming/Climate Change. As a scientist, it is my job to carefully and responsibly dissect scientific data. In fact, that is the general job description of ANY scientist. This is not the job description of politicians, pundits, wing-nuts, and every other hack that wants to pretend to have a working knowledge of the scientific method.
So, with that stated, my view of Global Warming/Climate Change is still one of speculation. I agree that we are witnessing a worldwide phenomena. However, I believe we do not have enough data to make a causal link between man-made factors to the endpoint of Global Warming/Climate Change. Obviously, additional research is still required and of course we need more time to study the possible relationships.
Scientists, particularly epidemiologists, use the Bradford-Hill criteria to assess causation. The criteria include many important measures, which are certainly important for the issue of Global Warming Climate Change, including plausibility, strength of association, alternate explanations, consistency of the evidence, and temporality.
The last point, "temporality", is in bold because it is a critical point to the issue of Global Warming/Climate Change. Hence, more time is required because we know the planet is cyclic when it comes to climate change. Plus, if we can intervene and reverse this course of climate change, this adds to the body of evidence and provides more data to suggest causation. In short, there is not enough proof to suggest OR refute man's impact on Global Warming/Climate Change. However, there appears to be a substantial association (Please note that causation and association are two different concepts).
Right here I could go on to a long tangential rant about multifactorality (i.e. multiple factors contributing to an endpoint), but I'll save that for a later date.Today, yet another wanna-be scientist attempts to refute Global Warming/Climate Change. This time it's from NBC's Willard Scott....you know, part of the "liberal media" NBC. H/T to MMFA
Now, I'm not belittling the field of meteorology. But, "weathermen" like Scott are not performing hypothesis-driven experiments or studies. Scott is using an observation to refute another observation. This is analogous to stating "the world is flat" because it looks that way from our perspective.....classic wing-nutism.
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