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Comment by IvyMike | Hacker News Reader

> under the assumption that correlation == causation

Except we do have a pretty good understanding of the chemisty/physics of the greenhouse effect, too. So there's a prediction ("increased CO2 will lead to warming") and a validation. What more do they want?

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Is this increase in CO2 a significant amount on the scale of Earth's history? How much of it was caused by humans vs natural cycles? A cursory search informed me C02 levels and average temperature was much higher during the dinosaur ages[0], what was the cause then? Note I'm playing devil's advocate here and I haven't studied climate much, but my point is the graphic wouldn't persuade someone who is already biased against human-driven climate change, and only encourages equally primitive arguments from their side.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesozoic#Climate

Obviously, an explanation for the break in the causation link that was observed between '96 until '10. CO2 production rose faster than modeled while warming took a break.

> What more do they want?

They won't tell you, because then they wouldn't be able to move the goalposts, by "just asking questions".

It's just that the presentation overreached. They should at least mention the other inputs to a comprehensive model that were tried but just didn't have a big impact, otherwise it feels like they just decided in advance that CO2 was the answer.

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