• Hacksaw@lemmy.caEnglish
    113·
    9 months ago

    Yeah, until the wolf bites you, you really don’t know what he’s going to do. Maybe he’s growing and snarling and running towards ya, but it’s not conclusive. It’s best to wait and gather more data.

      • zaphod@lemmy.caEnglish
        2·
        9 months ago

        Just jumping in to caution: no, science rarely ends up with truly definitive, conclusive data. A ton of science, particularly climate science, is all about preponderance of evidence.

        It may seem nitpicky, but it’s this precise misunderstanding that has led a lot of people to reject climate science, evolution, etc. “Well you can’t prove it so my crackpot theory is just as good as yours.”

        So how much of what happened in 2023 is broader AGW and how much is El Nino? It’s hard to say. But we can absolutely say AGW has almost certainly made a strong El Nino year even more severe.

      • Hacksaw@lemmy.caEnglish
        1·
        9 months ago

        I agree with you there. What I’m trying to say is that we, unfortunately, have to act in parallel to data gathering. Obviously this means we risk making bad choices, or making the data harder to read. That’s our lot in life though. If we just sit still and gather data all our lives we’ll get eaten by catastrophe.

        • NocturnalMorning@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          9 months ago

          I’m not saying we shouldn’t address climate change right now. Not even sort of, I am very alarmed by what’s happening, and what we already do know. The data gathering I’m talking about is for the science part, not for the action part.

          We should be 330 million Americans in Washington DC right now (or wherever you live) demanding climate action right now. Unfortunately, that’s just not going to happen.