Chart of the Day: Debt Causes Global Warming

Below is an example of how mathematical correlations (via models) can be used to manipulate public’s opinion on social issues as global warming.

The graphs show that temperature anomaly has higher correlation with debt than with carbon concentrations where a deduction can be made to say that debt may have caused global warming.

Or that maybe the faithful will suggest that ‘consumerism’ via debt has led to increased carbon emissions. But this would signify as speculative baloney.

Zero Hedge nails it… (bold emphasis mine)

since global leverage (via Debt-to-GDP) has a greater correlation to the "Temperature Anomaly" aka Global Warming, at 0.79, than CO₂ concentration, at 0.69, it is obvious that global warming is purely a function of ever increasing leverage, and not, as is widely accepted by various ecological consultancies, carbon dioxide concentration. And now you see how easy it is to make idiotic, and totally spurious statements (which however serve as fodder for even more idiotic peer-reviewed white papers and journal submissions this keeping lots of people employed while contributing absolutely nothing to society), which given enough time, will become religion to a new breed of shamans once the old ones are forcibly kicked out of their comfortable corner offices.

Amen.

As previously argued, the public hardly questions or applies critical thinking to the methods used to derive at conclusions and simply take whatever is fed to them 'hook, line and sinker'.

Many reasons for the popular appeal: many are overwhelmed or intimidated by the facade of science and math, many use maths or science as social signaling or for social status and many are allured by the appeal to the majority or etc... Yet unknowingly, this makes them very vulnerable to manipulations by politicians and their followers.