Nick Maclaren wrote:
In article ,
Jaques d'Alltrades wrote:
The message
from (Nick Maclaren) contains these words:
Interestingly, one of the things that keeps cyclemania alive is
the
deficiency of the English language in not having a term for the
sort
of irregular variation caused by non-cyclic feedback effects.
The
nearest term is, indeed, "cycle" but that immediately gets people
thinking in terms of regular, predictable variation. Think of
this
the next time anyone talks about the economy ....
'Fluctuations' instead of 'cycles'?
Hang on. The reference was from the Guardian. Do you honestly
think that they could have spelled 'fluctuations' the same way
twice, let alone correctly?
But, yes, it is an accurate term. It is very generic,
unfortunately,
and doesn't identify the particular class of variation that is
being referred to here.
And the consensus on climate change has built to a level where, most
unfortunately, one has to start taking into consideration the
political or paymaster issues relevant to those relatively few who
pop up and tell us there's nothing to worry about. No doubt the
mechanisms and even the data of the whole thing are very complex and
uncertain, and many specific predictions will turn out to be wrong:
this isn't something nice and simple like nuclear physics. But, oh
boy, if somebody tells me it doesn't matter if the North Pole has
melted, I want to see the cores he's examined to show how often it's
happened in the past, and I want to know who's paying him.
--
Mike.