Benjamin Disraeli once wrote:
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
As an actuary, I’m all too well aware of how statistics can be abused. Consider, for example this bar graph I saw at Willisisms (via QandO):
“Look at this,” some conservative bloggers are crowing. “We were right to not join Kyoto; we’re doing better with our greenhouse gas emissions than Kyoto signatories!”
Well, it’s true…but it’s not the whole story. When you figure that the Kyoto states includes the booming industrial economies in India and China…that 21% figure for Kyoto is rather explainable.
Now, if a chart like this had been prepared and circulated at the time Bush-43 opted out of Kyoto, it would have helped his official reasoning — that the burden was to be shouldered by developed nations, while up-and-coming competitors like India and China got essentially a free pass.
Had that communication also been accompanied by a better, achievable alternative…perhaps some good could have been done, rather than the placing of a fancily-worded document onto a pedestal.
