Well, this is an interesting statement. If they cannot be “proven”, relative likelihood can be established and other causes can be disassociated, providing relative weight / likelihood. See, for example, this discussion.

Not that ’cause and effect’ was simply the ‘first thing’ noted and far from the only element of the discussion.

Nice try.

Actually, though, this is simply a first shot at the mediocrity and misleading nature of the study. For more discrediting of this deceptive, truthiness-laden study see Credit for Trying.

“Commercial pools are common at hotels/motels, health clubs, and schools. Approximately 189,000 commercial pools nationwide use fossil fuel or electricity to heat an estimated 27.25 billion gallons of water. If the heating systems were replaced with solar water heating systems, there would be 1.23 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions avoided annually, which is equivalent to taking 237,000 cars off the road. California has 26 percent of all commercial pools in the U.S. and could significantly reduce pollution by widely adopting solar hot water heating”