In which I vent like an aging coal plant

[redhound]

I saw an article today about a poll which asked whether people thought that global warming was predominantly due to human activity or natural activity. This appears to be a major part of the debates surrounding climate change and appropriate policies thereto. I think it's an extremely pernicious framing of the issue, and sensible people should

Comments

[cerebralpaladin]

Your point is true, but "The causes of climate change are only relevant insofar as they tell us what we might be able to do about it" is the crucial sentence. If someone believes that, for example, the earth's (average over year) temperature fluctuates by several degrees as a matter of purely natural processes, they are likely to believe that carbon taxes are pointless. If cars don't affect the earth's temperature much, why would reducing the miles driven/CO2 emitted matter much either? I suppose you could get a "the earth is warming from nonanthropic causes, therefore we need a massive carbon sequestration program because we predict that will cause offsetting cooling," but that's a tough sell

[redhound]

I don't deny that there is a valid dispute that is close in factual content to the human/natural causes framing, but I think it makes a difference to actually talk about the genuine issue -- whether we can do something -- and not the proxy issue of whose fault it is.

[changinganswers]

The framing of the survey disturbs me in part because of how they are semi-defining natural. I think the whole climate change issue started a long time ago, pre-industrial, when we learned how to burn stuff. That and cut down lots and lots and lots of trees to uhm burn more stuff. Was man considered natural back then? If we are trying to say is it man's fault or earth's fault, I guess that makes sense, but isn't man part of nature, or at least wasn't man part of nature before mastering the wheel? Eh.

[anonymous]

Perhaps you'd rather have this be the poll question?

Under what circumstances is it "too costly" to prevent the world from being uninhabitable by man?