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Except that the entire "humans are responsible for say n%" is the latest diversionary tactic by climate deniers to sucker rational people onto opposing policy t
by polemic 13y ago
Except that the entire "humans are responsible for say n%" is the latest diversionary tactic by climate deniers to sucker rational people onto opposing policy that mitigates climate change.
The argument is akin to saying "your program slowdown is - and I'm making up a number out of thin air - 50% caused by systems outside of your control so you should definitely spend 50% less time optimizing the things you can optimize".
The logical flaws are blatant: the % is an invention, and the truth or otherwise of the premise has no bearing on the action you can and should take.
- marcus_holmes 13y agoLet me get this right: you're saying that human emissions of CO2 need to be reduced in order to mitigate climate change regardless of whether CO2 emissions cause any warming? If humans caused 100% of the change then we can stop causing it. If humans caused 0% of the change then we can't stop causing it and must adapt to it. If humans caused 50% of the change, then we can stop some of it but will have to adapt to the rest. Obviously the premise has a huge bearing on the action we can and should take.
- polemic 13y agoFirstly, I said it was in invention. It's an argument that has the benefit of never having to provide any sort of evidence to back it up. But since I'm forced to attack the strawman: let me put it another way: if humans are responsible for less warming than 100%, then we're going to have to do more to mitigate our effects, because we have to mitigate more human behaviour for the same outcome. Until we're making meaningful changes - yet to happen - it's utterly irrelevant if we've caused 50%, or 100%.