It has always struck me as rather ridiculous to make a big deal about the distinction between anthropogenic and non-anthropogenic climate change. Whether or not climate change is anthropogenic, it is going to require a response. The argument might be that efforts should be directed at mitigating the negative effects of climate change, because it is futile to try and avert it, but climate change deniers aren't making that argument either. Indeed, if they really did concede that climate change is happening, but believed that it wasn't anthropogenic, then they should be even more worked up about it than the "radical environmentalists," because that would mean that Illinois is going to have the climate of Texas and there is nothing we can do about it other than figure out how to live with the resulting fallout.
But the cause is important, because that dictates the response. If people continue to think that failed policy ideas like the Kyoto protocol are the effective response, then all we are doing is wasting resources and doing untold damage for no reason. Kyoto and its ilk are the equivalent of throwing virgins at volcanoes.
Adaptation should be about increasing water storage, storm defense and concentrating on uninterrupted energy supply. Research money should be spent on new energy technology and better climate forecasting.
Right now we have billions being spent on innefectual or worse solutions, because the responses are based on 20 year-old understanding of climate sensitivity, which has proven to be incorrect by several orders of magnitude.
If Illinois does turn into Texas, what you absolutely dont want is having sent the previous fifty years wasting your productive capacity on worthless solutions.
Among my conservative friends, quite a few say "well, it's happening, but we don't know humans are causing it." So they are already there. "Adaptation, not mitigation" is one of their sayings, and it gets the environmentalists really mad.
FWIW, I agree with you that the cause matters less than the effects.
I know its widespread, but I find it irksome that climate change denial has become associated with conservatism. I want to avoid climate change because I'm worried about the ramifications of that change on our society and am worried that failure to mitigate or prepare for climate change could topple the U.S. from its position at the top of the global hierarchy. Changing climate and depletion of water resources in the heartland could make us tremendously vulnerable by making us dependent on other countries for food. Allowing a country like China or India to be the first to develop reliable, cheap, renewable energy would be a total game changer that could leave us as an also-ran country or vassal state. There's a mile long list of conservative reasons to be afraid of and want to address climate change and its potential impacts. To me its a no brainer to spend substantial, but predictable, resources to address what is potentially an existential risk.
The US overproduces food right now. Climate change could change that, but offsetting any production reduction in the heartland would be that northern states become more amenable to more crops. And Canada, too: they aren't going to be a dicks about trucking food over the border.
> Allowing a country like China or India to be the first to develop reliable, cheap, renewable energy would be a total game changer that could leave us as an also-ran country or vassal state.
I don't see how this happens, unless a bunch of other things also happen to go wrong at the same time. China would have to start respecting other countries' IP rights for real, and patents would only keep things locked up for so long. And it's not like China or India would have a monopoly on understanding and improving whatever that new technology is.
Anything serious enough to raise the specter of "vassal state" and the US would just ignore IP rights pretty much the same way China ignores foreigners' IP rights out of self-interest.
I still see climate change as possibly causing billions or trillions dollars of economic harm, so it's worth addressing.
We already have a highly efficient food production industry in the U.S.? It's market-driven too. Yes the Oglala is running out of water, but we knew that was a one shot deal. There may be a rough patch but if climate change is man made, I think I will self correct when we start to run low on fossil fuels.
