First, “global warming” isn’t quite the same thing as climate change. This is kind of a distinction without a difference, perhaps, but I find in many communities (not LW) that the semantic distinction between these terms causes confusion.
Second, and more important to me: supposing that N% of climate variation over time is accounted for by human activity, the wording of the question allowed some ambiguity between (N > 50) and (N is non-negligible). I’m fairly confident that N is non-negligible, which seems like the important question for policy purposes. I’m not confident that N > 50.
Well, it could mean that you think the climate is going to get colder, or that the mean temperature will remain constant while specific regions will grow unusually hot/cold, or that the planet will undergo a period of human-caused warming followed by ice sheets melting and then cooling or any number of other theories. Most of them are fairly unlikely of course, but P(any climate change at all) > P(global warming).
Why, what else could it mean?
Well, two things.
First, “global warming” isn’t quite the same thing as climate change. This is kind of a distinction without a difference, perhaps, but I find in many communities (not LW) that the semantic distinction between these terms causes confusion.
Second, and more important to me: supposing that N% of climate variation over time is accounted for by human activity, the wording of the question allowed some ambiguity between (N > 50) and (N is non-negligible). I’m fairly confident that N is non-negligible, which seems like the important question for policy purposes. I’m not confident that N > 50.
Well, it could mean that you think the climate is going to get colder, or that the mean temperature will remain constant while specific regions will grow unusually hot/cold, or that the planet will undergo a period of human-caused warming followed by ice sheets melting and then cooling or any number of other theories. Most of them are fairly unlikely of course, but P(any climate change at all) > P(global warming).