Does it really matter what causes climate change?

I agree with you, Kano. We should be environmentally friendly. With or without any concerns as to if our climate is changing, being environmentally friendly is a best practice all around. I give little concerns to as if a person's interest in being environmentally responsible also produces the unintended byproduct of being more beneficial for our climate at the same time.

Let us work off of an assumption that the climate is not moving in a negative direction for us. Poor use of the land, excessive use of raw materials and the contaminating of our our water supplies, our land and our air will have negative impacts on us all. Our trying to prevent such disasters would also be good for the climate as well. Who really cares if it is an unintended byproduct that worked to our benefit? We should only be concerned if it becomes an unintended byproduct that will ultimately work against us all.

Added

After reading through the comments I see there are people that have said we should protect against polluted water, air and land that are now under the general impression that we should not do so if it also benefits the climate? .... This is what we face. Self induced ignorance and self serving egos!

Added - part 2

LOL, no, Ottawa Mike. I was actually more focused on the responses Jeff Eng, Zippi and Jim Z gave. You did not do much better when you consider that Kano's question was focused on it making good sense to reduce the levels of pollution we cause and in total disregard as to if the current climate change is natural or anthropogenic. What have the general responses been? "Well not if you think CO2 is changing our climate!". That had absolutely nothing to do with Kano's question! Kano never even suggested that CO2 is a pollutant in his question! Perhaps it is you that should seek out a remedial reading comprehension course?!? Perhaps you should also look up the definition for "anthropogenic". Do you think that it is only our CO2 emissions that are causing problems in our environment?

I totally agree. Whether or not global warming is the result of human activities (and I believe the scientific community telling us that it is) doesn't change the fact that we have built our entire Western way of life on generating energy by digging stuff out of the ground and burning it. That can't continue forever.

So the question is, do we start finding alternatives now or leave it to the last minute. Every economic theory tells us the sooner we start, the cheaper it will be in the long run. The history of economics tells us that, more often than not, new technologies open up new jobs, new markets, and new opportunities. Coal mines vanished in the UK. The service sector grew. Robots were going to destroy the economy of the US. They didn't. People adapted.

Now the problem is how do you try to bring about long term change in societies that are built on short term gains? The answer is that you start trying to incentivise that change. You put relatively tiny amounts of taxpayers money towards research, grants, helping startups, and subsidies. You start to charge the multibillion dollar oil companies fines for pollution. You start to place emission limits. History has shown us that without government involvement, big companies simply go after big profits for their shareholders and everyone else be damned. We saw it with the banking crisis where lax government oversight coupled with greed of individuals led to bad decisions that affected us all.

This argument about 'green' subsidies and taxpayers' money and harming the economy isn't true. Green technology is the fastest growing sector in the US and is creating new jobs faster than any other sector. The subsidies the US taxpayer gives to 'green' energy is a tiny fraction of the money they give to the oil and nuclear industry in subsidies. What I find laughable about many US citizens is that they'll sit there whinging about the cost of 'green' energy and not bat an eyelid on the massive amounts of cash they spend on a military. How many times has an F22 Raptor been used in combat at a cost of 67 billion dollars to the US taxpayer?

I am skeptical that reducing CO2 emissions would have any appreciable effect on the Earth`s climate. Perhaps if we stopped all CO2 emissions that would have a noticeable effect but achieving that goal would be devastating. Kind of like amputating your leg to make sure your ingrown toenail was removed.

And yes, I do agree with polices that reduce pollution, increase re-use and recycling, becoming more environmentally friendly, developing renewable and clean energy sources, etc. But a policy to cut CO2 emissions doesn`t do anything to help that list. As a small side effect, it might help reduce pollution but other methods such as the catalytic converter and coal plant regulations have done far more in that regard. And forcing coal plants to close doesn`t necessarily mean that we need to build more wind or solar farms. Hydro and nuclear are better options. Even natural gas is promising with regard to reducing CO2.

So if CO2 reductions are ineffective, then using them as part of environmental policy to mitigate climate change will reduce the overall effectiveness of general environmental regulations and goals for improvement in such areas.

For example, the best policy to reduce pollution might be X. But somebody can state that X doesn`t do enough to reduce CO2 so its needs to change into policy Y. If CO2 reduction has no effect (or very little), then you`re going to be continually implementing second best policies. I can`t see how that is good in the long run.

________________________________________________________

@Some1Has: "After reading through the comments I see there are people that have said we should protect against polluted water, air and land that are now under the general impression that we should not do so if it also benefits the climate?"

If you're referring to my answer then your reading comprehension problem is worse than I thought.

You seem to have bought in to the view that Pollution = Climate Change.

I suspect you also believe that anything we can do to fix climate change will reduce pollution.

Where to start?

First, you will need to clear your mind of the emotional message being pushed by some and ask some basic "cause and effect" questions.

The scientific mechanism claimed to be causing Climate Change is that increasing amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere is causing Global Warming. That may well be true but is CO2 all pollution, some pollution or not pollution at all? Is Global Warming the same as Climate Change or part of it or something else.

Climate Change is a natural occurrence. It has happened by itself for over 4.5 billion years. People have not been here that long. Conflating Global Warming with Climate Change was necessary by the protagonists because it is obvious to all that warming is not always happening. Change, on the other hand, IS always happening.

Is CO2 pollution? The EPA says so. To me, pollution is something like mercury, cadmium, asbestos or certain dioxins but something required in large quantities that is vital for life on earth I would not consider to be a pollutant. CO2 is in that category. Without CO2 there would be no plants or other "green" lifeforms, hence no oxygen and so no animals.

There are certainly many pollutants we can clear up before we need to think about CO2.

What are we doing about weening ourselve off fossil fuels? We are moving to things like solar, wind and bio-fuels. The technologies required for solar and wind produce lots of pollutants - not here, of course, but in places like China where the rare earths are mined the situation is very bad.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-13...

Bio-fuels is a way of growing food and then burning it. This makes us feel better apparently. It does nothing for the world's starving though.

Solutions proposed for our own home use include "low energy" light bulbs. I put low energy in quotes because they are comparitively high energy to make. They also contain mercury and are, therefore, not straightforward to dispose of.

Finally, what about the cost. By some estimates we are spending about a billion dollars (US) a day on CO2 reduction. How many lives could be saved in the less developed world with just a fraction of that. Think of the number of children without access to clean water, surely one of the most basic things. It seems to me that we are spending the billion a day to make some of the chattering classes in the first world feel good about themselves. How much better would it be to spend that money on the people without drinking water or electricity who suffer from high infant mortality and short life expectancy.

High infant mortality, by the way, is not just a third world statistic. It is when you give birth to a child of your own and then you watch it die soon after.

Climate change is a natural process of the planet. We are bound to enter a new ice age pretty soon anyway so basically the earths way of counteracting global warming is to freeze. Humans only speed up the earths warming process. Replanting of forests and plants will help in areas which are deforested. I hear Sweden has this green tube which sucks in co2 and turns it into oxygen. If true, we should literally build millions of these and we may see a positive effect.

Overall, humans are not only to blame. Just sped up the natural process the earth.

We have dominion over the Planet, which means we dominate over all other species. 'Mother Nature's Climate" isn't something we can control or even effect in any dominant way. Some people may like to believe we can, but the current rise in Global average temperature doesn't match-up with CO2 rises as a cause. Many scientists believe we have less than 0.1% net effect on the climate with all that we do. Temperatures have always varied by as much as 0.75C from one year to the next. Temperature records reflect this clearly. I doubt that any sane person really believes that we have absolutely no effect on nature, but it is very small.

(The Earth is over 200,000,000 times the size of all humans and the Sun is 1,300,000 times the size of Earth, which would mean that the sun is over 260,000,000,000 (260 trillion) times the size of all humans put together.)

Basic "housekeeping" is always needed, but some people don't really care where their garbage goes. Keeping people accountable for their actions and understanding 'causes' that 'effect' others in a negative way should always be a priority, but it seems that 'profit' or 'political control' have set the stage for our current condition. Government and Financial Elites are running the show right now and the general population seem to be currently compelled to just watch them continually make a bigger mess of things as we squabble over the droppings of these people.

People are weak-minded and are unable to get together on anything right now. The Elites will always use information and misinformation to keep us fighting against each other to a point where it seems impossible to come together. Sad!

Generally speaking I agree with you. I do beleive it matters as to the cuase of climate change though mostly because the stated reasons of AGW are being used to increase taxes, increase regulation, destroy jobs/families and in general do a great many things that should be avoided.

If the arguement were kept as simple and open as you state it you would get a LOT more support. Of course there would NOT be as money to be made by activists nor would there be as much grant money available to study the issue.

Follow the money and you will better understand the source of the problem. The who did it arguement is about money, control and power.

Do we make up fairy tales to get people to act the way we want?

Climate change hysteria is taking the focus away from real environmental problems like water pollution.

It is causing environmentally destructive actions like land destroying ethanol production and bird killing windmills.

It is stopping the development of third world countries who need and have a right to coal-fired power plants.

Climate change policy is destroying economies. Look at Spain, Great Britain and (soon to follow) the USA.

We are literally throwing money and wealth away because some pinheads think CO2 is a pollutant.

Depends on the cost and benefits. Current global warming policy hurts poor people the most, raising the cost of energy. If cleaner energy is developed cheaply, then the problem of global warming largely takes care of itself. If the cleaner energy is more expensive, then you are telling poor countries that they have to pay more for energy leaving them less money for other things. Would you like your energy bill to double?

The eco-fascists have waged war on capitalism and industry. We currently need fossil fuels for everything from running the computer you used to driving to work. Our economy would take a huge hit if we impose failed and expensive technologies to replace fossil fuels. If you think developing new technologies is good, I applaud you and suggest you work at developing those technologies. When they become economically viable, they will replace our current system. Nobody wants dirty air and dirty water.. Some people seem to be more interested in symbolism over substance. For example, windmills and bio-fuels may cause more environmental damage than the fossil fuels they are supposed to replace and they are certainly much more expensive and unreliable. Too many are pushing their pet projects without regard to the infrastructure and costs. We have to evaluate costs versus reward. Without doing that, we allow the inmates to run the asylum.