Does it matter one bit whose fault it is? NO, we are all in this together folks
Actually, I believe it does. If you don't know whose 'fault' it is ,then you really don't know what's causing it. If you don't know what's causing it then you don't know why it's happening. If you don't know why it's happening then you really don't know how to change it.
... and attempting to change it without really understanding the cause can be maybe helpful, maybe useless, maybe harmful.
Science wants to be predictive. "Under these conditions, this happens" F=ma. Change the input quantitatively and you get an output that you can figure out ahead of time. Unfortunately, it isn't always that way. There's a lot we don't know, and a lot we do know but don't have the computational power to do much about. Predicting earthquakes and tornados and snowfall two weeks from now. Too many variables or not enough data to build a predictive model with much accuracy or confidence. Medicine is a good example. We know how many PSI it will take to break a human bone, yet we make guesses on colds.
So, like a detective, we gather empirical evidence when we can, and make hunches from the coincidental evidence. Sometimes we are right and sometimes we are wrong.
But sometimes we don't know the difference. By 'we' I mean all of us on the outside looking at scientists making declarations. Are they making a quantitative prediction, like the time of the next lunar eclipse? Or an educated guess base on circumstantial evidence and experience like next weekends weather? Most of us don't have the background or experience to always know the difference. And there are many who don't care and for their own motives will sell a hunch as a fact and a guess as a mathematical proof. That really doesn't help anyone in deciding policy and direction.
I admit that from what I've seen, I don't see the climatology around global warning is really at a place where deductions can be made. We can be at the point of saying "this has been happening for a hundred years and that has been also happening for a hundred years, therefore we believe they are connected, and therefore if this continues to happen, that will also continue to happen". We are not yet at the point of saying "this many tons of that material leads to these many degrees of change" or rate slopes plotted over time. We don't have qualitative equations with predictive power yet.
Which means we don't have equations yet that tell us what we can change, what we can't change, and how to go about it. Which is where we run into the "might as well do something, anything would help" issue.
If we don't have a quantitative cause-effect equation, then you don't know if you are, we are all doing enough. We all cut our 'carbon footprint' in half and we think "at least we've done something" but all we may have done is jiggled the needle a bit to stretch our extinction out by a decade, or a generation, or... who knows? So maybe my great-grandchild dies of old age but my great-great-grandchild does not and my great-great-great-grandchild is never born, but last week, someone bought a hybrid SUV and felt like they had done something but they did not do *nearly* enough. Or we missed something in our circumstantial correlation, and it turns out that changing from oil burning cars to electric cars really didn't change the situation; not enough to change the outcome. So doing something... did nothing. Which is why I compare 'carbon credits' to "I pay you not to piss in the lake, so I can piss in the lake... well how much piss in the lake is still safe for both of us to drink?"
Whatever we do will cost, I don't mean the extra cost of an electric car for a family of four. I'm talking about a third-world country that can't become a first world country because they can't afford the 'clean tech' to upgrade their energy infrastructures so their people struggle on without the basic infrastructure we take for granted. Lotta jobs, lotta lives will be affected negatively and permanently as we fight to save the planet. We'd better be sure we are right. We'd better be sure that we who are saying "sacrifices must be made" are willing to do little more that just lowering the temperature and putting on a sweater, considering what we will be asking of others.
We'd better be sure we are right. We could be at the point of realizing that washing hands between surgeries will prevent the spread of disease, or at the point where we are thinking leaches would be a pretty good idea. Back to the original issue, if we don't know who's fault it is then we really don't know the cause and we really don't know the solution.. and we may kill the patient with good intentions
Or we may be at the point of no-return. It may not be possible to change the outcome. Maybe we're not the cause, maybe we never really figure out the cause, maybe we don't really have us much power as we hope and therefore we don't have enough power to change the results. In which case we're beyond the point that anything we do will matter, in which case our focus should not be on stopping but but surviving it and adapting to it. Or by the time we reach the point of collectively realizing we can't stop it.. we will also have lost the time to learn to adapt.
So, unfortunately, I think we're at a point were we really don't know the cause.. not quantitatively, not predictably. So we don't really know how to change the situation enough to affect the outcome. So we don't know if anything we are doing is enough, or even the right thing to do, or maybe even damaging in the long run. And, unfortunately, by the time we know those answers, it may be too late. Then again, it may be too late today and we need to face this.
Or..in short. We don't have enough knowledge to act in wisdom, but we may not have the time to get that knowledge, either
In "To Build A Fire".. at what point and with what action or decision did the man condemn himself to death, and everything after that was just the actions of a dead man who didn't know it yet?
