When it comes to opinions about climate change, there have traditionally been two main camps: either you think human activities are warming the climate at a pace that will largely outstrip our ability to adapt and therefore we must take strong and immediate action to try to mitigate it, or, you think climate change is entirely natural and that human activities play virtually no role. But a new, more moderate group is emerging, one colloquially known as the “lukewarmers”—folks who acknowledge a human role in climate change, but who think that the resulting change will be moderate, will remain well within our abilities to adapt, and question the need for actions to mitigate future change in lieu of other, more pressing issues (issues that will go a long way toward improving our adaptive response).
Lukewarmers often find themselves nearly friendless, as neither of the major groups looks favorably on their outlook. “Rational Optimist” Matt Ridley recently took us through his experiences as a lukewarmer—and they weren’t particularly pretty. We’ve had similar experiences ourselves.
But perhaps times are changing.
Yesterday, the U.S. Senate held votes on three different amendments—each climate-related—to be attached to the bill they are currently discussing. That bill aims at wresting the long overdue decision on the Keystone XL pipeline from the State Department, and instead give a congressional green light to the project. (The House as already passed a bill doing the same.) The outcome of the votes seemed to give indication that the Senate was starting to favor the “lukewarming” stance on climate change.
First off, in a vote of 98–1, the Senate found that “climate change is real and it was not a hoax.” Good start!
Then, the Senate pretty much split down the middle, in a 50–49 vote, whether “human activity significantly contributes to climate change,” thus defeating the amendment (which needed 60 votes to pass). The vote was pretty much down party lines, with five Republicans casting a “yea” vote along with all the Democrats. The word “significantly” has so many different meanings that unless you were in the first camp described in our opening paragraph, you would have to vote no, just to be on the safe side (when it comes to protecting yourself from being misconstrued).