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army1987 comments on 2011 Less Wrong Census / Survey - Less Wrong
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Thanks for doing this.
With respect to P(Warming), I took this to mean the probability that significant anthrogenic climate change is occurring or will occur.
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).