What if climate change wasn't real?

Climate skeptics have been clamoring ever so much more loudly since the Climategate scandal of late 2009. ["Climategate" is the first option that pops up when one starts typing "clima..." into Google, if we need further proof.] It's ridiculous. The amount of airtime this non-controversy is hogging just serves to validate the spin a few highly-paid oil industry shills are selling. So, that's the last you'll hear from us here on that topic. Moving on to real discussions....

What if human-caused climate change were not real? Would thinking people still be modifying our behaviors for economic and social reasons? For example, the choice to bike instead of drive can be justified for a host of reasons- none of them carbon-footprint reducing- that still add up to a reasonable person making this choice. War, for one. Air pollution (non GHG), for another. And hey, how about health if you are entirely self-centered? There are lots of reasons to ride bikes.

What about changing your lightbulbs? Does that still make sense without climate change? You bet. So does eating less meat. Many of the "green living" changes people are making in context of climate change are valid changes whether or not the world is heating up. So, isn't it rational to simply create a better world- individually and collectively- regardless of what happens when greenhouse gases hang out in the atmosphere? Why is that so hard to accept?

We'd posit that it isn't hard to accept as individuals, but the corporations have no such incentives. Corporations don't care about making the world better; they care about their shareholders wallets. It is a threat to the corporations for us to stop consuming-disposing-consuming and instead invest our time and energy in other ways. With less money, they'll have less power, and with less power, they'll have less influence on legislation. With less corporate influence on legislation, we might just have a rational policy response to the massive evidence that climate change is occurring, and at an alarming rate.