Global warming is not new - 10,000 years ago Ohio was buried under 5,000 feet of ice. But the debate about what is causing it is new - probably less than 50 years old.

We wanted to know what our audience thinks about what’s causing recent extreme weather patterns, so last week we asked this question: “This is a very warm and dry year for much of the U.S. Why do you think this is happening?” Here’s what you told us:

Only 7% of our respondents think, “It’s clearly climate change and humans are causing it.” Three times as many, 22%, said, “It’s climate change and humans are part of the problem.” The big group, 72%, allowed that, “It’s climate change, which was happening long before humans.”

For my part, the debate should not be whether the Earth is warming - evidence indicates that it is (see first sentence above). Nor should it be about whether humans are contributing to global warming - we probably are, but it obviously began long before we discovered how handy burning fossils could be (see first sentence above).

The debate should be how we accomplish two things: 1) Create and/or discover sustainable energy sources - preferably more than one; 2) Convert to these energy sources over a period of time long enough to prove their effectiveness and sustainability, while simultaneously giving the marketplace time - decades, not years - to make the conversion without wrecking the global economy.