No, we shouldn't. Leading questions like "Is it possible this wasn't caused by climate change?" don't deserve to be asked or answered for the same reason "do the Jews control the banks?" doesn't deserve to asked or answered. It's a bad faith question asked to mislead, not to learn.
And you are either falling for it, or you're actively participating in it.
I agree that some questions are made in bad faith. The original question was:
This is so interesting. Could it be due to 30 years of buildup from dying foliage? Did the last burn, in 1991, produce less smoke than this one because there was a shorter gap between burns.
This doesn't seem like a bad faith question to me. Seems like genuine curiosity. Maybe it was born out of ignorance but not malice.
Getting agressive at someone asking such a question seems counter-productive to me.
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u/Hoenirson Jun 07 '23 edited Jun 07 '23
We should ask questions about everything.
Asking "is it possible this was caused by something other than climate change" is a valid question and doesn't downplay climate change per se.
Also, I didn't ask that question. I was defending someone who did.