@bbuckingham you should be able to use `Proc.new` to simulate optional params in both 1.8 and 1.9. Alternatively, I think Rails recommends creating a class method like so:

```ruby
class ContentView

def self.scope(safe = false)
  relation = self.joins(:environments).group('"content_views"."id"').having('count("environment"."id") > 1') 
  if safe
     # do not include group and having in returned relation
     self.where :id => relation.all.map(&:id)
  else
    relation
  end
end
```

This has the same affect as a scope. See http://guides.rubyonrails.org/active_record_querying.html#passing-in-arguments.