From Roger Pielke Senior’s Climate Science Blog. There is an Associated Press [AP] news article today by Dina Cappiello, Seth Borenstein and Kevin Freking titled “Poll: US belief in global warming is cooling”.
In this article the reporters perpetuate the myth that
“Though there are exceptions, the vast majority of scientists agree that global warming is occurring and that the primary cause is a buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels, such as oil and coal.”
This is not true and is a case of the media seeking to make up news.
We have already documented that a significant minority of climate scientists do not consider greenhouse gases as the primary cause for global warming, and, more generally, cause climate change; e.g. see
Brown, F., J. Annan, and R.A. Pielke Sr., 2008: Is there agreement amongst climate scientists on the IPCC AR4 WG1?
and
National Research Council, 2005: Radiative forcing of climate change: Expanding the concept and addressing uncertainties. Committee on Radiative Forcing Effects on Climate Change, Climate Research Committee, Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, Division on Earth and Life Studies, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 208 pp.
In the coming month, we will be presenting another article that documents that the AP authors are erroneous in their claim “that the vast majority of scientists agree that global warming is occurring and that the primary cause is a buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels, such as oil and coal.”
If the reporters want to be balanced in their presentations, rather than lobbyists and advocates, they would persue the validity of their claim. So far, however, they have failed in this journalistic role.
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I don’t know I think there is room for a vast majority and a significant minority to both exist at the same time. Don’t get me wrong it is definitely slanted towards the AGW POV but I don’t think you can say it is an erroneous claim.
OT. Lower troposphere in freefall at the moment http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/execute.csh?amsutemps+002
It’s very unclear to me what could be the basis of such a claim. Even if scientists the world over were to vote, on what proposition would they vote?
That climate changes?
Is changing?
That CO2 might, plausibly, be having an effect?
A BIG effect? A minor effect?
Now? In 100 years?
It’s safe to say that biologists concerned with evolution, and many who are not directly investigating it, assent to Darwin’s theory because that is their working intellectual framework. Other than people investigating the mechanics of climate change who already accept AGW, what scientists claim that?
Biologists who write about the “probable impacts on X,y,z species of climate change” would not change the way they do their work if AGW suddenly were abandoned – they would simply investigate different things.
Just as you can do decent solid-state physics and be a fundamentalist creationist but you can’t be paleontologist doing good workwith that mind-set, the notions of AGW are simply irrelevant to most science.
My basic point is that this notion that AGW people are in the majority is mostly based on the news media and certain highly visible editorial positions of some science and quasi scientific (IPCC) institutions.
I dealt with this at length in my dissection of Oreske’s famous claim based on her “research” into the literature of climate change.
http://iamyouasheisme.wordpress.com/2009/03/20/is-terra-burningand-how-do-we-know/
The term “vast majority” is very vague. A simple majority means more than 50%. A super majority means more than two thirds, or about 66%. So what IS a vast majority? Is it more than a super majority? I think that most people would think it is between 80% and 95%. Of course that is only a guess since it has not been defined and is misleading.
The term “significant minority” is also vague. The terms small minoritytiny/substantial/significant minority
The term “significant minority” is also vague. The terms small minority tinyminority, substantial minority and significant minority all need to be defined.
Still, I think Pielke has a point.
Why don’t people check this for themselves?
Most people nowadays have access to the Internet.
Satellite data of global temperature, ice cover and sea level rise are just a few clicks away on the Internet. These data are from unbiased sources.
They show no temperature rise for the last decade, an ice cover increase around Antarctica, an Arctic ice rebound from a minimum 2 years ago and no increase in the sea level rise.
When argue about this encourage people to check out for themselves!
We should start a check out for yourself campaign!
It is interesting that Colombia Univ. is no longer accepting applicants for its environmental journal program. There apparently are no job opportunties after graduation. But one other thing caught my eye about this degree. It is a double major in environmental studies and journalism. So it would seem that the their could be a conflict. Are the environmental journalists really environmentalists who are interested in journalism or journalists with an interest in the environment. It just seems that the way this is structured, you will automatically get people who are pre-disposed to a point of view.
You miss the point. The whole reason that the press uses such terms is that they are misleading but can still be claimed to be technically true. What they are printing is true even if it doesn’t accurately represent the truth.
I wonder how the belief will be swayed once they see continued warming of the waters above and below the surface of the middle of the ENSO region (the TAO site showing a bit of warming in a certain spot as El Modoki gets stronger)?
Then again that could be like Solar/SST relation expert Tallbloke said, the oceans in heat release mode due to solar inactivity as the SST data on the UAH site isn’t really climbing in response to this as with previous El Ninos (particulary the one in 97/98)
I see this almost word for word in every single climate reporting article, regardless of what they are reporting. I’ll also go as far as to say that every single AP article is like that: there’s an agenda, with the facts prompting the article as a secondary part of the ‘news’ (‘opinion’?) story.
As the article states, people are mixing up climate and weather. But at what point does weather become climate?
There is often times a “vast” difference between what is true and the truth.
“But at what point does weather become climate?”
At the point when it’s politically useful.
It seems that Pielke seinor has called this correctly. There are probably more scientists that do not believe in global warming than do, but there are few government grants available that would allow that viewpoint to be made known. The IPCC, Gore and the US government continue to pour money into AGW. There is power to be gained in support of AGW. Soon enough government control will be used for the opposite viewpoint when reality strikes. I was at a presentation at USC by Dr. W Soon where he spoke of the current solar minimum and its cooling effect. In the audience were many professors. I asked one of them why he did not speak out about how global warming was incorrect and he replied that he was ‘afraid to do so’. There is always the threat of government not supporting the research in which they are directly involved. AGW has been well paid for and continues as a source of income for many on the bandwagon.
I consider myself to be part of the vast minority.
The other common one is “with a warming planet and rising sea levels”.
It’s time for that significant minority to educate the AP. Only the respected and accomplished scientists and professional people can do this. We the consumers of the “news” are not considered authoritative enough to sway the AP which is locked into getting information only from sources they trust. Anthony, perhaps it’s time to start a press release campaign from your circle of knowledgeable authorities?
Have they actually done a poll of all scientists (notice, it didn’t say “climate scientists” or some similar poorly-defined subset), or even a large sampling, to know that the “vast majority” believe the following:
“that global warming is occurring and that the primary cause is a buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels, such as oil and coal.”
As I understand it, there is some significant percentage that believes (i) global warming is occurring. There is a smaller subset that believes (ii) it is caused by a buildup of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. There is yet a smaller subset that believes (iii) the buildup is the result of burning oil and coal.
Although not mentioned in the quote, there would be further (and smaller) subsets who think that (iv) the warming will be catastrophic or even net-negative, (v) we have the ability to control the amount of warming, and (vi) we should expend efforts to control the warming (as opposed to putting our limited resources to other uses).
The statement about legions of scientists is nothing that but an unsupported appeal to authority. Repeat it often enough and it will become part of the background “knowledge” of the reporter.
I agree with Per Stranberg – all the info is out there, in fact you can find it all at one site
http://www.climate4you.com
I have a friend who is a full on greenie, checks the Greenpeace site every day – when I pointed him to climate4you his whole belief system was shattered.
Poor grumpy journalists. They had to report the poll — no way to avoid it since it came from their very own Pew news factory. But it was not happy news for the PC hounds.
So they spin the myth that the majority of common American peasants are deluded and ignorant of the “science”, whereas the scribblers with journalism degrees are somehow more advanced and tuned in.
But as we all know, journalists in general are science-handicapped. That’s why those individuals went into journalism rather than some technical field. As a result, journalism has become advocacy rhetoric, light on the technical facts.
Journalism is a dying profession. The new wave is citizen journalism, ala WUWT, and the old forms are withering away. Society has already made the leap. The pathetic buggy whip journalists are flailing away as best they can, but the handwriting is on the wall.
It’s funny .We have no cure for the common cold but the global warming crowd ,and most of the news media,knows for sure that we are causing global warming or climate change as its now been changed to.I saw on Fox News where congress is wanting to put carbon charges for having pets becaues it is bad for the enviroment. I believe that all of the global warming crowd is bad for America and the enviroment as well.
Sean (11:55:41) : It just seems that the way this is structured, you will automatically get people who are pre-disposed to a point of view.
The “vast majority” of the curriculum at U. California Santa Cruz is of that ilk. On a visit there with my son, we both decided to look elsewhere exactly because of that “eco cram down” in every topic. He is now getting a Biz degree at a different UC campus with more “normal” social mix…
What a patience! Trying to convince global warmers of how wrong they are. It is an impossible endeavour. It is not a matter of reasoning but believing.
Only our now feeble but faithful sun will freeze their beliefs.
Dr Pielke: Almost all media polls are an attempt to create news. As always, the devil is in the details.
How many articles have we seen stating a majority support for government run health care? How many tell you the specifics of the questions and the breakdown of the people they sampled?
If you choose who you poll, you’ll get the answers you want to receive. Sure, somebody will do an analysis that shows the results are skewed and not properly weighted, but if the media doesn’t report that story, most people will never know.
BTW: What about the poll that shows concern about AGW or climate change has the lowest priority of any major issue among Americans?
Let me get this straight .. the contention is that there isn’t a “vast majority” but it’s something like a “half-vast majority”
“the science is in”
any other questions?
I suspect this news hits newspapers and print media. These are papers that give time for the sunrise and sunset. I am glad to know they tell me the sun will come UP tomorrow. Some people believe the sun isn’t actually going UP.