Stanford and Woods Institute didn’t like the recent polls like these:
Pew poll: 2 of 3 Americans think Congressional action on climate change is not a priority
Gallup: Americans’ Global Warming Concerns Continue to Drop
Pew Poll: global warming dead last, down from last year
So with public money from the National Science Foundation, they conducted their own poll, and issued a press release:
Large majority of Americans still believe in global warming, Stanford poll finds
Three out of four Americans believe that the Earth has been gradually warming as the result of human activity and want the government to institute regulations to stop it, according to a new survey by researchers at the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University.
The survey was conducted by Woods Institute Senior Fellow Jon Krosnick, a professor of communication and of political science at Stanford, with funding from the National Science Foundation. The results are based on telephone interviews conducted from June 1-7 with 1,000 randomly selected American adults.
“Several national surveys released during the last eight months have been interpreted as showing that fewer and fewer Americans believe that climate change is real, human-caused and threatening to people,” Krosnick said. “But our new survey shows just the opposite.”
For example, when respondents in the June 2010 survey were asked if the Earth’s temperature probably had been heating up over the last 100 years, 74 percent said yes. And 75 percent said that human behavior was substantially responsible for any warming that has occurred. Krosnick has asked similar questions in previous Woods Institute polls since 2006.
“Our surveys reveal a small decline in the proportion of people who believe global warming has been happening, from 84 percent in 2007 to 74 percent today,” Krosnick said. “Statistical analysis of our data revealed that this decline is attributable to perceptions of recent weather changes by the minority of Americans who have been skeptical about climate scientists.”
In terms of average Earth temperature, 2008 was the coldest year since 2000, Krosnick said. “Scientists say that such year-to-year fluctuations are uninformative, and people who trust scientists therefore ignore this information when forming opinions about global warming’s existence,” he added. “But people who do not trust climate scientists base their conclusions on their personal observations of nature. These ‘low-trust’ individuals were especially aware of the recent decline in average world temperatures; they were the ones in our survey whose doubts about global warming have increased since 2007.”
According to Krosnick, this explanation is especially significant, because it suggests that the recent decline in the proportion of people who believe in global warming is likely to be temporary. “If the Earth’s temperature begins to rise again, these individuals may reverse course and rejoin the large majority who still think warming is real,” he said.
‘Climategate’
Several questions in the June survey addressed the so-called “climategate” controversy, which made headlines in late 2009 and early 2010.
“Growing public skepticism has, in recent months, been attributed to news reports about e-mail messages hacked from the computer system at the University of East Anglia in Britain – characterized as showing climate scientists colluding to silence unconvinced colleagues – and by the discoveries of alleged flaws in reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC),” Krosnick said. “Our survey discredited this claim in multiple ways. ”
For example, only 9 percent of respondents said they knew about the East Anglia e-mail messages and believed they indicate that climate scientists should not be trusted, and only 13 percent said the same about the controversial IPPC reports.
“Overall, we found no decline in Americans’ trust in environmental scientists,” Krosnick said. “Fully 71 percent of respondents said they trust scientists a moderate amount, a lot or completely.”
Government solutions
In the June 2010 survey, 86 percent of respondents said they wanted the federal government to limit the amount of air pollution that businesses emit, and 76 percent favored government limitations on greenhouse gas emissions generated by businesses. Only 14 percent said that the United States should not take action to combat global warming unless other major industrial countries like China and India do so as well.
Among other survey results:
- 78 percent opposed taxes on electricity to reduce consumption, and 72 percent opposed taxes on gasoline;
- 84 percent favored the federal government offering tax breaks to encourage utilities to make more electricity from water, wind and solar power;
- Four out of 5 respondents favored government requiring or offering tax breaks to encourage the production of cars that use less gas (81 percent), appliances that use less electricity (80 percent) and homes and office buildings that require less energy to heat and cool (80 percent);
- Only 18 percent said that policies to reduce global warming would increase unemployment.
For additional information on Krosnick’s research, visit: http://woods.stanford.edu/research/surveys.html
Mr Krosnick, go choke yourself. Professor of political science, it fits.
The new survey comments “4. What do you think will be the most serious problem facing the world in the future if nothing is done to stop it? This time, 25 percent said the environment or global warming, and only 10 percent picked the economy or unemployment”.
How do you do something to stop the economy? How do you stop the environment?
As these amateur pollsters noted, poll results are influenced by the way the question is asked. It follows that if you ask an impossible question, you get an impossible answer.
Many times, figures under 10% are largely donkey vote anyhow.
And yes, I did set up and operate a corporate polling operation where we head office folk manned a bank of phones phones after work, using expert pollsters to set the questions. This removed my amateur pollster status.
“If the Earth’s temperature begins to rise again, these individuals may reverse course and rejoin the large majority who still think warming is real.”
Erm…
So, if the Earth’s temps are to rise again, logically, they are currently stagnating or falling. However, there is a large majority that, at present, think the warming is real. Therefore, for the majority, stagnant and falling temperatures mean real warming. With that logic, the only term left to describe increasing temperatures must be unreal warming.
“The results are based on telephone interviews conducted from June 1-7 with 1,000 randomly selected American adults.”
This could mean that they have a ‘pool’ of 10,000 people who they know already lean towards the climate alarmist view and they ‘randomly’ selected a thousand from that pool.
“For example, when respondents in the June 2010 survey were asked if the Earth’s temperature probably had been heating up over the last 100 years, 74 percent said yes”.
——————————————
Of that 74% that said ‘yes’, how many said: “Yes, thank goodness?”
When real science and observations failed …. pay some pollsters to make up some majority percentage of the populace to back your side. Hey, politicians and their spin makers do it all the time!
No one in my social circle has ever brought up global warming , Climategate, or the IPPC. About dozen individuals make up the group, most of them college grads including a physicist, two engineers, a biologist, and a lawyer.
Surveys results depend on the sample, wording of questions, current events and other factors, so differences in findings from one survey to another are to be expected. I don’t doubt the weather at the time of a survey on global warming will influence the results. I wonder if the oil spill in the Gulf also influenced the results of the subject survey, since some may consider global warming an environmental issue.
Interestingly – the survey was completed only towards the end of 2009. Which considering the impact of “Climategate” really only surfaced very late in 2009 and into 2010, I fail to see how a survey that took part in 2009 can tell us a great deal about peoples attitude to an event that hit the fan in 2010.
Having scanned some of the Utube clips from Jon Krosnick on this point, he does seem rather ill at ease when discussing this point and at one stage actually says something like “With my 30 years experience I know that this is very unlikely” when referring to how Climategate revelations in 2010 affect the validity of a survey carried out in 2009.
I believe he also lets slip his bias by stating that a “small error” was found in the IPCC report. I do not believe that the many errors uncovered were small.
The questions and responses are here:
http://woods.stanford.edu/docs/surveys/Global-Warming-Survey-Selected-Results-June2010.pdf
Question 33b which is asked of half the sample states: “Some people believe that the United States government should limit the amount of greenhouse gasses thought to cause global warming that U.S. businesses can produce.”
This would seem to bias any further answers by asserting a link between GHG and global warming.
One further point on the time scales as sited in the video link. At one point he refers to the survey being over 4 years reference the publics confidence in Climate scientists and then later he states that the survey was carried out late 2009 and early 2010?
Polls are as irrelevant as is “consensus “”science”” “. If serious scientists driven by scientific integrity reject the idea that we have a consise undertsanding of the climate system then what is the relevance of the opinion of the avearage citicen? Research is what we need not polls.
Risible. There’s lies, damn lies and statistics. But hey, why even bother with the statistics?
I would be deeply suspicious of pollsters who come up with results that are congruent with their own organisation’s biases without an authoritative check on their questionnaire’s design and the selection of respondents. My own view is that any organisation which has to borrow the credibility of a long-respected and long established research institution by inventing and using a very similar name, and displays its biases by featuring a wind turbine on the front page of the section of its website that deals with energy has little credibility.
Hiding another decline.
“…a small decline …. from 84 percent ….. to 74 percent…” Heh.
“…only 9 percent (…) knew about the East Anglia e-mail messages and (….) only 13 percent (…) about the controversial IPPC reports”
In other words: limited loss of confidence is due to being poorly informed, right?
Apologies – should have taken the time to go through the paper – little time available but have found the following:-
Three separate surveys ;-
1) Carried out October 2008 to September 2009
2) Carried out from November 17th to November 29th 2009
3) Carried out from October 7th to October 21st 2009.
I would be grateful if someone would check this but to my initial thinking, I fail to see how this survey can possibly take into account shifts in public opinion post “Climategate”, “Glaciergate” etc. considering when these various “…gates” came to pass.
Doug
It is sad to see that Global warming is in the bottom list of the priorities. I hope people will at least be more concerned with the environment.
How did they get 75% blaming man?
Q14
(Assuming it’s [warming] happening) Do you think a rise in the world’s temperature is being (would be) caused mostly by things people do, mostly by natural causes, or about equally by things people do and by natural causes?
Things People Do 30
Natural Causes 25
Both Equally 45
Basically that says 45% of people are LUKEWARMERS.
the silent majority
The random selection of their respondents was conducted on base of their Green activist lists.
The perfect demonstration of this is from Sir Bernard
You WILL believe in AGW, you WILL, you WILL…
…even if you don’t !
Oops – Don’t believe the html instructions for href in the comment instructions
This is the link for Sir Bernard and “Opinion Polls: Getting the results you want” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yhN1IDLQjo
http://woods.stanford.edu/docs/surveys/Global-Warming-Survey-Selected-Results-June2010.pdf
Selected results. hehe
So, you have to tweak the question in order to get the desired result. Nothing new here, just business as usual for these guys.
Working Paper – Accurately measuring the American public’s issue priorities: Tweaking the most important question reveals more concern about global warming and the environment
(Working Paper, May, 2010 – pdf)
■Only 18 percent said that policies to reduce global warming would increase unemployment.
*Only 18 percent of those polled understood the questions that were asked.
Starting with “You may have heard about the idea that the world’s temperature may have been going up slowly over the past 100 years. What is your personal opinion on this – do you think this has probably been happening, or do you think it probably has not been happening?” 74% said probably. Not unreasonable but the term ‘probably’ allows a diffuse answer, not ideal for a survey. Pulling out that 74%,they were asked they were if it was caused by ‘things people do’ or ‘natural causes’ or both. 45% said both, 30% said tpd and 25% said nc. This is leading questioning producing broad ‘safe’ motherhood answers. To then say
“Three out of four Americans believe that the Earth has been gradually warming as the result of human activity.” is an outrageous interpretation. Krosnick lumped the ‘both’ (45%) with the ‘things people do’ (30%) to produce his 75%.
I just hope that journalists out there read and interpret the pdf with wisdom and not fall for this AGW spin.
The only thing that makes any sense is the 4/5ths who like the idea of getting more bang for their buck! Only an idiot would want otherwise IMHO! It means they get more bucks to enjoy the little luxuries in life, make good sense to me. Or is it just little old me?
“For example, only 9 percent of respondents said they knew about the East Anglia e-mail messages”
OK then ,time to call the other 91% and give them the news!
I’d like to see the questions and interview script
I had a look at the poll internals.. I’d summarize by saying they asked if people liked apple pie.. and breathlessly reported that 80% said they didn’t like steak.
JC
So a 1-in-8 drop over three years is a ‘small decline’, but a 2-degree rise over a century is a major crisis?
“Jon Krosnick, a professor of communication and of political science.”
A propagandists qualifications if ever I saw them.
First: Juraj V. I’m surprised your comment made it through moderation. Take a look in the mirror sometime.
Second: surveys are inherently open to multiple interpretations. It would be good to see some of the caustic assessment comments made here applied to the other surveys when the results seemingly favor the WUWT dominant world view — those surveys are in no way any more accurate or robust than the one reported here. They merely gave results that most of the WUWT readership liked.
At the end of the day, the climate system will have the final say – fortunately the climate system does not behave according to opinion.
The opinions of us average citizens have no scientific relevance, but, when pseudo science is used for politico/religious purposes, our opinions in concert become critical. I have been a daily visitor to this site since I discovered it in October 2009. and I believe that the real value of the site does not lay so much in its worth to climate professionals, but in its worth to the enquiring layman. The earth would remain flat if the layman had not been convinced otherwise.
My thanks are due to Anthony for his tolerance of us non climate specialists.
I would be very disappointed in this survey if it came from an undergrad.
They do the old ‘do you want world peace’ approach when it should be ‘would you be willing to pay x for world peace’. Example Q33b ‘..should pollution be limited’. yes 92% – Duh? I’m always surprised that anyone says no! that Q should be ‘would you pay more taxes to reduce pollution a little more than todays levels’.
And how can the public know what the effect on jobs will be? They have no idea what the question means.
I could go on but it’s all very frustrating. I only hope that they have alerted a lot of respondents about climategate and IPCC flaws who didn’t previously know. 😉
cheers David
By the way look at Q54b where the interviewer is told to ask the respondent only if they remember hearing something – how can you have 76% answering that they did not remember hearing something?
In Q52 how can you ask someone what someone else is thinking?
Q33b ends with the question “Do you think the government should or should not limit the amount of greenhouse gasses that U.S. businesses put out?” – note it mentions ‘greenhouse gasses”.
Now look at the options for responses – “Government should/should not limit air pollution from U.S. businesses” – they switched the subject to ‘air pollution’.
So, what are the respondents thinking when giving their answer – ‘greenhouse gasses’ or ‘air pollution’?
I’m against air pollution but do not consider CO2 to be a pollutant. Even if the respondents are of the same mind, are they responding to ‘greenhouse gasses’ or ‘air pollution’?
Tim Gordon says:
June 10, 2010 at 1:15 am
A lot of people are concerned about the environment. If you read the chart you will see 44% rank it a top priority. But more people think other issues are more important.
In the minds of most people, only 28% think otherwise, Global warming is not a problem because it is cooling now.
The environment and Global warming are two separate issues.
The folks running this silly poll are scared of losing their funding, and their jobs. The staging of this poll inadvertently demonstrates the validity of the Pew institute poll. Over 80% of those polled consider the economy and jobs as priorities. So do the people at Stanford and Woods Hole. They want to keep their jobs.
Where would an unemployed climate change specialist find work in today’s economy?
There are lies, damned lies and there are skewed polls. It’s been known for ages that the answers you get can skewed depending on how you phrase the questions.
Has he thought about if the Earth’s temperature begins to fall, the numbers of sceptics will continue to rise? If we get 10 to 20 years of cooling temps along with rising c02 levels, what oh what will they say then.
This is why warmists pray for warming while pushing the world to take action to ‘cool’ the Earth. When temps are flat / cooling they are depressed. Why???? Agenda???
Pollgate
From the story:
“Overall, we found no decline in Americans’ trust in environmental scientists,” Krosnick said. “Fully 71 percent of respondents said they trust scientists a moderate amount, a lot or completely.”
And of course Krosnick is a ‘government scientist’ …
There’s something to be remarked of about someone who blows his own horn so loudly, that all other opinions are drowned out.
The ‘government scientist’ doth protest too much, methinks.
————-
This is why governments around the world are having trouble shoving cap n trade and other restrictions on hard pressed tax payers and retired folks heating bills. Politicians also look at other types of opinion polls you know. :o)
People can be concerned about the environment and call BS on AGW. IMHO AGW has detracted away from environmental protection and diverted desperately needed resources into a science that is settled and away from numerous environmental concerns. AGW is bad for the environment.
A couple of years ago, I was one of these “randomly selected American adults” for one of these poles. I carefully answered the questions honestly, writing down the questions and my answers…they hung up on me! How offensive!
fredb says:
June 10, 2010 at 2:31 am
Fred, why would a scientific institution find it necessary to conduct opinion polls? Isn’t the money better spent doing science? What will the poll achieve for Woods Hole / Stanford?
Do you ultimately agree that opinion polls will not warm or cool the planet? I don’t give a hoot if 99% of people believe in AGW, it doesn’t make those people right!!! Polls from history tell us that the majority can often be mistaken
Anthony:
Woods Institute for the Environment (at Stanford)
NOT
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution *at Falmouth, Mass.)
I never thought WUWT would consider spamming a stupid site = PLEASE!
If the survey ended on November 29, 2009 it is actually quite remarkable that 9 % had heard about Climategate considering how it was ignored by the MSM.
Heh, we should ask Lindsey Graham if politicians are getting this kind of feedback from their constituents.
==============
The usual morally bankrupt hoodwink:
Conflating:
1) environment & climate.
2) pollution & GHGs.
3) nature & anthropogenic computer fantasies (including natural & “anthropogenic” temperature trends).
As an ecologist with *real* concerns about nature, the environment & pollution, I find this morally bankrupt associative tactic strictly unforgivable.
Real environmentalists are standing up with absolute resolve against these morally bankrupt manipulation artists.
fredb,
Hahahaha!!! You said “robust”!!!! LMAO!!!
Kristinn says: “Erm…
“So, if the Earth’s temps are to rise again, logically, they are currently stagnating or falling. However, there is a large majority that, at present, think the warming is real. Therefore, for the majority, stagnant and falling temperatures mean real warming. With that logic, the only term left to describe increasing temperatures must be unreal warming.”
Thanks, I enjoyed that.
I was fascinated by the questions from the 2009 poll that did not make it into the ‘selected’ responses for the 2010 poll. I want to see the answers to those questions in 2010!
In 2009 they were:
Do you think most scientists agree with one another about whether or not global warming is happening, or do you think there is a lot of disagreement among scientists on this issue?
Most scientists agree 31
Most scientists disagree 66
Do you think most scientists agree with one another about the causes of global warming, or is there a lot of disagreement among scientists about that?
Most scientists agree 30
Most scientists disagree 67
How much of the information provided in the stories written and broadcast by news organizations would you say is accurate – all of it, most of it, about half of it, a little of it, or none of it?
All of it 3
Most of it 22
About half of it 44
A little of it 23
None of it 5
“only 9 percent of respondents said they knew about the East Anglia e-mail messages and believed they indicate that climate scientists should not be trusted”
so 91% are dead set wankers. Have another go, Krosnick. Take a random sample, sure. But first make sure that they can read.
Did my tax money pay for this nonsense? The perpetrators should be fired for malingering on the job, and forced to repay every penny.
If you selected 1,000 Americans at random, how many could name the Vice President and the Secretary of State? How many could be induced by clever questioning to declare “di-hydrogen monoxide” a dangerous pollutant?
/Mr Lynn
Agree with what mack says here –
“For example, only 9 percent of respondents said they knew about the East Anglia e-mail messages”
OK then ,time to call the other 91% and give them the news!”
But given that only the second of the three surveys canvassed opinion ap to 29th November – just a week or so after the climategate story broke and surveys 1 and 3 ended on Sept 9th and Oct. 21st I think that a 9% result is a blinding result for awareness!
Survey 1 ran from Oct 2008 to Sept 2009 – therefore respondants not possible to be aware of Climate gate because it had not happened in that time frame.
Similarly with survey 3 that ran from Oct 7th 2009 to Oct 21st 2009.
Only survey 2 that ran from Nov 17th to Nov 29th 2009 had any chance of finding someone that could possibly be aware of “Climategat”
To get a meaningful percentage of awareness of Climategate you can only use Survey 2 and you would have to filter out all respondents before say the 21st November (and that is being generous given that it took a while to bet MSM interested) and THEN look at the figures!
It seems laughable that someone could set out such percentages knowing that the data sample for Climategate awareness is so flawed!
But then maybe i should stop being surprised anymore.
Doug
I suppose if one polled 1,000 randomly selected children under the age of 6 and asked if they believed there is a Santa Claus you would get about 95% saying yes. That doesn’t make it true. However, perhaps a funding grant would be needed to find out for sure.
@derise
“A couple of years ago, I was one of these “randomly selected American adults” for one of these poles. I carefully answered the questions honestly, writing down the questions and my answers…they hung up on me! How offensive!”
Probably not an actual poll, but a “push poll.” They pretend to be gathering data but really they’re just trying to shape your thinking on an issue (usually to get someone elected.. not a coincidence that your poll was timed around an election.)
As soon as they realized they weren’t going to be able to manipulate you they stopped wasting their time to move on to more productive pastures.
Regarding the number of people that don’t believe regulation would cause a rise in unemployment, I read a WSJ bit the other day with a poll that indicated that the majority of democrats have the same problems reconciling their world view to actual economic realities. I guess some people don’t like to acknowlege the down-side of a policy and want to pretend it simply doesn’t exist, while others are simply ignorant about cause/effect. 18% is rather low, actually.. I would have expected higher.
“Stanford and Woods Hole didn’t like the recent polls like these:…”
I don’t think this is Woods Hole Anthony.
Seems to be Woods Institute which appears to be some sort of subsidiary of Stanford”
Nonetheless, they did roll their own. I would bet they had some sort of selection criteria as to who they gave the survey(s) to. Comes under the heading of continued propaganda to keep the grant stream going.
Anthony,
Don’t give this bogus poll more stature than it deserves.
I doubt you really intended to write Woods Hole. As in Oceanographic Institute. It is the Woods Institute that was involved with this travesty. Not the same organization.
A long time ago I spent an afternoon in the library looking at political polls and how well the margin of error fit low polling candidates. The best resource I found was a book by George Gallup and one of the points he made was to never accept poll results unless it included a copy of the questions. He probably also said the polling methodology was vital too, but I knew that. (We have the UNH polling center, which is a master at skewing polls, their director even wrote a book on it.)
I looked at one set of questions and detailed results, see http://www.ap-gfkpoll.com/pdf/AP-Stanford_University_Environment_Poll_Topline.pdf . I like the first few questions, but some later ones may be leading, and there are things I would have done differently or explored (e.g. break out CO2 from “pollution”).
Some of what they do is done to steer the questioning toward climate, kinda interesting as Q1 (What do you think is the most important problem facing the country today?) saw only 1% say climate. Q2 (What do you think will be the most serious problem facing the world in the future if nothing is done to stop it?) did “better” and climate ranked #2, though with only 11%.
It’s pretty hard to summarize the .pdf, I recommend everyone here read it.
There’s only one stat I’d hang my hat on here.
3/4 of those surveyed made up 75% of the respondents.
Was Professor Krosnick a European Union bureacrat before becoming a professor of communication and of political science?
The poll follows the EU precedent. When Denmark voted against the treaty, they were required to vote again. When Ireland voted against the Treaty of Lisbon they were required to vote again. No votes in referenda are not acceptable in the EU.
Similarly Woods Hole appears to stipulate polls which do not provide the right answer must be disgarded in favour of those that do.
“Stanford and Woods Hole didn’t like the recent polls like these”
Please never refer to simply “Woods Hole” as that is a very ambiguous term:
Woods Hole, MA: A smallish community at the southern tip of Cape Cod that is overrun with important research institutions. (My sister was at the Marine Biological Labs when Emperor Hirohito came to visit in the 1970s.)
Woods Hole Oceangraphic Institute: The largest research and educational organization at Woods Hole. My brother-in-law got his Phd there. BTW, they don’t like hearing WHOI mispronounced. It’s should be Hooey, not Huey. IIRC.
Woods Hole Research Center – an activist organization that is happy when people think they’re WHOI.
And new to the list(!)
Woods Institute for the Environment – This is at Stanford on the left side of the country. While Stanford is known (in part) for big trees, this is really “The Ward W. and Priscilla B. Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University harnesses the expertise and imagination of leading academics and decision-makers to create practical solutions for people and the planet.”
Creek crossing. The water is cold and swift. One third of the population (world wide) comes to the creek with exposed stepping stones, showing intimidated behavior, crosses with neither foot dry and bruises on their posterior. A middle third of citizens, having some experience, does not miss a stride, most with dry feet, one or two with one wet foot, arriving on opposite bank. The final third, being provocative over analyzers (do not think outside of the box) sets down to contemplate a solution, all the while the two thirds are continuing up the path on the opposite creek side.
Polling to determine the act of ‘take that machine gun nest’ is not wise as a common rule.
“Our surveys reveal a small decline in the proportion of people who believe global warming has been happening, from 84 percent in 2007 to 74 percent today,” Krosnick said.
Good spinning! Even if a politician was running at 84% in the polls, a drop to 74% would have him denying that he pays attention to them.
If we turn this around, then 16% believed the globe wasn’t warming in 2007, and now 26% believe the globe isn’t warming. That means the group of disbelievers has grown 62% in just three years. Clearly we need a hot summer to “fix” that. Or maybe more alarmists cranking up the rhetoric while keeping it believable.
Or – Climate warming disbelievers improve to 162.5% of the 2007 group!
Growing public skepticism has, in recent months, been attributed to news reports about e-mail messages hacked from the computer system at the University of East Anglia in Britain….
I love the smell of ClimateGate in the morning…..
Ric Werme,
Thank you for pointing out the differences between the Woods Hole Oceangraphic Institute and the NGO fakers that use the Woods Hole name.
It could not be more clear.
Large research institutions, which depend on government funds, are using these very funds to finance their own advocates for their own interests.
It is really sick.
Modern science is rotten to the core. Totally corrupt. These institutions should be torn down. They are mostly running a Ponzi scheme built on fabricated & manipulated results and alarmist propaganda. For another example, just look at MIT and Susan Hockfield and the alarmist nonsense that she and this once respected institution spouts.
It is really sick.
So, it sounds like the questions were worded like:
Do you think, like, maybe, the temps like have been warming, possibly, in the, like, last 100, like, years or so?
Who coached them on these questions? A smart aleck mall-roving band of pre-teenagers?
“Scientists say that such year-to-year fluctuations are uninformative, and people who trust scientists therefore ignore this information when forming opinions about global warming’s existence,” he added. “But people who do not trust climate scientists base their conclusions on their personal observations of nature
In as much an admission that scientists and climate scientists are not the same. Also I do tend to trust my own eyes.
“…a small decline …. from 84 percent ….. to 74 percent…”
My computer model suggests that by early 2011, minus 23 percent of people will believe in global warming.
The MSM has done its job in spiking this story. This is why alternative sources are gaining credibility.
What Ric Werme said (June 10, 2010 at 5:55 am):
The perpetrators of this faux poll are at
“Woods Institute for the Environment – This is at Stanford on the left side of the country.”
Please correct the reference to “Woods Hole” in the first sentence, as that is a mistake, and will mislead people reading quickly. There is only one ‘hole’ appropriate for these agenda-mongers.
/Mr Lynn
Hiding the decline again … are we.
Why not ask people if they think Al Gore’s warm CO2 blanket exists? Then ask them to prove it … LOL
The real revealing part of this robust study is the statement, ” only 9% of the people surveyed knew about the East Anglia e-mail messages”. This confirms what I have stated many times before- Most people are stupid and uninformed about their world. That Is why 535 people can lead 300 plus millions around by their noses.
Sigh …
“# Four out of 5 respondents favored government requiring or offering tax breaks to encourage the production of cars that use less gas (81 percent), appliances that use less electricity (80 percent) and homes and office buildings that require less energy to heat and cool (80 percent);”
Giving “Tax Breaks” for desired behavior is identical to Taxing undesired behavior. Why are people so dense?
They simply used the MST Method (Mann Statistical Trick) and eliminated all samples that did not comply with their predetermined final result.
Of course we have to take their word for it that the one thousand people were actually random and not taken from a greepeace donation rosta.
Lts try to simplify this, a fanatical alarmist ‘research’ body that has made a very luctrative living from AGW for years conducts its own poll and comes to conclusions that directly contradict every independent poll and yet we are supposed to take this Potemkin village style poll seriously?
Who are they trying to kid, themselves or everyone else? I find it rather more than sad that people could pass off such shoddy and obvious twaddle and expect it to be given elbow room…ooops I forgot, the AGW industry has been doing just that for a decade at least.
I have conducted my own poll of myself and my cats and it finds that I trust this poll as much a BBC poll, I have run it through my own computer model and I find that if flared trousers make a comeback then the earth will be covered in them to a depth of no less than one mile by the year 3595.
Pole questions, as we all know, are designed to either arrive at the some true understanding or to bolster ones predefined agenda. Results are simply a propaganda tool. Fortunately most people are smart enough to realize this. Press releases are even greater propaganda tools. I think most people realize that too. What is most disconcerting, is most news dissemination outlets are simply press release repeaters.
See the last page of the pdf:
Adjusted results, not the raw data. Sound familiar? 😉
Once again we have the mixing up of two different things, “the environment, and pollution” with “global warming”. No sane person wants dirty water and dirty air, but CO2 is not pollution and global warming is not a threat to the environment.
Why should we help them by commenting anything?
I say: Ignore them completely, and let them be forgotten.
Did they change their objective paragraph?
Or is it still “find arguments to support AGW” or something like that?
I bet it still is.
They will just use the process to their advantage, and try again.
“What do you think will be the most serious problem facing the world in the future if nothing is done to stop it?”
Crazed ideologues .
It will be like Honecker in the DDR saying;
Yes we did a mistake, but please, please thrust us, and let us try to run another 40 year DDR experiment!
This time we promise noone will mention that we think the Refutniks should be jailed.
This time we promise we will not have the media on our side in a world wide campaign.
This time we promise to include all scientific reports, even from Mørner, Segalstad, Karlen…. and not a single model-run!
We promise! Cross my heart!
Jonathan Castle says:
June 10, 2010 at 12:50 am
Risible. There’s lies, damn lies and statistics. But hey, why even bother with the statistics?
_______________________________________________________________________
Why bother with statistics (& polls)?
There are two reasons.
The first is to accurately gauge the thoughts of the target population. These studies are very carefully engineered to take out as much bias as possible and to poll the correct market segment. They are often used by corporate marketing departments.
The second reason is unethical in my opinion. These studies are very carefully engineered to reach a desired opinion and to poll the correct sub-population. The information is then used to influence politicians and the population as a whole.
Well if 94% of the population believes the sky is pink, I guess I must be wrong. If 84% of the population thinks a pink sky tax is appropriate, who am I to go against the majority wishes. This is a democracy after all. (Yes I know the USA is a republic)
I could duplicate this poll easily by including 90% Greenpeace/WWF members.
The difference in the proportions of “yes” responses to Q33.a which asks about “pollution” versus Q33.b which asks about “greenhouse gases” is statistically significant with a p-value less than .0001 indicating that Q33.a is biased in favor of eliciting a pro-government intervention response.
Now, imagine if they had asked specifically about CO2, pointing out that everything you do generates CO2 and therefore the cost of everything you do would increase as a result of government policies. What would be the proportion of “yes” responses then?
Here is my attempt to deconstruct Dr. Krosnick’s survey.
A poll by email? I doubt you could find a single honest statistician who would say that would be a valid method.
And 75% believe the world has warmed up. OK, but 75% say it was due to humans. You don’t believe it was due to humans if you don’t believe it has happened, so really you are talking about 75% of 75%, or 56% in reality believe humans have warmed the planet.
John Trigge, thanks for that. I noticed the same thing about Q33b.
It’s a bait-and-switch.
Basically, the bias invalidates most of the survey. Thanks for playing!
I followed the links and could not find the actual questions from Krosnick’s survey.
Oops! Found them: http://woods.stanford.edu/docs/surveys/Global-Warming-Survey-Selected-Results-June2010.pdf
@richard Scott: The poll was conducted by phone. 699 respondents were contacted on a landline and 301 respondents were reached at a cell number.
@Doug Interview dates were June 1 – 7, 2010. They used the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey 2009 for the sampling scheme.
@kadaka Weighting survey results for sampling probability is necessary for the results to be generalizable to the overall population.
It has been my experience that any opinion poll that sets out to prove something in particular always does. That is why they are worse than useless.
I was called once by a poll taker and asked questions that I thought were very leading in the way and the order that they were asked. When I tried to phrase my answers to account for this the pollster became upset and refused to take my answer. He also tried to get me to give, what I felt, was the answer he wanted. Since then I have refused to participate in phone polls.
Look at the “selected results,” provided by Stanford University.
Consider questions 33a and 33b, each of which was asked of half of the 1000 people…
******************
Question 33a
Number of people = 496
“Some people believe that the United States government should limit the amount of air pollution that U.S. businesses can produce. Other people believe that the government should not limit air pollution from U.S. businesses. What about you? Do you think the government should or should not limit air pollution from U.S. businesses?”
Possible answer choices for 33a…
1. Government should limit air pollution from U.S. businesses
2. Government should not limit air pollution from U.S. businesses
3. Don’t know (DO NOT READ)
4. Refused (DO NOT READ)
***************************
Question 33b
Number of people = 504
“Some people believe that the United States government should limit the amount of greenhouse gasses thought to cause global warming that U.S. businesses can produce. Other people believe that the government should not limit the amount of greenhouse gasses that U.S. businesses put out. What about you? Do you think the government should or should not limit the amount of greenhouse gasses that U.S. businesses put out?”
Possible answers for 33b…
1. Government should limit air pollution from U.S. businesses
2. Government should not limit air pollution from U.S. businesses
3. Don’t know (DO NOT READ)
4. Refused (DO NOT READ)
******************************
Note that both sets of possible answers are exactly the same and use the word “pollution.” Perhaps this is simply a typo in their pdf document. Perhaps for the second question the possible answers used “greenhouse gasses” instead of the “pollution.”
However, if the word “pollution” was actually used for the possible answers for 33b, then this is a bogus survey.
Best regards,
ClimateSanity
A perspective from the heartland; aka Mainstreet USA:
I can honestly say that no one I know thinks AGW is an issue. With everything else going on, it’s simply not on the radar for most middle class folks. I suspect the attitudes are somewhat different on the west coast and northeast US where some tend to consider themselves more “enlightened” and are more interested in Earth Day, ecofluff kinds of things.
When it became clear that the AGW advocacy machine was a coalition of climate scientists, politicians, and Hollywood celebrities, it lost most of us in the heartland. We are not stupid. We readily see the hypocrisy of the most visible AGW advocates who prescribe draconian changes in lifestyle for the rest of us while they contine clomping about with their huge carbon footprints, i.e. huge homes, private jets, lavish lifestyles, etc. as well as the holding of climate conferences in such places as Bali and Copenhagen. We also do not buy the mitigation of such things through the purchase of carbon offsets.
On the other hand, I and most of the folks I know will consistently support good environmental practices regarding things we consider real issues. Perhaps it could be said that, regarding AGW, we in the heartland tend to be a bit more pragmatic?
@tommoriarty: Well, considering this gem
I attributed the repeated list of answers to a copy & paste error. I am also a little confused as to why questions are listed out of order. I did not spend time counting, but there seem to be some gaps in question numbers as well. Dunno.
“For example, only 9 percent of respondents said they knew about the East Anglia e-mail messages and believed they indicate that climate scientists should not be trusted…”
I think we should believe this and act on it accordingly while there is still time.
Actually they add a third to the mix. Energy restrictions and taxation. 75% of India and China cook and heat with coal, wood or other fires. They want to punish us for lighting a charcoal grill for cooking.
So the created strawman is if you either don’t support rationing, regulation, taxation, you are against clean air and water.
“But people who do not trust climate scientists base their conclusions on their personal observations of nature.” –
that about sums it up.
“For example, only 9 percent of respondents said they knew about the East Anglia e-mail messages and believed they indicate that climate scientists should not be trusted, and only 13 percent said the same about the controversial IPPC reports.”
This tells us more about the media censorship about this issue and the general dumbing down of the American populace.
No doubt far more know who the contestants on American Idol are.
Who knew the IPCC reports were controversial. I thought they reflected incontrovertible scientific truth.
To make sense of polling results, you have to decide that the people or organizations that conducted them present themselves fairly, have a track record, and that the process behind the numbers was likely to yield data that represents the underlying population, usually and in this case (I assume) the resident population of the U.S. Otherwise, the results aren’t worth the time it takes to read them.
The Woods Institute press release says:
“For the Stanford study, the research team analyzed the results of two national surveys. The first was a September 2009 Internet poll of 906 adults, conducted by the polling firm Abt SRBI. …. The researchers found similar results when they analyzed a November 2009 telephone survey of 1,055 adults sponsored by the Woods Institute for the Environment and the Associated Press (AP).”
First check: do the poll’s authors identify themselves and their affiliations fairly?
I gather that the reanalysis was done by the Woods Institute for the Environment, presumably a research organization operated by one or more Stanford University (California) faculty. Publications by faculty-driven research institutes rarely speak for their universities, and this one may include a disclaimer to that effect that I did not see. Analysis that represents the university’s point of view typically come from its administrative departments or include an early affirmation of such a fact.
The assumption that the “Woods Institute for the Environment” speaks for Stanford University because the copyright at the bottom of its home page says “© Woods Institute for the Environment Stanford University. All rights reserved.” (Notice that there are two periods) is easy. The links behind “Woods Institute for the Environment” and “Stanford University” lead to different places though, and nothing on the Institutes “About” page says that it speaks for the university. It’s equally easy to assume that the “Woods Institute” (Palo Alto, CA) is related in some way to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (Woods Hole, MA), but I doubt it.
First answer: The Woods Institute for the Environment does not (in my opinion) identify itself and its affiliations fairly, because they do not clearly disclaim easily made mistakes about its relationships. I’m sure the folks at California’s Woods Institute for the Environment can point to the places they’ve made such disclaimers and are careful to correct both mistakes and disclaim any intention to benefit from them. They’d get a better mark in my book if they made both disclaimers clearly and often, which they do not as far as I can tell.
Second check: What is the organization’s track record as a source of polls that represent the U.S. population?
Second answer: None, or not substantial. I’m not familiar with any of the organizations listed (abt SRBI, Woods Institute for the Environment, or the Associated Press) as widely known sources of polls on the environment or any other subject. That’s not to say they do bad work, just that I know of no track record. They not in the same league, for example, as Quinipiac University, a branch of the Connecticutt’s public college and university system that has developed a reputation for polling on political questions.
Third Check: Sampling process: How was the sample chosen? How were non-responses handled?
Both surveys report samples near the magic 1,000 that means the results may represent the underlying population, presumably residents of the U.S., but size is the easy part.
The respondent pool must represent the population (stratified by sex, …), with enough “extras” to account for non-responses (a growing problem that makes polling more difficult and expensive).
The polling process must include a “non-response” algorithm of second chances, replacement by “extras” who do respond, etc.
Third Answer: Not clear. Maybe the samples were carefully chosen and nonresponses followed up, but given my conclusions on the other questions, I didn’t go looking.
I don’t know anything about abt SRBI, but I can’t imagine a way for an internet poll to clear the first hurdle. The response pool is limited to people whose email addresses happen to be in your database or those who visit your site, and choose to participate. What is the chance that such a database has enough demographic information about ‘zapper123’ and friends to say anything about the distribution of characteristics among respondents?
Internet polls aimed at narrower groups (IT professionals of certain types) clear that hurdle with screening questions, but they do not claim to represent the population as a whole.
After assigning less than stellar grades to some important hurdle questions, I didn’t read the poll’s results.
George Brower,
whose comments, opinions, etc. represent only his own views, which have been reviewed by no one. He has no idea whether his views reflect those of his family, colleagues, employer, or anyone else on the planet. They are offered without warranty of any kind in the hope that someone may find them useful.
If the pollsters used local phone numbers in the Stanford area (Palo Alto, SU, Menlo Park, Portola Valley, Los Altos) that would be a random survey of one of the most “liberal” “environmentalist” areas of the far left state. The area skews the data.
“It is sad to see that Global warming is in the bottom list of the priorities. I hope people will at least be more concerned with the environment.”
Tim…..AGW is exactley where it should be. As to your second “hope”, anybody with more than 2 active brain cells ARE concerned about the enviroment. Problem is,the two are NOT connected. One is a socialist scheme to transfer wealth,the other is a legit concern about pollution,garbage,smart use of our resources,etc.
These are the most deadly critiques of the survey, IMO.
Little Bo Warning has lost her Warming, and doesn’t know where to find it.
Must be hiding somewhere.
krazykiwi wrote,
“I’d like to see the questions and interview script”
The questions are in the study report, along with a straightforward description of the sampling. For anyone confused about the survey’s date and sampling methods (emphasis added):
“The Stanford Global Warming Poll was conducted by GfK Roper Public Affairs & Corporate Communications – a division of GfK Custom Research North America – for Stanford University. This telephone poll is based on a nationally-representative probability sample of 1,000 adults age 18 or older.
The interviews were conducted June 1st – June 7th, 2010, with 699 respondents on landlines and 301 on cellular telephones. Both the landline and cell phone samples were provided by Survey Sampling International. The survey sample included the contiguous 48 states, Alaska and Hawaii. Interviews were conducted in both English and Spanish. The combined landline and cell phone data were weighted to account for probabilities of selection, as well as age, sex, education and race, using targets from the March 2009 supplement of the Current Population Survey. In addition to these factors, the weighting takes into account the patterns of land and cell phone usage by region from the 2009 Fall estimates provided by Mediamark Research Inc.” http://woods.stanford.edu/docs/surveys/Global-Warming-Survey-Selected-Results-June2010.pdf
It’s fair to critique the questions’ wording (I would!). But many posters, giving no evidence, accuse the researchers of lying about the sample. Such accusations amount to making up “facts” to fit your prejudices, exactly what they assume someone else does.
Ken Hall wrote,
“This could mean that they have a ‘pool’ of 10,000 people who they know already lean towards the climate alarmist view and they ‘randomly’ selected a thousand from that pool.”
tony K wrote,
“When real science and observations failed …. pay some pollsters to make up some majority percentage of the populace to back your side.”
Doug wrote,
“I fail to see how this survey can possibly take into account shifts in public opinion post ‘Climategate’, ‘Glaciergate’ etc. considering when these various ‘…gates’ came to pass.”
Adolf Balik wrote,
“The random selection of their respondents was conducted on base of their Green activist lists.”
Jeremy wrote,
“Modern science is rotten to the core. Totally corrupt. These institutions should be torn down. They are mostly running a Ponzi scheme built on fabricated & manipulated results and alarmist propaganda.”
Cassandra King wrote,
“Of course we have to take their word for it that the one thousand people were actually random and not taken from a greepeace donation rosta.”
Pamela Gray wrote,
“So, it sounds like the questions were worded like:
Do you think, like, maybe, the temps like have been warming, possibly, in the, like, last 100, like, years or so?”
Ray wrote,
“They simply used the MST Method (Mann Statistical Trick) and eliminated all samples that did not comply with their predetermined final result.”
And Juraj V. started this thread off with a hate note,
“Mr Krosnick, go choke yourself.”
I would be interested to see what Sphaerica wrote to need censorship by the mod, unlike this post wishing someone would die for saying reporting a survey you don’t like.
I’m afraid you’re correct. However, the two critiques I quoted above seem solid, and they cut the poll’s findings down to near-insignificance.
I read the OpEd in the NYT yesterday but could see no link to the actual poll.
Went back today and there it was.
Can anyone out there tell me if the article was changed and the information inserted at a later date?
peterhodges says:
June 10, 2010 at 11:35 am
“But people who do not trust climate scientists base their conclusions on their personal observations of nature.” –
that about sums it up.
For the simple-minded, maybe. For anyone paying attention, and with more than two brain cells to rub together, there are are a whole host of reasons not to trust climate scientists.
I would feel better about this poll if they had showed the results to all of the questions. Call me simple, but when someone is hiding something, I assume they have something to hide.
I say this because they have only reported about 20% of the results. The lowest question number in their “Selected Results” is Q1 (Question 1), and the highest is Q54. So I’d assume that there were 54 questions. Of these, they reported:
Q1
Q12 (twice)
Q14 (twice)
Q19a
Q33b (twice)
Q36
Q36b
Q36c
Q51
Q52
Q53
Q54
So out of the minimum number of 54 questions, they have reported the results from a whopping 12 of them, and inflated the apparent number by reporting three of them twice … bad pollsters, no cookies.
(In fact, there are more questions, since we are also missing at a minimum Q19b, Q33a, and Q36a.)
Like I say, this doesn’t indicate that their poll is bogus … but it sure ups the odds. In any case, without access to the questions, the poll is meaningless.
When
she was’ critiquing the questions wording’, not the questioner.
Look at the start of the question I chose You may have heard about the idea…….. The terms ‘probably’ and ‘You may have heard about the the idea’….etc would not cut the mustard with WUWT readers, we could be very specific, but a lay audience ‘may’ have heard of a lot of things via the MSM and be lulled into giving an answer that this particular questioner intended to be given. I would say that the chummy, laid back questioning style was deliberate.
Willis Eschenbach June 11, 2010 at 5:07 pm
A bit like the U Illinois survey then, reporting two questions only and remaining strangely coy about seven others. Strange that the reported questions were so basic that the role of CO2 had not even been addressed, and to targetted Earth Scientists no less.
The warming alarmists have been repeatedly shown to be dishonest and corrupt. They have an agenda to push and they conduct their research to push that agenda. They have been compromised and copted by the environmentalists who desire to return the USA to the stone age. When science becomes politicized it is no longer science. The four corners of deceit in the universe of lies are academia, government, media, and science.