From the University of Michigan , recognition of a whole new crop of, ahem, deniers. I can hear Joe Romm’s head exploding from my house.
Generation X is surprisingly unconcerned about climate change
ANN ARBOR, Mich.—As the nation suffers through a summer of record-shattering heat, a University of Michigan report finds that Generation X is lukewarm about climate change—uninformed about the causes and unconcerned about the potential dangers.
“Most Generation Xers are surprisingly disengaged, dismissive or doubtful about whether global climate change is happening and they don’t spend much time worrying about it,” said Jon D. Miller, author of “The Generation X Report.”
The new report, the fourth in a continuing series, compares Gen X attitudes about climate change in 2009 and 2011, and describes the levels of concern Gen Xers have about different aspects of climate change, as well as their sources of information on the subject.
“We found a small but statistically significant decline between 2009 and 2011 in the level of attention and concern Generation X adults expressed about climate change,” Miller said. “In 2009, about 22 percent said they followed the issue of climate change very or moderately closely. In 2011, only 16 percent said they did so.”
Miller directs the Longitudinal Study of American Youth at the U-M Institute for Social Research. The study, funded by the National Science Foundation since 1986, now includes responses from approximately 4,000 Gen Xers—those born between 1961 and 1981, and now between 32 and 52 years of age.
Only about 5 percent of those surveyed in 2011 were alarmed about climate change, and another 18 percent said they were concerned about it. But 66 percent said they aren’t sure that global warming is happening, and about 10 percent said they don’t believe global warming is actually happening.
“This is an interesting and unexpected profile,” Miller said. “Few issues engage a solid majority of adults in our busy and pluralistic society, but the climate issue appears to attract fewer committed activists—on either side—than I would have expected.”
Because climate change is such a complex issue, education and scientific knowledge are important factors in explaining levels of concern, Miller said. Adults with more education are more likely to be alarmed and concerned about climate change, he found. And those who scored 90 or above on a 100-point Index of Civic Scientific Literacy also were significantly more likely to be alarmed or concerned than less knowledgeable adults. Still, 12 percent of those who were highly literate scientifically were either dismissive or doubtful about climate change, Miller found. He also found that partisan affiliations predicted attitudes, with nearly half of liberal Democrats alarmed or concerned compared with zero percent of conservative Republicans.
“There are clearly overlapping levels of concern among partisans of both political parties,” Miller said. “But for some individuals, partisan loyalties may be helpful in making sense of an otherwise complicated issue.”
Given the greater anticipated impact of climate change on future generations, Miller expected that the parents of minor children would be more concerned about the issue than young adults without minor children.
“Not so,” he said. “Generation X adults without minor children were slightly more alarmed about climate change than were parents. The difference is small, but it is in the opposite direction than we expected.”
Miller found that Gen X adults used a combination of information sources to obtain information on the complex issue of climate change, with talking to friends, co-workers and family members among the most common sources of information.
“Climate change is an extremely complex issue, and many Generation X adults do not see it as an immediate problem that they need to address,” Miller said.
“The results of this report suggest that better educated young adults are more likely to recognize the importance of the problem, but that there is a broad awareness of the issue even though many adults prefer to focus on more immediate issues—jobs and schools for their children—than the needs of the next generation. These results will not give great comfort to either those deeply concerned about climate issues or those who are dismissive of the issue.”
Established in 1949, the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research is the world’s largest academic social science survey and research organization, and a world leader in developing and applying social science methodology, and in educating researchers and students from around the world. ISR conducts some of the most widely cited studies in the nation, including the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers, the American National Election Studies, the Monitoring the Future Study, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, the Health and Retirement Study, the Columbia County Longitudinal Study and the National Survey of Black Americans. ISR researchers also collaborate with social scientists in more than 60 nations on the World Values Surveys and other projects, and the institute has established formal ties with universities in Poland, China and South Africa. ISR is also home to the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, the world’s largest digital social science data archive. For more information, visit the ISR website at www.isr.umich.edu.
As I just remarked on FB, neither does this boomer. 🙂
Looks like there is a good (negative) correlation between time on earth and belief in BS.
“Generation X adults without minor children were slightly more alarmed about climate change than were parents. The difference is small, but it is in the opposite direction than we expected.”
Yeah they have more important things to worry about.
The results of this report suggest that better educated young adults are more likely to recognize the importance of the problem…
Where does it follow from, that young adults are better educated than people born in 1960s?
Modern public education system is a joke, colleges are prestige farms, where substance and real knowledge are precious rarities, Academia is a venal quagmire, where a survivor needs to be made of that fertile substance that always floats on top… Better educated? You mean, more brainwashed?
The level of ones education has absolutely nothing to do with weather the AGW speculation is valid or not. As far as being informed I vaguely recall sceptics were better informed about CAGW science.
It only takes 1 fact to invalidate a theory (AGW not being one of them). 😉
This is not remotely surprising. Generation X has been around long enough to know by experience if their local climate has changed. Asking Generation X to believe in climate change is like asking a grown adult to believe in leprechauns.
Mr Miller was surprised that parents with minor children were less concerned about ‘climate change’ than just adults. It doesn’t surprise me in the slightest. People with children are going to be more concerned about the negative consequences for their children that come with the totalitarian ‘solutions’ that True Believers are open about bringing to us. That naturally gets them labeled as the d-word (though not explicitly stated here). We seem to have a genetic tendency to care about our offspring’s future. Whodathunkit?
*Apologies for runon sentences, had back surgery a few days ago, and the combination of pain, poor sleep, and lots of (legal) drugs.
New to me but this makes me Generation W and I do not worry about Climate Change only the idiots who consider themselves so clever that they want to try changing climate. Idiots!
“The results of this report suggest that brainwashed young adults are more likely to recognize the importance of the problem, but that there is a broad awareness of the issue even though many adults prefer to focus on more immediate issues—jobs and schools for their children—than the needs of the next generation. These results will not give great comfort to either those deeply financed about climate issues or those who are dismissive of the issue.”
fify 🙂
To add to the last, I don’t think the being in one political party or another (a pox on all of them) causes a belief in ‘climate change’, rather an individual’s beliefs that draw them into one party or another, and lead them to have a position on AGW. People naturally inclined to believe in statist solutions will tend to be in their national leftist party, and AGW. Those inclined to mistrust statist solutions will be in their national rightist party, and against AGW. We who tend to be against statism, often are educated in history. Statist regimes always lead to lower levels of freedom. We know that historical context, so we are naturally, against in this case, AGW. If you want me to believe in your ideas, I will not blindly submit. If you want me to go along with your ideas, prove to me there is a problem, and prove to me your solutions will work without loss of liberty to me.
Most of us had to sit through global “cooling” lectures. We’re a little skeptical the second time round.
Weird. They use alarm as a criterion. Better-
educatedindoctrinated adults were more likely to recognize the problem. The people asking the questions were doing so while using a sky-umbrella.“Generation X adults without minor children were slightly more alarmed about climate change than were parents. The difference is small, but it is in the opposite direction than we expected.”
Shows that J D Miller was running at the problem with a battering-ram of preconceptions, don’t you think? My guess, and it’s a guess, is that parents are way more worried about survival than single adults, whose earlier
educationpropagandization has not worn off. While the results are not surprising, despite Miller’s vague attempt to prove the sky is falling, he ‘proved’ the opposite.I’m Gen-X. I remember watching the film Silent Running (1972) about man’s destruction of the last forests. But that same year the film Zero Population Growth (ZPG) was made, about a dystopian eco-fascist future. Gen-X came after the Boomers, who thought they had to save the world. Gen-X is a lot more cynical, even about saving the world. I really do think that there is a generational bias, where the next generation grows up reflecting on the mistakes and attitudes of the previous generation. If you were old enough to be a somebody signing stuff at the Club of Rome, you were part of the previous generation, the Boomers. Their “solution” became part of the “problem” for the next lot. It is a big giveaway in global warming that people’s opinion about it reflect more their own generation and political outlook, than a mundane rational analysis of cold hard facts and uncertainties and risks. Cries of “we have to do something!” express that bias, as do the notions that geoengineering and nuclear are automatically “wrong” and to be dismissed. But this isn’t to say that the Boomers were entirely wrong — they envision and desired a united harmonious planet. They want to reduce greed and oppression. But it is the WAY in which they want to achieve this that the next generation thinks, hm, that’s not really going to work. Part of it is maybe also that the Boomers were reacting against their own previous generation, which was more about hierarchies and order, traditional nationalistic mindset, but in reacting to that, they just created a new “ecological” hierarchy where the planet is above humans, and humans are just another species whose numbers are to be managed. Gen-X came along just in time to see some of the contradictions, and end up feeling incredibly cynical about it all. I hear the Millenials have since reacted to us dark black clouds of cynicism and loser-ness, and are turning out as bright happy hard working people who are healthily materialistic and cheerful. Ie. even less taken by global warming. Hope so, somebody’s gotta build something useful.
“Still, 12 percent of those who were highly literate scientifically were either dismissive or doubtful about climate change,”
Hardly a surprise except that the percentage isn’t higher! But notice how ‘man-made’ or ‘anthropogenic’ gets lost. Who does not ‘believe’ in climate change?
“As the nation suffers through a summer of record-shattering heat”
Weather is not Climate – we are constantly told (when it is cold). Here in Britain, we are having a cold wet summer so if the heat in parts of the USA is supposed to be AGW it certainly is not global, unfortunately.
“Not so,” he said. “Generation X adults without minor children were slightly more alarmed about climate change than were parents. The difference is small, but it is in the opposite direction than we expected.” (emphasis mine)
So the researchers were disabused of their preconceived notions, eh? I would be interested in seeing exactly how the survey questions werer phrased.
Curious that the author remarks on the difference between his expectations and the results. As sophisticated as he may think he is about bias, I doubt it.
========================
“many adults prefer to focus on more immediate issues—jobs and schools for their children—than the needs of the next generation. ”
How many times does one have to read this sentence before it starts to make sense?
Many Gen-X-ers probably also remember the global cooling scare of the ’70s and realize that this CAGW scam is just more of the same fearmongering.
Thank you for this posting. What caught my eye was the graphic showing the modern generations. I was an Aviation major in college back in the early 80s. Needless to say, studying meteorology was a large part of our curriculum, but we also took business and economic classes. During that time period I was always told that I belonged to Generation X, as I was born in 1964 and my parents were Baby Boomers, born from the WWII Generation. Years later I started to see articles and graphics that referred to people that were my age as Baby Boomers. This left me none too happy. No offense to my Boomer friends, or parents. It’s just that I spent my teen years rebelling against the Boomers and then to be told you are your parents, well that was just too much. It’s bad enough that one year we wake up with children of our own and then catch ourselves saying the same things to them that mom and dad said to us when we were young. Then you finally realize that you really have become your parents after all.
However, I’m still no Boomer. I’m proud to be Generation X and indeed I am not concerned with Climate Change, at least not the “anthropogenic” global kind of change. As many people remember, I grew up in the late 70s hearing about the new Ice Age that was going to bury NYC in a few years.
There can no GHG-AGW. It’s the artefact of the assumption that the Earth’s surface radiates as a black body in a vacuum, a concept no professional scientist can accept.
Let’s consider CO2. Because of its simple band structure, above ~200 ppmV in a long optical path at ambient temperature it’s in ‘self-absorption’ mode. The ~95% of inactivated CO2 molecules absorb thermal IR from the interior so emissivity/absorptivity asymptotes, proved by experiment a long time ago.
But UP IR from the Earth’s surface in that band competes for these inactivated molecules. In turn lower atmosphere DOWN emissivity increases as you get nearer the Earth’s surface and the temperature gradient changes to compensate.
The additional DOWN flux competes for the emission sites on the surface, reducing its emissivity in that wavelength band. So, the real origin of the GHE is probably lower IR flux in GHG bands, more in the ‘atmospheric window’. The reduction of TOA flux in a particular band is because there was less to start with.
The sequitur is that once self-absorption occurs in a GHG, its contribution to the GHE self limits. This inversion of thinking will I suspect be controversial. Considering the ~400% increase in IR assumed in the models, it’s time we stopped the charade. GIGO proves nothing.
I’m past the Gen-X time window, having been born in 1952. But I have been through that phase when environment and AGW were on my mental back-burner, when I was too busy trying to make ends meet, working hard and finnacing my three offsprings’ education. After my kids finally got their degrees and finacial independence, I had time on my hands to update myself on the planet’s position in the solar system and other matters. The weather is always a topic immediately discussed when friends meet and the climate is not different from weather at this level. So I went digging, utilising my scientific background (a first degree in mechanical engineering science). I soon realised that what Al Gore, CNN, National geografic, Dicovery Channel and my local newspaper had been telling me was all baloney, part of a global manufactured man-made scam.
When the gen-X-ers reach my age and start digging, most of them will go through the same process I went through.
I guess their desired result of when they state “think of the children” didn’t workout the way they thought it would. Kinda like how their concensus worked out for them too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_Massey
Attended a presentation by this gentleman many years ago. Very good at explaining why different generations have such varying views on all matters.
I guess Generation X deserves more credit for common sense than previously thought.
Glad to hear that about the Millennials. Since the field for cheerful hard work is wide open, I predict sterling results.
There are too many flaws in his arguments to know where to start rebutting them. Suffice to say, his presumptions are all bollocks.
Notice the article presents “climate change” as synonymous with AGW. If you buy into the semantics you concede part of the argument. Perhaps folks realize that “climate change” is something that happens and we can’t do anything about it and it is something apart from global warming. Or maybe the continuing doomsday predictions get a bit old after a while.
“better educated young adults are more likely to recognize the importance of the problem”
What they are trying to say is this;
“young adults being in contact with brainwashed academia are more likely to recognize the imagined problem”.
http://www.aoiusa.org/blog/dismantling-of-a-culture/
“He also found that partisan affiliations predicted attitudes, with nearly half of liberal Democrats alarmed or concerned compared with zero percent of conservative Republicans.”
I’ll quote Christopher Hitchens here: “I learned that very often the most intolerant and narrow-minded people are the ones who congratulate themselves on their tolerance and open-mindedness. Amazing. My conservative friends look at me and say, ‘Welcome to the club. What took you so long?’ Well that’s what it took and I think it’s worth recording.”
I used to be leftish. My exposure to green ideology has moved me firmly to the right. University of Michigan has got this arse-about-face.
What are the survey findings for the 50-60 year old generation XXOS?
Found this comment by Michael Mann:
http://wwwp.dailyclimate.org/tdc-newsroom/2012/07/gen-x-climate-attitude
“Priming is an implicit memory effect in which exposure to a stimulus influences a response to a later stimulus. It can occur following perceptual, semantic, or conceptual stimulus repetition.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priming_%28psychology%29
Nice impression of their fellow human beings the elistist crackpot charlatans like Mann show here.
The change wasn’t small. More than a quarter of those who followed the issue in 2009 did not do so in 2011. That’s a big change. At that rate, by 2015, fewer than 10% will follow the issue.
A “100-point Index of Civic Scientific Literacy”____What socialist jargon!! Most likely a 100-point Index of Political Correctness.
—Generation X is lukewarm about climate change—uninformed about the causes and unconcerned about the potential dangers.—
Well, actually, we are all quite uninformed about the causes as they relate to climate change. Oh, we posses some knowledge of some of the variables involved yet, to say with certainty that one
“knows” is not only inane but just plain bad science.
a tip for CAGW-sceptic parents with CAGW-zealous children.
tell them they have convinced you they are right and you are wrong.
tell them some changes need to be made.
to start, because using the computer is adding considerably to greenhouse emissions, computer use will be curtailed and u r cancelling internet service.
problem solved.
Could it be that us GenXers have seen so many scare stories and doom laden idea’s, that nothing fazes us..and we are not so gullible as the younger generation who thinks that every thing that comes out of a computer is gospel, even though they are more computer savvy??
“In 2009, about 22 percent said they followed the issue of climate change very or moderately closely. In 2011, only 16 percent said they did so.”
It obviously doesn’t occur to them that these people no longer believe because they’ve studied the evidence and found it lacking credibility.
Systems thinking which has been pushed in the schools for more than 20 years was supposed to make the students susceptible to the AGW hype and to “feel” threatened. The ISR is interesting because it evolves out of Kurt Lewin’s work and the Center for Group Dynamics. It has been heavily intertwined with the academic social psychology work done at U-Mich. And that’s a big deal because U-Mich College of Ed is where they develop the various theories to transform education in ways none of us like. BSTEP-the Behavioral Sciences Teacher Education Project came out of Michigan in the 60s to push ed schools away from the transmission of knowledge to changing the child.
I was going to write about this new science education rubric being pushed for colleges. My guess is with this research, it will get pushed more and more. Especially as it dovetails with the K-12 pushes we see going on all over the world under the headings authentic learning and pedagogies. http://www.sencer.net/Assessment/pdfs/Rubric_Jan232012.pdf
SENCER pushed by NSF stands for Science Education for New Civic Engagements and Responsibilities. A la BSTEP, the motto is to apply the Science of Learning to the Learning of Science.
It is looking for students to be alarmed and thus emotionally engaged and searching for the right public policies to solve various modern problems. Usually, and the students may never know enough history to recognize this, caused by bad public policies pushed in the past.
I was born in 1970. I don’t particularly remember Global Cooling as an issue, but here’s what I do remember:
1) OMGZ – we’re going to run out of oil by 1980!
2) OMGZ – we’re going to be nuked by the Soviets
3) OMGZ – the Soviets are going to conquer the planet with their superior economic systems
4) OMGZ – We’re not going to be able to feed everyone and we’re all going to starve
5) OMGZ – The Japanese are going to crush us economically
6) OMGZ – We’re going to be crushed by Skylab
7) OMGZ – Drugs are going to destroy everyone in the country
8) OMGZ – Crime is going to skyrocket
9) OMGZ – George W Bush is going to turn this country into a religious dictatorship
10)OMGZ – If you leave your child outside alone for 5 seconds, they’ll be raped and killed by a pedophile
11) OMGZ – Beer and Wine are bad for you. No wait, they’re good for you. No wait, Bad. No, good, No, badgoodbad, No, goodbadgood.
12) OMGZ – Fat is bad for you. No wait, meat is bad for you. no wait, carbs are bad for you. No wait, high fructose corn syrup is bad for you. No wait, processed food is bad for you.
13) OMGZ – We’re raising a generation of mindless corporate drones. No wait, we’re raising a generation of hopeless narcissists.
And so forth. The point is – I’ve been told the sky was falling since I can first remember hearing anything. And every time it turns out the fears were overblown, the next crisis comes along, and “this time, it’s different.” EVERY SINGLE TIME! For instance:
A) OMGZ – the US is polluting the planet with CO2. No wait, the Chinese are polluting the planet with CO2, and the US levels are dropping. But they’re not dropping fast enough!
B) OMGZ – we’re at a tipping point on climate, it’s certain to rise uncontrollably. No wait, we’re _past_ the tipping point, all we can do is mitigate the suffering. No wait, the Medieval Warm Period was warmer than today.
After a while, one starts to realize that panic is the only button that most people (pundits) know how to push. And I’ve been living through crisis after crisis after crisis since I was 6 years old. And yet the world is still here, and, in a lot of ways, is better now than it has ever been before. So yes, I’m pretty cynical that the latest “crisis” is any more real than the tales of mass famine, economic destitution and/or socio-political ruin that I’ve been fed all my life. You want me to believe in AGW? Don’t mess with the station measurements and increase them 2/3rds of the time, don’t hide the decline and don’t use the court system to try and keep your methods and software secret. These kinds of actions do not help the AGW case at all.
“When the gen-X-ers reach my age and start digging, most of them will go through the same process I went through.”
So true, Alex.
I’m embarrassed to admit that I once helped out on a “climate action” day, (several years ago) then some idiot said the words, “the science is settled”. Well, being from a science background and having a science degree in physics and maths, I knew immediately something VERY IFFY was happening. Here was this very new science, and suddenly it was “settled” ..
My BS meter went haywire and I statrted digging further, and the whole hoax is now so totally obvious that I find it hard to believe that anyone with even the slightest scientific understanding could actually accept the whole scam.
But I guess noses in the trough can turn once knowledgable people into moronic imbeciles.
Why are some humans so weak in this respect ??
Well, the funny (but sad) thing is that the american people have played a part in society becoming what it has. We now have a society of consumers. Liberal spenders if you will. It’s even a problem with people that call themselves conservatives. Most people are sheeple in one way or another. When you understand that, you understand this countries need for strong leadership. Which we haven’t had in decades.
It doesn’t help that we’re constantly bombarded with advertisements encourging us to BUY BUY BUY instead of saving. You ever watch TV now? It’s sad.
If society is worried about it’s future it better start changing it’s ways. I’ll start taking these studies about “what people are really worried about” when I see the results in our society. Right now I see a society that is too materialistic and with too much lovelier for American Idol to really understand what is really going on.us
Speaking as a Gen Xer I can tell you that we are quite the cynical bunch having grown up witnessing the Boomers destroy our family culture in the 60s and 70s and then become a bunch of money grubbing, coke snorting hypocrites in the 80s (peace, love, dope to money, power, coke). We also grew up before the internet and reality TV became our education system. This guy can go s**t in his hat.
davidmhoffer says:
“How many times does one have to read this sentence before it starts to make sense?”
Once you realize that the next generation doesn’t need food/shelter/etc. now or an education, and that what they do need is an unelected global bureaucracy in control of their energy and productivity for the good of the planet; it all makes sense. (/sarc)
I never did like the Generation X label, it sounds like we’re …. um … variable, wish-washy even. Let’s change it to Generation “D”.
The “Index of Civic Scientific Literacy.” Jeez, that’s a new one!
I can only assume it conforms to their particular ideas of scientific literacy. I imagine it’s just a ticklist of questions. Number one would be, do you believe those 97% of scientists who say we’re heading for thermogeddon Y/N? If you should press N, you’ve just become a scientific illiterate …
Pointman
Don’t worry about the youngsters. At least some of them are aware of what is going on.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/selkovjr/3148260856/
As a Gen-Xer… I’m kind of insulted. It insinuates that I’m not educated enough to recognise a problem when I see one. It also makes the assumption that Climate Change/Global Warming is a problem.
I can’t believe that the National Science Foundation paid good money for this garbage report. I think the National Science Foundation should ask for its money back.
He also found that partisan affiliations predicted attitudes, with nearly half of liberal Democrats alarmed or concerned compared with zero percent of conservative Republicans.
“There are clearly overlapping levels of concern among partisans of both political parties,” Miller said.
Where on the Venn diagram does zero overlap fifty?
I’m between Boomer and X. Do that make me a W er?
The older a generation becomes – the more climate one experiences. It is hard for propaganda to overcome actual life experience. Except for the very gullible whose numbers also decrease with increasing age. Too bad trillions, of funding dollars for climate study, wasn’t used to crack the whole aging problem. It is one disease everyone has to face and kills us all, in the end. Maybe if everyone lived for 600 yrs we would find climate control an easy problem. GK
I am trying to get my head around the following two quotes:
How can this study reconcile these seemingly contradictory comments? I don’t see how a zero percent CAGW concern rate amongst conservative Republicans can be interpreted as “overlapping levels of concern”. Non-concern — yes; concern — no.
Now on the liberal side, with less than a 50% concern rate, here I can see “overlapping levels of concern”. Although I might be more inclined to interpret this as the beginning of their shift from the indoctrination of the green movement to their embracing the truth of actual scientific thought.
It may not be possible to score higher than 90% on the 100-point Index of Civic Scientific Literacy cited unless you believe in AGW.
I would wager that Gen Xers, especially the onces who were into science, remember vividly the Global Cooling scare from the 1970s. This movement finally ran its course like so many other oddities and freak shows of the era, such as Chariots of Fire, Bigfoot, streaking, etc.
As a Gen-Xer I am old enough to remember the cooling scare of the 70s, the nuclear winter scare of the 80s, as well as the economic and environmental damage caused in communist one party states. I remember Mutually Assured Destruction, the Berlin Wall, the Warsaw Pact, acid rain and endocrine disrupters, Nixon, Brezhnev, Ford, Carter and Reagan.
It’s difficult to get worked up over a rise in temperature of 0.8C when I’ve seen the destructive power of cold snaps and famines as the result.
I’ve also seen science and the scientific method co-opted by both left and right and with equally disastrous results. I know for a fact that the shenanigans of Man, Jones, Hansen and Schmidt are powering the resurgence of the extreme right to take potshots at science as a whole, evolution and biology in particular.
My favourite programs are Numbers, House and CSI because life ain’t the simple.
“We found a small but statistically significant decline between 2009 and 2011 in the level of attention and concern Generation X adults expressed about climate change,” Miller said. “In 2009, about 22 percent said they followed the issue of climate change very or moderately closely. In 2011, only 16 percent said they did so.”
How is a 27% reduction (22 down to 16%) small? If I lost 27% of my salary I would not consider that small. These folks use words in ways I cannot fathom.
Of course they’re not concerned–according to one left-leaning pundit (for that’s all he is), they didn’t build that.
The government did.
Jon Miller, Michigan State University Hannah Professor of integrative studies and political science.
Actually we’re (Although most put me as a baby boomer, not Gen X) not disengaged. We’re just tired of seeing political science morons posing as real scientists.
WOLF ! Wolf ! wolf ! isn’t working on anyone with a brain….sometimes ‘brains’ evolve with age….
Just fit into generation X. Born 1979. I would assume most of us don’t care about “Climate change ” is because we can still remember when it was called Global Warming. Before the re branding effort etc. And the fact that all the original predictions about warmer winters, with less snow. Much warmer summers, and much less rain have been proven false.
At least in the UK.
We’ve been hearing Doomsday scenarios since we were born. Overpopulation and mass starvation, global cooling, nuclear annihilation, nuclear winter, global warming, the ozone layer, acid rain, the rain forests, coral reefs…the list goes on. All of this in our lifetimes.
We’re a little tired of it and we have other things on our minds at the moment.
I am 50 and have lived in the same city all my life. The reason I am not concerned about climate change? I’ve been around long enough in the same place to know that there is nothing going on now that hasn’t happened before.
The only thing I have not seen a repeat of is the regular dust storms we used to see in the late 60s and 70s. Dust from west Texas blowing into central Texas used to be common back then. I would not be surprised to see the dust return in another 10 to 15 years.
Yep – the baby boomer professors and scientists who are currently raising a stink about “climate change” have already, in their lives, lived the dream. They have the six figure salaries, they’ve had their gas guzzling muscle cars in their youths and now own $5000 hand-made bicycles. They’ve got money in the bank, fat 401K’s and/or pensions, and as much gluten-free pasta as they want. And now, they want to screw over the futures of our current generation of young people, all in an effort to validate their careers in climate science or environmental studies.
Yes, with the CAGW climate scientists, it’s all been about taking care of themselves first…
Stefan says:
July 19, 2012 at 2:12 am
In my opinion, Boomers are not out to save the world. They want to take everything they can get from the world for themselves. Their desire to save everything is an extension of their own selfishness. They were given everything, far more than they needed, while growing up after the war. Yes, call them gen W (want). They want their social security, they want government to protect them, and give them more. They are never satisfied. Before them came gen V (victory) the ones who earned the freedom and power that created the most spoiled generation.
As for me, I’m really in neither gen W or X. I don’t identify with either group, born between them. The Dubs took everything and left me nothing (little brothers get screwed all the time). I got out of school before it went truly bad. The Xers are finally figuring out they’ve been had, but don’t have any solutions.
I think the Ys are waking up. Some of them have been raised on pure BS in school and they know there is something terribly wrong with the system. They don’t like the PC garbage,and the lack of real knowledge necessary to get jobs. They feel emply, and they should. Many are expressing a natural reaction to the indoctrination they reject and are not helping the system. They are the slackers. They don’t care to participate in the dysfunctionality. I hope they will try to fill the void in themselves one day and create solutions.
Socialists have run amok on campuses for too long (the NEA should be exposed as corrupt and dangerous). Students have been increasingly abused by bad policies and practices. These experiences are perhaps teaching young people to reject socialism. I would not be surprised if a new Free Speech movement on campuses occurred in a few years to restore real freedom of speech. It’s time to drain the bolshevik cesspools we call universities. Perhaps academic freedom will return when government money runs dry. The unsustainable academic bubble (produced by large indirect costs for grants, insane student loans) will pop one day.
They know they have been lied to on a number of things. ‘Smoking will kill you’ has been greatly emphazed. My kids were amazed I was not dead when I said I smoked for 15 years and quit. They looked around and saw people were not dropping like flies from smoking. My son now smokes and is addicted to it. And don’t get me started on the DARE program.
They realized alarmists are just spouting BS.
Not only does GenX remember the global cooling scare, but we also grew up under the shadows of the threat of nuclear holocaust. Every single person I knew in high school believed there would be nuclear war between the USA and the USSR.
Even if you stipulate that the projected <2C increase in mean temperature is real and man made, what's +2C compared to nuclear winter?
Here is a PowerPoint by Miller with his rationale for the Index of Civic Scientific Literacy as well as some of the questions.
http://tinyurl.com/755w2jr
If you dont want to click on the link you can google “Index of Civic Scientifc Literacy” and it is the 2nd link.
The “Index of Civic Scientific Literacy.” Jeez, that’s a new one!
It seems to be Miller’s particular idee fixe, there’s about a half-dozen impenetrable papers of his either citing this or claiming to describe it. I haven’t had a chance to parse through the (apparently) relevant description-paper, but the abstract is wreathed by a choking miasma of smug opacity… found it. Unless this is an earlier version – circa 1998 – and he’s working with some sort of new updated version. The old one seems to be unobjectionable, looks like a quick-and-dirty test for creationists, radiation-paranoids, and the generally ignorant. Do I think that he’s still using the 1998 index with about a dozen measures? Not really… there it is, 2007, Word document, don’t want to link that, but you can google for it if you’re interested. He’s gone from a dozen, uncontroversial questions (unless you’re a creationist or a nuclear-freeze loon, I suppose) to over two dozen, including about a half-dozen on climate change, mostly expressed in old “global warming” language.
Yeah, he’s offering a hidden tautology by testing his surveyees against their performance on his own “Index of Civic Scientific Literacy”.
Johnbr said:
Does that mean the policies have been working? /sarc
Next point: There is no Conservative party. In the OP there is a sly comparison of the two-party system but then they use Liberals (there is a Liberal party) and Conservatives. Nice try and it seems to have flown under the radar nicely.
The entire topic is a wedge-advancing attempt to manage the conversation by alienating the generations. Isolate, embrace, educate, reform. That continues to be the goal of leftist education policy. This is article is what the clarion of these social shepherds sounds like, and they are calling in the straying sheeple. The MSM are their dogs in the field.
Yea, having 10,000 Soviet warheads aimed at you is a REAL worry. Climate Whatever… not very scary no matter how you hype it. The Boomers will go down clawing and scratching at every last morsel of power/cash. They are vain, greedy, and willing to cross some pretty scary ethical lines in order to extend their lives at the expense of others. We will see organ harvesting in our life time, really already here when you hear some of the Organ Wrangler/Angel of Death stories.
Pretty much every rat-bast**d CEO that has raped our country is a Boomer, the tenured, sclerotic minds of Boomer faculty are rotting our campuses, and their financial mismanagement has forced them to work in their 70s and block the advance of Gen Xers behind them.
They must be climate realists–i.e., heretics of this new age hippie religeon. Skeptics of global warming alarmism are drawing back the curtain on the superstition and ignorance of the Left. Over the past decade, global temperature on the Earth has not increased; global warming has ceased, and already there are signs of the future deep temperature drop. (Dr. H. Abdussamatov)
Old hippies have been telling this generation of people “the End is Nigh” for decades without result. They simply don’t believe them anymore.
One of the questions for Civil Scientific Literacy: “The earliest humans lived at the same time as the dinosaurs”. [see link from: Eric above ]
While, obviously, what we think of as dinosaurs didn’t live anywhere near around the same time as humans; taxonomically speaking birds are dinosaurs and are certainly living at the same time as humans (both earliest and current). So, what’s the scientifically literate correct answer? Is that the same as the Civil Scientifically Literate correct answer?
Goes to show that today’s kids are harder to brainwash than the liberals/progressives thought. Maybe there is some hope for this world.
If one looks at the pattern in views per day of the (biased and dishonest) Wikipedia global warming article and compares to that of many other articles on Wikipedia, there is a very strong pattern of particularly higher weekday than weekend activity for the former. From that, one may deduce how many (most) of the around 0.4 million views per month of it (around 5 million a year) are from many of today’s kids getting it directly or indirectly in school assignments on weekdays, as part of propaganda-pushing in much of the educational system as well as the “mainstream” media.
For instance, contrast the utterly different shapes of the viewership curves in http://stats.grok.se/en/201205/Global_warming versus http://stats.grok.se/en/201205/Space_colonization where the former implicitly shows it is what schoolkids are being taught about as our future, more so in fact than in intrinsic interest of the average person. (Although some do assignments as homework on weekends, in general weekday viewing is less likely than weekend viewing to be recreational and not as likely to be someone’s own independent initiative).
So we are getting a young generation fed and raised on propaganda to a degree.
However, in general, the more someone has lived through the past half century of global warming (and countless false claims on a wide assortment of topics as other comments here have reminded), the less likely they are to naively believe BSing about the next half century.
For instance, Popular Science in their July issue is trumpeting propaganda about a 1 foot sea level rise in California in 10 years with the ocean supposedly to flood the San Francisco airport, but some of the naive young teenagers who believe it now will notice a few years later how such isn’t actually happening. In the total population, few people read specific true scientific info (like http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007/2006GL028492.shtml on how actual sea level rise was about 0.145 cm/yr 1954->2003 and less then than the 0.203 cm/yr average 1904->1953), but many notice in personal experience such as how the coastline is where it has always been throughout their lifetimes.
Sometimes I wonder if the CAGW movement backfiring in the end, if we get the cooling of a grand minimum in future decades to destroy it, may do society a lot of good by raising a generation often partially inoculated against naivety — learning skepticism by watching claim after claim from elite “reputable” sources become blatantly garbage in their lifetimes. Reportedly, some people who grew up in Eastern Europe learned not to trust newspapers or the government due to getting used to seeing false info in the communist era.
While anecdotal evidence is a limited sample size, actually the hardcore CAGW proponents I know the most about seem to have really limited interest in learning about global warming effects in themselves but vast passion for trying to get others to believe in the cause, seeming to secretly mostly already know alarmist claims are false, having nil personal fear of global warming doom but enormous desire to dishonestly use such as a tool convenient for their political side. Millions of casuals often sincerely honestly believe, but the smaller minority who are the elite core of the movement are most likely to have inadvertently come across enough info to know better already, albeit with getting into their positions having indirectly already screened out those bothered by dishonesty.
Just more proof of how ignorant the general population is and how inept our education system is and on and on…
If I move from Nome Alaska to Hong Kong, that is climate change.
Bob Rogers says:
July 19, 2012 at 7:19 am
The nuclear winter scare is another fairytale, manufactured by Sagan with a model that was so stupid that the Russian scientists left the meeting in protest.
http://www.textfiles.com/survival/nkwrmelt.txt
I never heard this ultra extreme version of the nuclear winter, just that a massive nuclear exchange would by combination of particulate matter in the air nuclear fallout and unmanagable fires would have a terrible effect on agriculture and sully the water supply.
—-
The nuclear winter scare is another fairytale
LOL. Good to know!
Growing up I always lived places that were probably primary targets, so there would be no Day After for us.
Bob Rogers says:
July 19, 2012 at 7:19 am
[quote]Not only does GenX remember the global cooling scare, but we also grew up under the shadows of the threat of nuclear holocaust. Every single person I knew in high school believed there would be nuclear war between the USA and the USSR.[/quote]
I remember having to watch The Day After for an assignment. And when we bombed Libya (I was in 11th grade), everyone was so freaked out because we thought it was the start of WW III and we were going to get nuked. We were so worried that our history teacher had a round table discussion about it instead of whatever we were supposed to do that day. He did his best to calm us down, but people were still really upset and scared.
First there is nuclear summer…somewhat brief… 🙂
USAF handed this out as part of survival training:
SHELTER
1. Underground shelters covered with 3 ft. of earth are safest. Shelters offering best protection in order are:
a. Caves and tunnels.
b. Storm or storage cellars.
c. Culverts and basements.
d. Abandoned mud or stone buildings.
2. Hills, side of ditches, ravines and river banks are best if digging is necessary.
3. In flat, level areas such as snow— fields and sand, dig a foxhole or slit trench.
4. Keep all skin covered when exposed to fallout.
RADIATION INTENSITY HALF VALUE
1. Thickness indicated if placed between an individual and source will reduce radiation intensity by one-half.
Material Thickness
Iron/Steel .7 inch
Brick 2.0 inch
Concrete 2.2 inch
Dirt 3.3 inch
Ice 6.8 inch
Wood 8.8 inch
Snow 20.3 inch
INSIDE SHELTER
1. Keep warm, sleep and rest as much as possible.
2. Do not bring contaminated material into shelter such as leaves and grass.
3. Decontaminate clothing prior to entering shelter by dusting off garments. If Outer clothing isn’t necessary for warmth, bury under ft. of dirt at end of shelter.
4. Wipe face and exposed skin to remove dust and dirt. If possible, use soap and water, without leaving shelter. If not available, use a c1ean cloth or uncontaminated dirt obtained by scraping off top few inches of soil.
5. Fallout particles are in the form of white ash, normally. Remove ash as soon as possible.
6. If exposure necessary, make it as brief as possible and only for valid reasons.
7. Factors to be considered whether amount of radiation known or not:
a. Time of entry in shelter versus time of last explosion.
b. Distance from explosion.
c. Degree of protection provided by shelter.
TIMETABLE
1. Stay sheltered 4-6 days after last weapons delivery. A brief exposure not to exceed 30 minutes, to get water on the 3rd day is permissible.
2. On the 7th day, one exposure of not more than 30 minutes.
3. On the 8th day, one exposure of not more than one hour.
4. From the 9th day through the 12th day, exposure of 2-4 hours per day.
5. From the 13th day on, normal operation followed by rest in a protected shelter.
6. Times are conservative. If forced to move after one or two days, make sure exposure is no longer than absolutely necessary.
STAY CALM
USE YOUR HEAD
YOU WILL SURVIVE
I lived 50 miles from Three Mile Island when it came close to meltdown, didn’t even get the day off school. The Day After was pretty scary, but nuclear war was pretty scary. The science is pretty robust on this. 🙂
ANN ARBOR, Mich.—As the nation suffers through a summer of record-shattering heat, a University of Michigan report finds that Generation X is lukewarm about climate change—uninformed about the causes and unconcerned about the potential dangers.
Yeah, right. Anyone who does not agree with CAGW must be “uninformed”. There’s not other possible explaination is there?
Sounds like the ABC questionaire all over again. You say you’ve spent a lot of time informing youself, reading about and you are not convinced. They present a summary of your opinoins saying you are ignorant of the issues.
The real result here is that this age group old enough and wise enough to spot bullshit when they see it. They don’t necessarily need a degree in climate science to know it’s phoney. I was fortunate to go through an educational system that still aimed at education rather than training.
The younger generations have now been brainwashed from kindergarten upwards by schools, TV and other media with carbon footprint hysteria, on a daily basis.
Apparently Miller’s idea of “better educated” means “more like me”.
“Most Generation Xers are surprisingly disengaged, dismissive or doubtful about whether global climate change is happening and they don’t spend much time worrying about it,” said Jon D. Miller, author of “The Generation X Report.”
Where does this Gen Xer fit in? I’m engaged but dismissive, convinced of climate change but spend far more time worrying about alarmists destroying our way of life than about climate change. (And I would like more care in distinguishing between climate change, which is undeniably happening all the time and AGW, which is a nice theory currently lacking evidence).
Adults with more education are more likely to be alarmed and concerned about climate change, he found.
Adults with more education are also more likely to leave their children unvaccinated for fear of autism. Educated people are suckers for “alternative” theories.
Maybe we aren’t concerned because we have been through the whole thing so many times before. Fool me once….
Pull My Finger says:
July 19, 2012 at 9:28 am
“I lived 50 miles from Three Mile Island when it came close to meltdown, didn’t even get the day off school. The Day After was pretty scary, but nuclear war was pretty scary. The science is pretty robust on this. :-)”
TMI is another example to not trust the official story. Trust what is logical, reasonable, and “robust science.” Nuclear energy is good; if you live near it be smart. No reason to tailgate a stinking bus.
TMI just happened to occur less than two weeks after the China Syndrome movie was released so people freaked out far more than necessary. It was bad, but the reactors were so well built that very little radiation escaped. 30+ years later there is no discernable effect in the area. On the other hand, you build cheap crap like to Soviets you get Chernobyls rather than TMIs.
Well being a gen-xer, I agree I generally don’t care about climate change. That’s mostly because they spent allllll the time while I was in school trying to brain wash me, and while I was growing up my parents taught me to question everything. So I did.
I remember when the nuclear winter pushers predicted the soot from the oil fires in Kuwait would cool the atmosphere and lead to crop failures.
I also remember after the news media discovered El Nino/ La Nina every newsworthy weather event was linked to one or the other.
31% of Americans identify as Democrats, 27% as Republicans, and 40% Independent. link
So where does he address the largest group, the Independents? Also if less than 50% of democrats are concerned and 0% of the republicans that is 27% + 0.5*31% = 42.5% are not concerned about CAGW and that is before you address the largest group, the Independents.
The Rasmussen report has human influence at 40%, Planetary Trends at 44% and other at 6%. link “A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 52% of Likely Voters think there’s a conflict between economic growth and environment protection…” too. SO most people have got that idea straight. 57% Favor Use of ‘Fracking’ To Find More U.S. Oil and Gas
The thing that bothers me is the definition of a generation. I am a Boomer B (Boomers 1946-1964, A = 1946-1954, B=1955-1964) so the X works 1964-1992, not 1961-1981. Did they change the definition from 18 years to 20? Plus why is there such a large overlap?
Generations are distressingly arbitrary. I’ve seen definitions of Generation X that map anywhere from 65 to 85, 60 to 80, 70 to 90, 60 to 75, etc, etc, etc.
Basically, “generations” are just media-speak for “a bunch of people that we think should all be treated as having common habits, interests and characteristics”. i.e. BS.
Thank you johnbr. Boomers, though, should be fixed because the name came from the years in the US where there were 3 to 4 million births per year, something that never happened before 1946, and didn’t happen after 1964 until very recently.
I’d be interested if people could find a few other subjects where what is presented to the public is not what goes on.
Then you could correlate belief in AGW with belief in other things presented in a contentious manner by the media.
It’d be interesting to know if there is a general credulity group, a set of specific credulities and a group of healthily skeptical folks.
Often, being duped is a function of credulity. Particularly if you are duped by family members, people may be seeking healthy family relations in the big bad world. That tends to make them duped………
Eco fascist Greens whose indoctrination process accepts the impossibility of molding the older members of society see brainwashing the schoolchildren as a political investment for future ascension. Perhaps that’s what Mann means when he speaks of ‘priming’.
Sounds like the goal posts keep moving. Darn. /sarc
johnbr: July 19, 2012 at 4:58 am – brilliant – really enjoyed your observation.
I recall reading that other studies have found that the more facts people know about the climate, the less concerned they are about climate change. Wasn’t that a post on WUWT?
Focusing on the needs of the next generation is one of the most important reasons I am against alarmists destroying economies under the ruse of CAGW. And minor children? Nothing like a few teenagers running around the house to put global [not] warming in perspective…
This is another in a long line of “If you don’t agree with the dogma, you are illiterate” studies. I disagree with the man’s basic premise of what is scientific literacy. Climate change is a fact of life. Variability, cycles, solar activity, land use, etc all are impactors. The argument is over root causes and how much of each factor is involved with CO2 likely to have insignificant contributions. The science is not even fully defined at this point and overly educated social scientists are assigning it the status of dogma? Is he going to reissue his analysis when AGW is shown to be a crock of “that which makes things grow, the power of which is irresistible”? I doubt it, because this is not scientific, it is propaganda pure and simple.
http://climateaudit.org/2012/07/19/scotland-yard-interviewed/
clipe says:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
July 19, 2012 at 2:57 pm
Oops wrong thread. Please ignore.
[Moderator’s Note: I know you are not being deceptive, but you also gotta know that we get really bent out of shape when cvommenters use more than one screen name. Just sayin’. -REP]
I’m a classic GenXer, born in early 70’s, was in college when Nirvana got famous and “grunge” became king. I was very liberally minded (still am, in many ways), always voted “anti-republican”, very concerned about the environment and GW. As Alex the Skeptic described, I went through the process of researching the facts, which of course eventually led me to WUWT. And I have come to conclusion that the science is definitely not settled. The problem is there is so much noise out there from both sides that it’s hard to get down to the real data.
clipe says:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
July 19, 2012 at 2:57 pm
Oops wrong thread. Please ignore.
[Moderator’s Note: I know you are not being deceptive, but you also gotta know that we get really bent out of shape when cvommenters use more than one screen name. Just sayin’. -REP]
I’m posting as “clipe” but have to sign in to WordPress. If I forget to sign out after each comment…
Test
[REPLY: Yeah, just do the best you can, or some troll is gonna complain that clipe gets to use two screen names, so why do we care if he uses four or five…. -REP]
test
[REPLY: Fine. You are you. -REP]
“He also found that partisan affiliations predicted attitudes, with nearly half of liberal Democrats alarmed or concerned compared with zero percent of conservative Republicans.”
Ah, so clear proof that all conservatives are smarter than most liberals.
GenX (well deserved) cynicism saves the world again. Now just to get a few choice boomers out of power and we can start fixing things up again.
Rhys Jaggar says:
July 19, 2012 at 12:11 pm
I’d be interested if people could find a few other subjects where what is presented to the public is not what goes on.
_________________________________
Easy. Remember most of the media lies are about getting the public to go along with the laws passed that are to the advantage of a cartel. Generally they want a “monopoly” that allows them a major advantage in the market place or a place on the government gravy train (ADM/Monsanto/Cargill and biofuel-corn subsidies for example.)
These links are about food and farming a rather nuetral subject so good for an example.
REFERENCES:
From the BLOGGERS
History, HACCP and the Food Safety Con Job
WTO rules put free-trade of agribusiness above national health concerns
Five Minutes With John Munsell & A Trip To The Woodshed With The USDA
Legislators overlook serious flaw in USDA’s HACCP food-safety system—while promoting its adoption by FDA
SHIELDING THE GIANT: USDA’s “Don’t Look, Don’t Know” Policy
A solemn walk through HR 875
Trojan Horse Law: The Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009
Congress blasts FDA’s plan to close 7 labs …Lawmakers also criticized the Food and Drug Administration’s plan to close half of its laboratories….
Note the set up. Close gov’t testing labs, use new HACCP to turn food safety over to the corporations and then scream bloody murder when the food borne illnesses double with in three years (my check on the CDC stats before and after 1995)
Media Hype on illnesses
Food Safety In The 21st Century
E. Coli, Salmonella and Other Deadly Bacteria and Pathogens in Food: Factory Farms Are the Reason
More Burger Tests: Good For Health But Too Costly?
Peanut Case Shows Holes in Safety Net
There have been plenty more stories about food borne illness over the last fifteen years.
Please note that the new law does nothing to increase food safety. It only extends the HACCP regs (paperwork) to all farmers and triggers WTO “traceability” so the corporations can point the finger at a farmer and pass the liability off to someone else. Instead of protecting US consumers and farmers from foreign disease it gets rid of the protection put in place by Congress before they would ratify WTO. This was done by inserting a clause in the new law that makes US regs obey the dictates of WTO. It is a common sleight of hand. “Compromise” on the bill to get it to pass and then a few years later slip in all the parts that were removed during the compromise as one liners on uncontroversial bills.
Protection clause: http://www.eastlaw.net/research/wto/wto2b.htm
The FDA’s lies about that clause and WTO are here: http://www.fda.gov/Food/InternationalActivities/ucm103013.htm
There is a lot more to the story but those articles cover the gist of it.
None of the issues I have looked into are any more straight forward. The Power Mongers could give Machiavelli lessons.
We were born during the late part of the last negative PDO and the very first few years of the recently deceased positive PDO. As “youts” we experienced the ’82 – ’83 El Nino, the grand benchmark only bested by ’97 – ’98. We saw the great cool down of late ’98 – ’99, a warning wave of things to come. As we reach well into Middle Age we now slide down the razor blade of life (again) and steel ourselves for some lean years to come. We don’t fear warmth but do fear cold.
I’m a Gen Xer and I’m not at all concerned about climate change beyond what I’ll have to do to adapt to it. I’m far more concerned that all of Gen X is being sacrificed on the Boomer’s alter and that we’ll basically spend the rest of our lives trying to clean up their mess if we want our children to have anything approaching normalcy.
And yes, I remember growing up through crisis after crisis. I’m a bit too young really remember the last “Ice Age,” but I do remember nuclear winter, acid rain, the advent of Global Warming, peak oil, peak population, Bird Flu and on and on … I’m currently enjoying the 2012 Apocalypse.
Disclaimer: I work for a large electricity provider. My opinions are my own and don’t represent my employers.
That done.
This exact article went up on our intranet corporate website which allows employees to comment on. It has gotten some of the most interest of any other article has in the last few weeks with many dozens of disparate comments and some pretty decent discussion. A few of us are also WUWT readers, but I don’t see any responses from those folks above this 103 ish comment.
I’m an X-er myself though a bit on the young side, born in ’75. I went to a nifty private school for elementary and recall vividly the winter of 82-83 and the bitterness of that. I recall seeing some old magazine articles discussing the returning ice age, though the particular author said it might get warm before it got cold. The Arctic Ocean may lose lots of ice, then the earth could dump a massive amount of heat into space without it’s hat on. Hrm….
Damn! Missed it by that much!
Those of us who were born in 1960 resent being considered Baby Boomers and hence the parents of those, like my brother, who were born in 1961. That being said, I went through the environmental permutations of the Baby Boomers, but like the Gen Xers with whom I more closely identify (economically as well as ideologically), became cynical when the predictions of doom went pphfffft.
Boomers sure are making a hash of politics and governance, as well (not to mention science). They seem to be as hypocritical in betraying their own ideals and standards as was the generation that came before – although to my recollection, the generation that preceded them was most contemptible, according to them, for its ‘hypocrisy’.
David M. Hoffer – beautiful! I’ve often wondered which is the golden but endangered future generation for which we are all supposed to be sacrificing.
I’m a GenX’er… born in ’75… but my upbringing was more of a Boomer upbringing… I have 12 siblings, was raised strictly Roman Catholic, was not allowed to watch TV (Boomers didn’t have TV), and had a bed time of 8P.M. until I was 15. One of my favorite actresses growing up was Doris Day. I did not watch and have never watched MTV for fun. I learned how to fix things while working with my dad on the house/car/garage etc (mostly because I was a trouble maker, and my mom sent me to help my dad).
After working as an electrical engineer for 10 years and meeting lots of Boomers, I don’t think my parents are really Boomer generation people either. And I would most certainly agree with those people here who believe that the Boomer generation are, for the most part, rich and greedy scondrels. Nearly all of them are very concerned about how big a slice of the American pie they get… But generational issues aside…
It would appear from the short introduction in the presentation linked by:
Eric: July 19, 2012 at 7:34 am
that the Civic Scientific Literacy test is designed well as a basic measure of current science knowledge including evolution, physics, chemistry, math — all very basic understanding… no AGW is included (at least in the presentation)
The most interesting part of the study concluding that more scientific knowledge imparts belief in AGW is that AGW can only be believed if you remove the basic tenet of reason, scientific test, and substitute the basic tenet of religion, belief in an unprovable idea… not unlike the invisible dragon in my garage.
Personally, after reviewing thousands of pages of material in several areas of climate, including several text books and other materials, I can truly say that anyone who believes the science is settled has no idea about the science.
Is their research as slanted as the article?
Being born in 1961 this is the first time I have heard I was in Gen X, I was always told I was at the tail end of the baby boomers….
I expect that once the questioned worked out what the questions were about they lost interest and just wanted it to end as soon as possible and would say almost anything if they thought it would get to the end quicker. I have used similar tactics in work place surveys (first page answers all 1 second page 2 etc etc) and come up with some strange results but it keeps the pen pushes out of my way which is always good!
James Bull
Gen-x the unfortunate generation that spans multiple consensus based science failures (global cooling, global warming, cold fusion, the cause of stomach ulcers, and the list goes on) and the rise of the computers and internet. Confidence in engineering is high, confidence in science is low.
If you really want to know first hand what the state of education is in the US casually make the suggestion to any random person that we should shut down all NCAA div I & II sports programs.
@Tsk Tsk
“Groovy” man…yeah.
Pft. Yeah we’re a cynical generation, and with good cause. A lot of us like what Bryan Hunt said, don’t trust the science because we’ve been manipulated by the flappy heads through school. Engineering though? Yeah I trust that, I trust the science behind the engineering too, because I understand the math, chemistry, physics, metallurgy behind that as well. But “climate science” seems one very small step away from someone in a back room shaking chicken bones, and reading out how they’ll affect my future. Then telling me, don’t worry “I know what this means, and all the data is right *here*”
More on the generations theory. The main theory used in the US and Canada is the Strauss and Howe model. A saeculum consists of ~80 years and includes 4 turnings as follows: 1st turning (The High), 2nd turning (The Awakening), 3rd turning (The Unravelling), 4th turning (The Crisis). Each turning is ~ 20 years. To those familiar with Spengler’s cyclical history model this is like a version of it in microcosm. Not a complete civilization cycle but more minor cycles within it. In any case, the current saeculum began at the point in WW2 where it became apparent the Allies would win (1942 more or less). The 1T was the time the Boom generation grew up. That name Boom has more to do with growing up during the Boom than the demographic Baby Boom in certain countries. The 1T went from ~’42 to ~ ’61. Then came the Awakening (far out man) going until ~ ’81. Those born during it are the X or 13th Generation (aka 13ers). Then came the Unravelling going until ~ 9/11. Those born during it are Millennials. We are now in The Crisis. Those born during it are the Homeland Generation.
From a comment above–
Michael Mann, a leading climate scientist at Pennsylvania State University who was not involved with the survey, was encouraged that a majority of Gen Xers recognized the threat. Once the economy recovers, he said, people will be better prepared to tackle climate change.
Ah, but the AGW screamers have caused wind farms and shut down coal plants. This is EXTREMELY expensive and can probably explain the entire current global financial meltdown, with some help from too-much-bureaucracy hindering employers.
So they’ll never get there until they wake up from the alarmism.
We need to emphasize related fields more. Anthony is an expert on weather, and we hear regularly from physicists, astromomers and climate researchers.
We do hear from biologists such as myself, and from economists. We need more. We also need to find out what works best to communicate to those idiot Democrats. They’re suffering too, maybe more than we are, and need to understand why Big Government hurts the economy (jobs) AND the Environment.
“Kay says:
July 19, 2012 at 9:14 am
Bob Rogers says:
July 19, 2012 at 7:19 am
[quote]Not only does GenX remember the global cooling scare, but we also grew up under the shadows of the threat of nuclear holocaust. Every single person I knew in high school believed there would be nuclear war between the USA and the USSR.[/quote]
I remember having to watch The Day After for an assignment. And when we bombed Libya (I was in 11th grade), everyone was so freaked out because we thought it was the start of WW III and we were going to get nuked. We were so worried that our history teacher had a round table discussion about it instead of whatever we were supposed to do that day. He did his best to calm us down, but people were still really upset and scared.”
What is it with Americans? A fair proportion of you all seem to be very easily scared – by everything. I well remember the Cuban missile crisis and I was not at all worried because I knew the Soviet leadership wanted to live as much as the Americans did. However the thought that nuclear weapons could get into the hands of stateless terrorists…….
But scared or not, Americans need to lead the way in denouncing the IPCC and all its works! More money sustaining this dangerous myth comes from America than anywhere else.
By the way, has the funding, by the US government, of the CRU in East Anglia (suspended after Climategate) been resumed?
Dang it. I used to think I was a young Boomer. Now I’m reclassified as an old Gen-X’er. I feel demoted.
Speaking of nuclear war, who else here has read Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank? Good book, highly recommended. While modern viewpoints have labeled it far too optimistic as to surviving what comes afterwards, I’ll note I first heard those viewpoints when “experts” were certain there’d be a devastating nuclear winter.
If nothing else, it really gets one thinking about what one really needs to survive catastrophe, in the following days to the years, with an unflinching realism that’d severely upset the pacifist vegans who think at worst they’ll be waiting at the curb to be rescued by the National Guard for a few days, rather than by local responders in a few hours.
Good read when we were assigned it back in high school, still good today. If you’ve never read it before, then it’d be good for you to read it soon.
Someone suggested that better educated are more inclined to believe. In my experience the less technologically educated the higher the belief, which is near zero in computer modellers who have examined the coding is detail and see the dire ignorance of any natural sources and uses of the natural emissions by other natural systems, and therefore have a zero proof that any extra CO2 will not just result in the identical resulting balance point.
How can anyone with a grasp of even basic mathematics believe that if the science was proven before a ” huge methane source in the Arctic 2 was discovered climate scientists could be anything other than bunglers or liars overselling their product.
Why is this a surprise? In the 70’s, Gen X’ers were told there would be a second ice age. In the 80’s there was a hole in the ozone that was going to kill us all. The 90’s through today it has been global warming. I’m not a genius, but it seems to me that global weather/climate just runs in cycles and is more affected by the sun than humans. I guess one thing did stick with Gen X’ers. We were also told not to believe everything that was fed to us by the powers that be. Proud that we learned that one.