But, we all know that 97% consensus talking point is simply based on a handful of actual climate responding to a broad questionnaire combined with some statistical spin to give the desired result. Apparently, that’s good enough for low information folks, even the researcher in this story, MSU’s Aaron M. McCright is taken in by the spin.
From Michigan State University:
US residents who believe in the scientific consensus on global warming are more likely to support government action to curb emissions, regardless of whether they are Republican or Democrat, according to a study led by a Michigan State University sociologist.
However, a political divide remains on the existence of climate change despite the fact that the vast majority of scientists believe it is real, said Aaron M. McCright, associate professor in Lyman Briggs College and the Department of Sociology.
The study, in the journal Climatic Change, is one of the first to examine the influence of political orientation on perceived scientific agreement and support for government action to reduce emissions.
“The more people believe scientists agree about climate change, the more willing they are to support government action, even when their party affiliation is taken into account,” McCright said. “But there is still a political split on levels of perceived scientific agreement, in that fewer Republicans and conservatives than Democrats and liberals believe there is a scientific consensus.”
McCright and colleagues analyzed a Gallup survey of 1,024 adults who were asked about their views on climate change.
The results reaffirm the success of what McCright calls the “denial machine” – an organized movement to undercut the scientific reality of climate change during the past two decades.
McCright said the first step in dealing with climate change is getting both sides of the political spectrum to accept the scientific consensus. At that point, he said, policymakers can go about the task of coming up with an approach to combat it.
He said both government and industry should be involved in that effort.
“Certainly we can’t solve all our problems with global warming through government regulations – in fact, for some problems, government regulations might make it worse,” McCright said. “And so we need a combination of market-based solutions and government regulations.”
McCright’s co-authors are Riley Dunlap of Oklahoma State University and Chenyang Xiao of American University.
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“US residents who believe in the scientific consensus on global warming are more likely to support government action to curb emissions, regardless of whether they are efficiency or Democrat, according to a study led by a Michigan State University sociologist.”
In other news, gullibility highly correlates with being hoodwinked.
The simple point that make here is that even most “skeptics” and “deniers” agree with those 97% of climate change specialists who say human activities are a “significant contributing factor” to global temperature change.
Shows the importance of making sure people know the farce behind that 97% figure.
@DirkH – “In other news, gullibility highly correlates with being hoodwinked.”
Beat me to the punch line.
Mcright is oh so wrong. Possibly from all the McScience he’s read.
“However, a political divide remains on the existence of climate change despite the fact that the vast majority of scientists believe it is real, said Aaron M. McCright, associate professor in Lyman Briggs College and the Department of Sociology.”
The double-speak propaganda is so thick, the authors of things these days don’t even realize they have been baited.
Everyone believes the climate changes. If anything, the skeptics are the side that believes climate changes more so than the warmists that cling to their idea of a steady state climate if not for man burning fossil fuel.
As we head into the next ice age the warmists can still blame ‘climate change’ on man since the very idea of pretending ‘climate change’ is subject to debate means no premise can be falsified.
As a computer software engineer, the complete illogical way the warmists are framing the debate drives me nuts! (and since I got my start in this field in modeling simulations, the way models are accorded the status of empirical facts completes my trip to the nuthouse)
Goebbels: “Yo hitler unless we get everyone to agree that the jews are a problem through authoritarian means. We will never be able to enact a proper solution.”
Too soon?
Never surprising when a member of the department of naziology/commieology comes out to support clearly authoritarian fallacy.
There is no such thing as Scientific Consensus in science! There have been too many past examples of scientific consensus being flawed!
Ian Weiss says:
“The simple point that make here is that even most ‘skeptics’ and ‘deniers’ agree with those 97% of climate change specialists who say human activities are a ‘significant contributing factor’ to global temperature change.”
==================================
Well, that’s wrong.
Take out the “significant”, and a lot of us would agree with you.
“Far better to debate a subject without settling it, than it to settle a subject without debating it.”
On the wall behind a High School debate coach.
No one denies Earth’s climate changes. But there is a double mythical consensus here: (1) that 97% agree climate change is happening, and (2) that 97% agree climate change MUST be attributed to human causes. What’s more, the very people arguing Earth’s dynamic climate is changing all the time (and therefore a natural phenomenon) are the very people accused of denying the climate changes at all. The distinction between natural and anthropogenic climate change must be emphasized.
Of course, being a proud member of the denial machine it is hilarious when those poor government funded buffoons can’t seem to defeat poorly funded folks like us. The only real consensus they have is trying to find a way to discredit people like us. To that end, Anthony is of course Satan.
31,000+ scientists signed the Oregon Petition stating that there is no discernible effect of man’s activities or carbon dioxide on climate.
The best estimate I’ve seen of the number of hardcore AGW fanatics among “scientists” is about 70.
That works out to about a 450 to 1 majority of scientists who DON’T buy into the AGW fantasy.
And that’s 0.22 percent (2/9 of one percent) of scientists supporting the fantasy, NOT 97 percent.
The same people who are constantly accusing the U.S. and the West of ‘not doing enough’ always seem to turn a blind eye to China and other polluting countries.
The U.S. is reducing emissions; but most Kyoto signatory nations are raising their emission output. The U.S. is a net CO2 sink. Most emitted CO2 comes from the Southern Hemisphere.
MSU professor? Stick to what your school is known for and go burn a couch or something.
If you keep telling the same lies you start to believe in the them
Sociology is one of those sciences about like economics, i.e. pseudoscience, so what do you expect?
I’m pretty sure the consensus that climate changes, always has, and always will is closer to 100%.
Oh – he means manmade warming/climate change/disruption/chaos/extreme weather. Have they decided which one yet? Pretty hard to even have a “consensus” when they keep moving the goal posts and changing the rules. Maybe if they could pick just one thing and stick with it, then they could claim a “consensus” about that.
dbstealey, I think you mean Eastern, not Southern.
Ahem — recall the recent article about Lysenkoism and my comment about second-rate science in the soft sciences?
oldseadog,
I used this reference for my CO2 emissions comment. Check out the map.
Old Sea Dog, I think you and dbstealey probably both agree with each other on both of the points each of you is making. [#:)]
I thought the same thing, OSD, BTW, I thought db meant the net loss of CO2 from the U.S. west coast to the east due to generally prevailing westerlies and forests etc absorbing it.
Knowledge is Power! The power to be free of coersion and fear and bullying and intimidation.
His paper is fudamentally flawed. He is presenting an ‘objective’ report of a supposedly objective sampling. However, he revelas his bias in the manner in which he characterises the ‘denal machine’ He would not be allowed to sit on a jury on any case where he held such strong views (for or against) on the issue under consideration. Hist statments undercut his credibliity.
Re soft sciences: Capitalism, faithfully practiced (i.e., not distorted by cronyism and government manipulation of markets), is scientific; the Marxist brand of “economics” practiced by the AGW crowd is no more scientific than their lies abnout climate change.
Economics may be an inexact science, but really, so are the physical sciences. The best theories are still only approximations, and can always be replaced by better approximations (e.g., Newton by relativity). And this is why the whole notion of “consensus” is so anti-scientific, and why skeptics will always hold not only the moral high ground but also the factual high ground in the contest with AGW true believers.
The fact that all science is approximation does not speak ill of it – it only reflects the simple truth that skepticism is the essence of science, and that there can be no end to scientific inquiry and investigation even with respect to the most widely accepted theories. Inexact sciences are still science if they adhere to the scientific method and are founded on empirical evidence.
AGW is not even an inexact science, because it is not science at all. It is mendacious propaganda, which is the absolute opposite of science.
In 2004 with no further warming for 6 years and CO2 increasing the AGW crowd were in big trouble…..Made even worse by the Aqua Satellite’s failure to find any warming of the Tropical Troposphere since it’s launch in 2002 (and still no trace to this day). This being the case “Global Warming” became “Climate Change”…a deliberate way of misleading the gullible, in other words all weather events are by implication “man made”.
A poll was conducted that came up with a 97% consensus that scientists believed in “Climate Change”….and thus the myth continued. In fact they appear to have only polled 77 “scientists” and we are not sure what the question was. To challenge this is quite easy as in the USA there was huge opposition to the Kyoto Protocol, so much so that The Oregon Petition came into being and was signed by 31,000 scientists who gave their names and qualifications…9,000 had PhDs. Just to cancel this out the warmers would need to produce 970,000 scientific signatures to back up their 97% consensus claim…not a chance.
The planet is now in an early phase of cooling and with the additional embarrassment of CO2’s ability to create heat now being corrected to logarithmic as opposed to linear the game is up. All we get from the warmers is the usual nonsense of “our models predict”…reality has passed them by.