Guest essay by Brandon Shollenberger
Global warming proponents support genocide. That may seem hard to believe, but remember, they’ve said it’d be right to blow up dams and burn cities to the ground:
Unloading essentially means the removal of an existing burden: for instance, removing grazing domesticated animals, razing cities to the ground, blowing up dams and switching off the greenhouse gas emissions machine. The process of ecological unloading is an accumulation of many of the things I have already explained in this chapter, along with an (almost certainly necessary) element of sabotage. If carried out willingly and on a sufficiently large scale, this process would require dismantling many of the key components of civilization; no person would be foolish enough to cut off their own limbs unless they were suffering from some kind of psychotic delusion, and no civilization would be willing to remove many of the pillars of its own existence. Looking from the outside, though, a civilization hacking off its own extremities would seem like exactly the right thing to do.
That view is not from some fringe element global warming proponents shun. James Hansen, arguably the most influential member of the cause, supported the book that statement was written in. Hansen has also suggested “coal trains will be death trains” and GHGs could “destroy much of the fabric of life.” Supporting genocide is incredibly extreme, but clearly extreme is acceptable to them.
But supporting genocide? That’s hard to believe. I’d need some strong data to make me even consider the idea. That’s why I collected some. (Note: several climate blogs were used, including WUWT here – Anthony)
Using the approach of Lewandowsky et al, I created a survey (copy here) which got 5,697 responses (two of which I filtered out for being incomplete). Three items on the survey were:
You believe global warming is a [sic] real.
You believe global warming poses a serious threat.
You believe genocide is…
Respondents were asked to rate their level of disagreement/agreement (1-5) on the first two. For the third, they rated bad/good (1-5).
I found statistically significant correlations (at the 99.99% level) for all pairings of these items:
As you can see, people who say global warming is real but not a serious threat are more likely to oppose genocide. On the other hand, people who say global warming is a serious threat are more likely to support genocide. The effect isn’t large, but it is statistically significant. There’s more. The survey also included the item:
You have never been wrong.
The effect is small but statistically significant at the 99.99% level. Believing global warming is a serious threat correlates with believing one has never been wrong. Believing you are fallible correlates with merely believing global warming is real. Combine these two findings, and we get:
- Believing global warming is a serious threat correlates with believing you are never wrong.
- Believing global warming is a serious threat correlates with supporting genocide.
Therefore, global warming proponents believe they are never wrong, even when supporting genocide.
Quick note, Stephan Lewandowsky built upon correlation matrices like mine by using factor analysis and structural-equation modeling (SEM). These cannot change observed patterns; they can only tease out additional ones. I am not replicating those steps.
Caveat: The results are obviously nonsense. However, they were gotten from the same methodology used by Lewandowsky and others. More to come…
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[snip – sorry no thread disruption by you this time – Anthony]
Framing bias: This survey is useless, as it does not define what is meant by “global warming”.
“If you wish to converse with me, define your terms” – Voltaire
@Cheyne Gordon says:
January 15, 2014 at 4:32 am
“…..Caveat: The results are obviously nonsense….” and hence so is the questionnaire which is what Mr Shollenberger is showing us, hence paralleling Lewandowsky’s methodologies. Which are nonsense.As is his paper.
I am glad you reported the results this way. I intend to link to the results for the education of the sheeple who have no clue what they are talking about.
I love it! LOL
Poor Cheyne Gordon! I guess they are a lewandowskite.
Cheyne Gordon says:
January 15, 2014 at 4:32 am
“Framing bias: This survey is useless, as it does not define what is meant by “global warming”.”
And I thought it was attempting to demonstrate GIGO and/or “Lies, damned lies, and statistics”. Obviously my bad.
Can you show us the scatterplots of the genocide responses against some others? Only a histogram of the genocide reponses is also OK.
Now this is funny! Logic. It’s whats for dinner.
http://www.antarctica.gov.au/media/news/2014/aurora-australis-bound-for-tasmania
Sounds like 22nd or 23rd for arrival at Hobart.
Maybe we can get POTUS in his role as National Statistician to publicize the results for us
I appreciate that this is a bit of fun, but : ‘you believe genocide is . . ‘ what? a frog? a bowl of salad? a large building?
Sadly for the rest of us, for a significant portion of the AGW community the results of your survey are actually accurate.
Cheyne,
Were you this concerned when Lewandowsky and gang not only performed a similar faux survey but got it peer reviewd and published while being paid by a University?
Pol Pot would have really liked these guys.
The theme reminds me of my favourite quote of 2013, attributed to Scott Johnson who is coach of the Scottish National Rugby team:
“Statistics are a bit like bikinis – it shows a lot but not the whole thing”
Cheyne Gordon says:
January 15, 2014 at 4:32 am
Framing bias: This survey is useless, as it does not define what is meant by “global warming”.
“If you wish to converse with me, define your terms” – Voltaire
I have yet to see a survey which defines its terms. The most important part of designing a survey is using terms that everyone understands without definition. Suppose I define the term “murder” as dancing merily with many people and then ask you in a survey if you approve of murder? Not a good survey! The survey questions always have to have words in them obvious enough so that the definitions denote and connote the same things. I think that “Global Warming” is an obvious enough term to use, especially on the websites on which the survey was conducted.
Nice demonstration Brandon, thanks.
“Caveat: The results are obviously nonsense.” … but barred owls remain skeptical. http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/kidspost/government-plans-to-kill-thousands-of-owls-to-save-another-type-of-owl/2013/07/24/3aa202a0-f312-11e2-bdae-0d1f78989e8a_story.html
Doh! Got it now – that’ll teach me to speed read.
If one thinks humanity is a swarm of bacteria about to consume to the edge of the petri dish, then yeah, drastic population reduction is “obvious”.
But such a view seems to affirm Nature as thing worth preserving on one hand, whilst denying that Nature is a creative destructive monster. Evolve or die. Invent or stagnate.
When we sit watching TV and eating popcorn, that is Nature watching TV and eating popcorn, something Nature evolved to do over and above swinging from trees, and attacking other ape tribes. We are Nature. And Nature’s imperative is to be creative.
I’m reminded of that Twilight Zone episode where the aliens came and decided to wipe out humanity, not because we weren’t peaceful enough, but because we’d failed as warriors. We project a lot of values and assumptions onto that Nature which we then claim are “protecting”.
What makes these guys think they speak for Gaia? What makes them think they can predict all that is yet to be invented by our children and their children?
Why is 1700 the time to declare as the perfect balance of Nature? why not 12,000 years ago? why not 2000 years in the future? Why is a million humans the balance, or why not ten billion? How does one define the point of balance in such a complex system full of emergent creativity?
Brandon,
I’d like to know more about how the magic trick works. Is the essence of it finding ‘meaning’ in noise, or did you somehow structure the survey to get the result? In other words, was this the bogus correlation you expected or did you just get results and see what you could make of them?
Thanks!
Environmentalists support genocide since about environmentalism exists. The sainted Cdt Cousteau had himself said:
“In order to stabilize the world population, we need to eliminate 350,000 people a day. It is a horrible thing to say, but it’s just as bad not to say it.”
Mindert Eiting, I don’t know a quick way to make a scatterplot for counts like you describe. I’m sure it’s pretty easy in r, but I’d have to work out how to do it. In the meantime, here’s a table of responses for the genocide item:
Scott Scarborough, I’ve seen arguments saying defining terms used in a survey is a bad thing. The argument is the survey items aren’t intended to be read precisely. Instead, people’s different views will shape their answers, thus giving more information about their overall mindset. That’s why it’s okay if some respondents give contradictory or nonsensical answers. Personally, I think that’s bunk.
There is one thing I regret not working into this post. I didn’t make any jokes about the discovery the Skeptical Science team photoshops themselves into Nazi regalia. Oh well. There’s never space for everything.
Mark Bofill, the trick is pretty simple, but I’m holding off discussing it too much for the moment. For now, I figure focusing on the humor of the results the methodology creates is more effective. People will find this more accessible than a post discussing math/logic. Plus, it’s a great talking point. The next time someone says you’re a conspiracy nut, tell them, “Yeah, but you support genocide.”
Anyway, while I working on a writeup which explains the trick, I can give a brief explanation. Basically, this just involves asking questions you know the answer to. I knew most survey takers would respond as skeptics. I also knew they’d oppose genocide. Picking 1 for both creates a positive correlation between the two. I then hand-wavingly claim that proves a correlation between global warming proponents and supporting genocide. It’s complete nonsense, but it’s the same way Lewandowsky got his results.
By the way, this was originally posted here. I’ll try to keep up with this thread, but I’ll get an alert whenever someone posts there. That’s a sure way to make sure I see a comment if anyone needs a response.
Brandon,
Got it, thanks!
Again, nicely done.