From the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and the department of left/right politics comes this study. I suspect this mostly has to do with what news outlets these people watched, which also tends to go with political affiliation. It’s also a rather small sample size, just 1035 people. It’s worth asking these 20 questions a Journalist should ask about polls of this study. I found this statement interesting: 50% more Democrats than Republicans in the study expect to receive federal disaster relief after a major flood. I think that speaks to self-sufficiency versus dependency.
Adaptation to climate risks: Political affiliation matters
Study takes into account perceptions of New York City residents after Superstorm Sandy
A new study reveals that those who affiliate with the Democratic Party have different views than those who vote Republican on the following issues: the likelihood of floods occurring, adopting protection measures, and expectations of disaster relief from the government. The study was jointly conducted by VU University in Amsterdam, Utrecht University School of Economics in The Netherlands, and the Center for Risk Management and Decision Processes at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, USA.
The study, published today in Springer’s journal Climatic Change, focused on the flood risk in New York City. Data was collected through a telephonic survey conducted six months after Superstorm Sandy. It included a random sample of 1,035 homeowners with ground level property in flood-prone areas of New York City. Respondents’ political affiliation was determined by what political party they voted for in the November 2012 presidential election.
Key findings:
- Democrats’ perception of their probability of experiencing flood damage is significantly higher than Republicans’. They are also more likely to expect climate change to increase the flood risk they face in the future.
- Democrats are also more likely to invest in individual flood protection measures.
- Less than half of Democrats and a third of Republicans trust the government to address the flood risk posed in their area of residence.
- 50% more Democrats than Republicans in the study expect to receive federal disaster relief after a major flood.
- Interestingly, given the above, the researchers find no difference in flood insurance adoption.
“We knew Republicans and Democrats in the United States often perceive the risk of climate change differently. We now know they prepare for climate disasters differently, too. This finding has important implications,” report Wouter Botzen and Erwann Michel-Kerjan, who co-led the study.
The authors suggest that flood risk awareness campaigns and policies be aimed at encouraging people to adopt preparedness and risk reduction measures and to purchase adequate insurance coverage, irrespective of their political ideology. The strengthening of building codes in NYC after Superstorm Sandy is a good example of how cities can limit damage from future floods, become more resilient, and limit the need for government disaster relief.
Reference: W. Botzen, E. Michel-Kerjan, H. Kunreuther, H. De Moel and J. Aerts (2016). Political affiliation affects adaptation to climate risks: Evidence from New York City, Climatic Change. DOI 10.1007/s10584-016-1735-9
###
Well, CAGW is being used to promote Marxism, so this isn’t surprising.
It doesn’t sound to me as if they are promoting Marxism.
It sounds to me as if they want people to be more self-reliant.
With respect, RH said, and I agree that some groups are, using CAGW to promote Marxism (I’d’ve said socialism). He did NOT say that the authors of the study are using CAGW to promote anything.
Cherry pick much?
I agree with Mr Watts that disentangling peoples attittudes towards climate change from what news outlets they use form their political leanings is very difficult. Figuring out cause and effect in that sort of feedback loop seems to be the same sort of thing as figuring feedback loops in climate models.
I think Delingpole across the pond has the correct way to “disentangle” in this example case against Professor Jonathan Butterworth of the Physics and Astronomy Department at University College London who was responsible for having the Monckton Conference canceled at the college:
“Are we really sure this left-wing agitator, preeningly self-righteous bloviator and magisterial cockwomble is in any moral position to decide what is and isn’t a suitable subject matter for a scientific conference in his own field – let alone in one he so patently doesn’t understand.”
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/08/02/meet-the-bullying-lefty-cockwomble-physics-prof-who-hates-actual-climate-science/
“…magisterial cockwomble…”
I love that one. Irrelevant the meaning, those two words together provide a perfect visual image.
I’m often told that ‘climate deniers’ are right wing – which I find not to be true. Some are. Some aren’t. Personally, I declare firm Independent status.
HOWEVER, I DO find that almost ALL hard line Greenies are staunch Progressive.
So who’s forming opinion based on ideology and preconceptions?
almost ALL hard line Greenies are staunch Progressive.
No argument there.
But Correlation isn’t causation.
It is more of a common affinity. A positive, self-reinforcing feedback loop.
Group think.
As a generalizations:
Democrats tend to live in urban areas and Republicans tend to prefer more suburban or rural areas. Maybe this has as much influence as party inclination/affiliation?
Political people tend to be lemmings, following the “party line”. Scientists must never be lemmings, they must always challenge “accepted” theory and never stop asking “WHY?”
Yet scientists are still people, often people with strong political views. And therefore are still subject to the same social pressures.
I’ve always said, there is the discipline of science and then there are those who practice it.
And while I agree scientists SHOULD never be lemmings, there’s nothing really preventing it – with actual mechanisms that, in fact, encourage it – and therefore, too often, they are exactly that.
Well lets see, if you say or believe in CAGW. You are showered with money from the government. If you say there are any problems with CAGW you are denied funding and maybe even prosecuted by the government. How would most people with families to support say.
Which party member is more likely to read the fine print on a policy? Which party members are more tolerant of their leaders bending the rules and laws to get what they want, with media manipulation or poker chips up the chain?
Which respondents are part of the Gangs of NY?
As if NYC and the surrounding area has a population that is a viable cross section representative of the attitudes of the rest of us poor mud sills in “fly over” country. Ugh! I wonder how many of them know about the Hurricanes of 1893 or 1944?
As usual, they confuse and conflate weather with climate. The poll is bin-worthy.
I agree, Bruce. It all depends on how you word the question. I know a lot of folks here in the labor unions vote Dem because the BA tells them to. Many I’ve asked don’t believe that mankind can change the climate, but it is a non-issue to them because they aren’t informed of agenda behind it. When it’s revealed to them, most have answered that America won’t let anything like that happen, to which I counter that it already is happening and the Brits are way ahead of us at stopping it. Then I ask if they are familiar with Agenda 21. The reply is usually “No, what does that have to do with us?”.
Asking ‘Are you concerned about 400 ppm carbondioxide in the atmosphere’
doesn’t yield Yes/No but starts discussions.
But that’s exactly what you have to do: meet the people where they are.
With a poll about ‘climate whatsoever’ one has to ask about climate whatsoever.
Without having looked at the entire measurement instrument or the data it looks like they are asking respondents to “evaluate a likelihood of an occurrence” and “assess the loss” and “provide a position on the expectation of aid.” These types of judgements tend to be so collinear that there’s no real main effect, respondents just go to extremes on all 3 factors. Further, the proximity to a major weather event, as well as the population they are sampling from, would tend to make all of the responses rather hideously biased, (again all on the extremes).
I’m looking into this, after all, I’ve been drunk with people from Wharton, and if investigating this study requires me to down four good scotches, again, well, that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.
There was a cool restaurant/bar up Walnut Street from Wharton that served wonderful fresh cooked spicy nachos.
Apologies, just combining Wharton with drinks made me think of that bar and sigh wistfully.
I agree with you, Mark. I need to read that paper to ascertain more information. Wharton was the best college I’ve attended, and I’ve been to a few. Though that doesn’t mean someone from or at Wharton has not suffered from brain cell failures.
AGW is akin to Keynesian econ. Most who cite either have absolutely no background in the matter, but in both cases they are WONDERFUL vehicles to get power and money. And the Dems (and yeah, the GOP at times) have gotten lots of money using Keynesian “investment” rhetoric, so this is a natural extension if your party hasn’t been influenced by TEA Party conservatives.
Meanwhile, back here in my neighborhood, the new FIRM maps coming out in November have removed my immediate area from the AE flood zone (as they should have). That will save me $$$ as my mortgage company will no longer require me to buy flood insurance.
Maybe the study speaks volumes to the mindset between people who gravitate towards political thinking in the first place and how they primarily view life. An example would be persons who buy something on sale, some view it like they have saved money, opposed to others view it as spending less money. A subtle but important differing of view point. For our liberals in Canada, once you are in dept it does not matter by how much. For me, I’d say it does.
debt
In addition to the point about where you get your news, did they take place of residence into account?
First, big cities are likely to be near large bodies of water. Therefore, people in big cities are more likely to think about flooding. Second, Democrats are more likely to live in big cities. Therefore, Democrats are more likely to worry about flooding.
I note the passage about New York City. Parts of New York City are in flood zones. Those flood-prone areas that I am familiar with are pretty liberal, even by NYC standards.
Re: place of residence. I was thinking the same thing.
Are Republicans more likely to live on the high ground and Democrats in the flood plain? Or another way to put it, if you live in the flood plain and not the higher ground, are you more likely to vote Democrat?
The poll was done of residents in NYC?
I’m surprised they found enough Republicans to form a statistically meaningful sample.
PS: Republicans in NYC, indeed much of New England don’t have a lot in common politically with Republicans elsewhere.
Born and raised Masshole here. New York is NOT part of New England. Just sayin’
My nine year old grandson is visiting from California. He just assured me that pollution and climate change are the two greatest problems in the world. I asked him how those problems compare with the problems of people who are dying from starvation, disease, and war in many parts of the world. His school never told him about those problems.
We had a nice talk about trade-offs and unintended consequences.
I hope I didn’t ruin his future.
I think that being exposed to those thoughts may have forever shattered the world as he knew it, I fear his return to the People’s Republic of California will find him in danger revealing these new subversive ideas.
The pollsters also structure the questions to get the results they are looking for.
Surely the greater willingness of Democrats to invest in personal flood prevention measures speaks more about self reliance than expectations of Federal aid?
If it is anything like the flood insurance I had to carry, it comes from FEMA – the Federal Government. It is a subtle form of Federal aid.
“Interestingly, given the above, the researchers find no difference in flood insurance adoption.”
Here are a few other clear differences between republicans and democrats:
http://content.gallup.com/origin/gallupinc/GallupSpaces/Production/Cms/POLL/wszjlrpv10c_r2ohr_tb3g.png
http://content.gallup.com/origin/gallupinc/GallupSpaces/Production/Cms/POLL/xoqewmbfbk-yd0jwytlewa.gif
Also important to note in your graph, all political leanings have lost trust in the media since 2005. I would suggest this coincides with rise of the internet where people are able to find uncensored/whole information, differing viewpoints and even possibly the actual truth. One person with a free YouTube account can now reach millions of people.
The internet disrupted the small echo chambers and allowed diverse views to be debated for the first time in 50 years (since WW2). It brought left and right together in conflict and, happily, in debate.
But that change has bottomed out. Now trolls have differentiated forums and thus re-created echo chambers. Shouting down different views does provide a uniform readership to sell to advertisers. But prevents the dialectic
Sadly, it means that the golden age is ending. Questioning will be forgotten again.
Yes. I’m a lefty so you can boo me and ignore the words.
Courtney “boo” you not at all. You have valid a point. While ehco chambers do exist the Internet allows anyone to visit them all. The mainsteam media does not. For example, have you ever searched a news story just to find all news houses not only have the same story but the exact text is copied word for word. In the rush to print there is no journalistic review, no investigation, etc. Ultimately they are the worst example of echo chambers. The Internet has leveled the playing field.
M Courtney, I agree 100%. There is SOME interaction on Judy Curry’s blog, but most of the climate blogs are one sided echo chambers.
In a strange and somewhat twisted way, I’m waiting to see this trend reverse with the advent of Progressive (Marxist) control of news aggregators like Facebook and Google. It’s become increasingly difficult to find and read internet news outlets without obvious Marxist leanings. Facebook was bad to start and I stopped reading/using it almost instantly, Yahoo worked for awhile then right around 2012 went not only socialist, but also quashed commentary on their articles. As recently as last year Goggle News seemed OK then recently began carrying the Washington Post almost exclusively.
Unless you’re willing to shift directly to a polarized “right” oriented outlet like Breitbart, you never even see opinions from a non-socialist perspective. I’m betting this is a consequence of progressive control in advertising; the advertising industry have discovered “millennials” are primarily Marxists, it’s how they were educated and they’re the people buying stuff. Boomers already have all the “stuff” they want or need and there’s little point in advertising cheap shaving kits to them, they went back to using safety razors decades ago, right about the time triple edge shaving cartridges were “invented”.
Did you notice the drop in 2003? Must have been the inability to find the WMD in Iraq. We may see a similar drop if the pause returns after the El Niño effect.
M Courtney
August 4, 2016 at 1:33 pm
Never a ‘boo’ to you from me. If I ever seem to be within a mile of stepping on your toes regarding your politics, please call me on it immediately.
(Had a card-carrying socialist uncle who lived in Glasgow. He and I loved to discuss politics on his visits to the U.S. His bottom line viewpoint was that Scotland was better off socialist whereas he didn’t think socialism was a good idea for the U.S. I miss our discussions on that topic.)
It’s a right/left brain thing. The left brain is the logical brain which demands unambiguous truth while the right brain is where creativity and imagination rules leading to gullibility and obsessing over imagined fears. Certainty rules the left brain while faith and feelings rules the right brain. The left brain needs to figure things out for itself, while the right brain more readily accepts the conclusions of others. A right brained individual is more likely to idealistic and impulsive, while a left brained person is more likely to take a more conservative position and think things through.
Risk management is the process resolving conflict between the left and right brain. If this conflict resolution is dominated by the left brain, you will lean towards conservative positions. If the right brain dominates, you will lean towards positions that calms your emotions. Left brained people tend to be Republicans while right brained people tend to be Democrats. Left brained people tend to be more skeptical while right brained people more often believe what they are told. If the corpus callosum maintains weak connectivity between the hemispheres, you are more likely to be a strong partisan. If it’s well connected, you are more likely to be politically independent.
While conservatives tend to be more skeptical about climate science, it should be clear that correlation does not imply causation as much as it implies a potential common cause, which in this case, is how the brain is wired.
The population tends to be evenly split between right brained people and left brained people and overcoming how half of the populations brains are wired is a nearly impossible task which is why fixing climate science is so hard.
As a proud left-handed person who was so interested in brain laterality that he extensively researched the subject at one time in anticipation of writing a book I’d opine your comment is generally ridiculously offbase, frequently inaccurate and generally poorly supported by research. Thankfully, you used “tends” in a number of statements or my B.S. meter might have exploded.
Left handedness is not associated with the side of the brain that dominates thinking. Left handedness is associated with the side that dominates fine motor control, which is at a much more primitive level of brain functionality and largely decoupled from abstract thinking. For some reason in the distant past, those with left handed fine motor control were discriminated against as the split among other species is more often 50/50. This apparently did not also discriminate against which side of the side of the brain dominates thought, which for the most part seems to be 50/50, although this can also be highly influenced by the environment, which is not as true for left handedness unless you are intrinsically ambidextrous and are pushed one way or another.
Sorry, but the whole left/right brain thing is basically pseudoscience no more meaningful than your horoscope or the the MBTI.
Take away the left-brain/right-brain code words and replace them with personality characteristics, political beliefs, and lots of other beliefs, too, result from “genetic makeup.” There is plenty of evidence that CAGW vs. Skeptic is simply one item in a litany of beliefs that correlate to one another; and also correlate to personality trait, and eventually to political affiliation. How a person’s brain works must be strongly linked to genetics as well. Haidt has found that while left-wing (“progressive”) people tend to make moral judgments along a single care/harm axis; conservative people make such judgments along this and several other axes.
It seems no mystery why Democrats tend to view climate change as a harm/care decision, and flock to one side of the debate. It is also no mystery why we disagree with one another so sharply on what constitutes proof, or what, if anything, ought to be done. What I wonder, though, is whether the divide is growing wider, or if it has always been so wide as it currently seems.
So right brain people congregate in urban areas?
Which side of the brain dominates thinking is surely affected by environmental factors including those around you. While there certainly is some nature to it, nurture plays a big role.
Roy,
BTW, the nurture part is why a far left leaning educational system is such a problem since the mind is most malleable when young and once the brain is wired too far one direction it takes a lot of real world experience to center it.
This is also at the root of political correctness which is to avoid upsetting the emotionally driven side of the brain.
Like the Mule, that’s what happens when you cross Politics and Science, you end up with a dead end. Political Science! now there’s an oxymoron.
Thinkers vs believers. Guess which party affiliation belongs to each.
Up until this year, I would have said there is a clear difference.
With the rise of Trump, Republicans have given up on thinking as well.
Interestingly enough, most people that do think actually realize that if you believe a change is necessary, you don’t keep doing the same thing or going to the same line of thinking. Modern political thinking has grown in a direction that people no longer consider the right way and believe a change is needed. To my way of thinking, like him or not Trump offers something other than doing the same thing over and over. Trump, to many people, reminds us of Einstein’s definition of insanity in that he IS something different, so possibly something different may come of choosing him. When the two headed party – there is no actual functional difference between Democrats and Republicans as they perform in political office – continues to do the same the things expecting different results, people have come to recognize this as insanity, as did Einstein. Thinking is exactly WHY people have turned to Trump, not because they have stopped doing it.
The only thing different about Trump is his personality.
With the exception of immigration, in terms of policies he’s more of the same.
All I know is that after nearly 8 years under this administration the conservative feels like he’s been used like a rented mule! Obama care resulted in my having to change providers, and coverage and though what I have now is not as good as what I had before, it costs 20% more.
As for Political Science? I took it a IU in Bloomington. The lecture hall had sections of the Benton Murals commissioned in 1941 showing the working man in industry and agriculture. The subject was The New Deal. It all had a rather red tint to it.
The quote says a lot,
““We knew Republicans and Democrats in the United States often perceive the risk of climate change differently. We now know they prepare for climate disasters differently, too. This finding has important implications,” report Wouter Botzen and Erwann Michel-Kerjan,”
1st, you interviewed 0.000003% of the population of the United States, 2nd you interviewed residents in a single city in flood prone areas. If this is the level of intellect we’re dealing with here then I can safely assume the study is garbage and has no important implications.
“A new study reveals that those who affiliate with the Democratic Party have different views than those who vote Republican”
They clarify the meaning of this as:
“Respondents’ political affiliation was determined by what political party they voted for in the November 2012 presidential election.”
So, input is: 2012 presidential election preference; New York City residents; ground level residents of flood prone areas; recent catastrophe in their local area; AND those that have time to talk to a pollster; AND those that want to talk to a stranger on the phone for a while.
Do the people at Wharton think that the above variables don’t skew the results significantly, with respect to the supposed representative population (democrat/republican throughout the country, and their views), or is it that they don’t care if the results are skewed.
From this Republican’s perspective, the way to increase the adoption of Flood Insurance among Republican Voters would be to make the entire premiums Tax Deductible. Same with Obama Care, Make the Health Insurance premium Tax Deductible and more people might carry it without it becoming a crime Not To carry it
If we make it free, then everyone can carry it.
More and bigger subsidies is hardly a Republican position.
And tax deductions are the type of subsidies that doesn’t make people dependent on the government. After all, it isn’t the government paying for you if the means to afford was never taxed away from you in the first place. It is an entirely different type of subsidy if the government provides it for you because (A) you never get the deduction, and (B) in the long run end up paying the now socialist government even more
That still doesn’t remove the huge deductibles that people still cannot afford no matter what the premium is.
IQ vs party affiliation?
Or IQ vs views on CAGW (taking out all those “97% ers” who directly benefit from the UN/government gravy train.)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/26920037@N06/2933924214/
Obviously a joke people.
Obviously, or social “scientists” wouldn’t have been 5th.
Not sure how I would fit in or the Code behind his figures
Republican
Architectural Draftsman
Hardly ever donate
Stanford-Binet IQ test score 180 to 200 (back in 1972)
Thanks, Anthony. The link you provided in the body of the article (“20 questions a Journalist should ask about polls”) should be required reading as we get into the silly season, which seems sillier and stupider than usual. I just heard that a recent Fox News poll has Secretary Clinton 10 percentage points ahead of Mr Trump. I wonder if any journalist reporting on the survey asked any of the questions.
How could Madame get such a huge lift in her popularity, you may find yourself asking.
The top story on Fox comes with not only poll results showing a sudden 10 point lead, but with an explanation for the flummoxed.
She got H>er over night 10-point lead in the flummoxing Fox poll because…
Next headline…
Wait for it…
“Both are flawed”
Other variables that parse along similar boundaries – critical thinking/gullibility, logic/rhetoric, physical science education/ mysticism, analytical skills/credulity, mendacity/truthfulness.
Years ago there was a very big hurricane that ravaged Florida. The insurance giant AIG subsequently funded a “research study” to find out how much larger and more frequent hurricanes could be expected to become.
Miraculously, the study found that hurricanes would become more powerful and more frequent.
Of course, AIG had to raise hurricane insurance rates…. Then the State of Florida mandated … guess what.
The people started screaming, and Florida backed off…. But now Florida has a state-run hurricane insurance pool….
I was able to find a report by AIG on this, but mysteriously it’s now been removed.
Gives rise to the question of politics and climate, and insurance.
Yep, it also works in earthquake insurance
The Florida hurricane insurance pool is there because nobody else would underwrite at ‘affordable’ cost after 5 hurricanes in two years 2004-2005. What has saved Florida from going bankrupt on this pool is the remarkable fact there have been zero hurricanes since. Dumb luck, not smart underwriting.
Citizens Insurance, the State run insurance pool for wind insurance was set up to be the insurance of last resort for those who needed the insurance for mortgage approval but were not eligible for private insurance due to the private insurance underwriting guidelines. It was also mandated to be the most expensive so as not to siphon off customers from the private insurers. However, it turned out that the premiums ended up lower than some private companies. Now the State of Florida is moving as many home owners out of Citizens as they can and into approved private firms, which I did last year. These new firms have popped up without the required minimum available assets in accordance with insurance law but, according to the State, they have enough reinsurance to cover their losses in the event of a hurricane. So the State has certified that these small private firms are OK to do business with and assure us that our claims will be paid when the inevitable happens. We’ll see.
“No difference in flood insurance adoption.” That is because if you want a mortgage and live in a mapped flood zone it is mandatory. Don’t these people ever get out and about in the real world?
There once was a farm in NJ. The farm had a fairly large size pond that was feed by a stream. They built a dense pack housing development on the farm. They shrank the pond to the size of a swimming pool. For the environment! Horrors of horrors…. the development flooded worse than they thought !
I’m a Fourth Turning politically “homeless” luke cooler. Not sure where I would fit in. I probably don’t fit in anywhere … love it!
How many would like to sail the Northwest Passage?
“The strengthening of building codes in NYC after Superstorm Sandy is a good example of how cities can limit damage from future floods, become more resilient, and limit the need for government disaster relief.“. Um, shouldn’t they wait for a future flood, then test the extent of damage and disaster relief before making that statement?
In the absence of evidence people will always believe what they want to believe – it can be climate and weather, it can be religion, it can be investing in the stock market. Even with hard facts staring them in the face some stick to beliefs that defy reality. The fact that say a flood and its effects are the worst that a community has ever seen to them means it is the worst ever and must be caused by bad govt planning or AGW. If it is a fact that 100 years ago the same level of flooding occurred that is irrelevant to them. Most of the time it comes down retaining belief instead of overcoming ignorance because that is the easiest course of action and because it suits their objectives.
raely post here these days but some real science here https://climateaudit.org/2016/08/03/gergis-and-law-dome/#comments
What result was required?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=G0ZZJXw4MTA
“The U.S. coast is in an unprecedented hurricane drought — why this is terrifying”
http://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/the-us-coast-is-in-an-unprecedented-hurricane-drought-%E2%80%94-why-this-is-terrifying/ar-BBvgoBU?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp
Now even a “Hurricane drought” is something to be “terrified” of. What a bunch of total wimps scared of their own shadows we’ve produced in this country! Why not use the words ‘hiatus’ or ‘pause’, or ‘reprieve’, to describe such a blessing? If someone said to my face what is written in this headline I would think they have a serious psychological problem should be examined to determine their competency. But instead they write, edit, and produce the leading newspaper in the Capital of our nation.
“the department of left/right politics”
But Republicans/Democrats is right/right politics. No left involved.
US government insurance subsidies for high-risk areas is why storm damage is often too high and why inadequate Infrastructure exists.
If free-market principles were allowed to function, insurance rates for high-risk areas would be too expensive to allow profitable development, so there would be little development in those high-risk areas… That’s the whole point…
An option would be for MASSIVE infrastructure to be built to reduce the risk of severe-weather damage and thus lower insurance costs, but this would only make economic sense if cost-benefit analysis shows such expenditures would be warranted..
If there are no perceived risks for bad decisions, bad decisions will continued to be made.
It’s just government subsidized stupidity.
What strikes me about this is the bit of the study that’s missing: comparison with a country where flooding is a persistent and present risk. The Netherlands for instance. Why didn’t the researchers do a similar survey in the city of Rotterdam. That would have given them a excellent platform for comparison.
I just took an on-line survey from the University of Pennsylvania about global warming, and it was quite disturbing. The questions asked me whether I believed that CO2 warmed the atmosphere, a lot of questions about my political beliefs, and a number of questions about the beliefs of scientists, including whether I thought there was a consensus about global warming. What was disturbing was the way that it focused on a he-said-she-said scenario, with me as the unbiased non-expert jury member. They asked nothing about my technical background, and the questions were mostly black-and-white. I was not allowed to express my opinions in writing, which I think it quite a deficiency for a subject like this. I commented to the survey company about the poor design of the survey.
I imagine that we should expect to see the results of this survey before the election.
With all due respect, “Poll Study: Climate views and political affiliation linked” – someone actually got a taxpayer grant to do this study?
This should be good for some more award-winning journalism utilizing up down arrows and red state blue state crap.
Can we please get to the critical mass of skeptics quickly and shut down these reactionary rent seeking studies?
As a big fan of Anthony Watts and this website I was a little surprised to see him — and others — calling the sample “quite small” — any statistician should understand the relationship between sample size and error and while I know Anthony isn’t a statistician this is pretty basic stuff, really. A sample of 1,000 is actually fine, regardless of the size of the population, and should result in only minor errors.
Whether the sample is truly random is a bigger issue but in today’s world it’s almost impossible to get a truly random sample for all sorts of reasons. I haven’t seen the questionnaire so cannot comment on whether the questions are leading or not, but I’d be surprised if Wharton haven’t done it pretty well.
Climate scepticism entirely maps to a right wing/republican viewpoint: it is a right wing political viewpoint, not a scientific viewpoint. The holder’s political views condition their acceptance of the science.
(These pages are full of condemnation of lefties, socialists, allegations of Marxist viewpoints, etc, etc… which is odd to an European, from a continent where quite ‘conservative’ governments by left or socialist parties are quite normal).
The climate skeptic viewpoint also seems to embrace a belief there is no ozone hole, was no Y2k crisis, DDT shouldn’t have been banned and similar, plus a willingness to believe there is a UN21 eugenic plot, large scale scientific fraud, etc, etc.
Climate scepticism is not about the science… its a worldview and/or political opinion, from a narrow part of the left/right spectrum
griff,
You are so incredibly mis-informed, but then again, propaganda supporting the lie is the only reason climate alarmism has any support at all among the ignorant masses. Skepticism of the pseudo science supporting the fear mongering promoted by a political organization called the IPCC is driven by nothing more than the scientific method. When applied to the claims of the IPCC, actual science unambiguously falsifies everything they claim about CO2, except the fact that its increasing. Robust science works far better at divining the scientific truth then the usual alarmist approach of adhering to a false narrative and doubling down as evidence disputing it becomes more and more obvious. Sounds like far left progressive politics as usual to me …
As they say, people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
@ Joel Snider
What’s wrong with being ‘Progressive’ (favoring or advocating progress, change, improvement, or reform, as opposed to wishing to maintain things as they are, especially in political matters) ??
If it wasn’t for ‘Progressives’ we’d still be living in caves eating raw food & dying young.
Politically; do you really want things to stay as they are today ???
If so…how quaint.
When I lived in Florida, Federal Flood Insurance was not OPTIONAL.
I did not ADOPT Federal Flood Ins because of my POLITICAL affiliation-it was REQUIRED…..that is only if I wanted general homeowners insurance…you know things like: Fire, Theft, Hurricane, Liability… REAL possible perils.
You cannot buy the one without buying the other 1st.
(And the disclosure of your political affiliation is not required in the policy.)
…Jus’ sayin’.
A lot of research has been done into how influenced people are by media stories. Perhaps surprisingly it’s not as much as you might think. Typically, media stories reinforce people’s views rather than change them, at least to any significant extent.
Griff, you’re correct that climate scepticism maps mainly to a right-wing viewpoint but totally and utterly wrong that this has anything to do with political influence; and I’m afraid you’re very much the victim of propaganda if that’s what you genuinely believe.
Man-made global warming suits the political left because it’s seen to be driven by large corporations spewing out waste with the sole aim of making money. In fact, there’s a remarkably strong link between the use of energy, typically oil and gas, and life expectancy. Quite simply, as nations become wealthier they are able to use energy to improve people’s lives very, very significantly. The end result is that people live healthier, longer and better lives the more energy they consume.
The tragedy is that while evidence for significant “man-made global warming” has become less and less, with global temperatures failing to rise at anything like the rate predicted while carbon emissions continue to grow, so trillions of dollars are being wasted on reducing greenhouse gases that will have virtually no impact on natural climate change.
What we should be doing is reducing pollutants, which are a far greater threat to people and the environment than greenhouse gases. Yet — and this just shows how ridiculous things have become — in the UK as a result of consumers being encouraged to use diesel cars to reduce carbon emissions so the volume of particulates has increased, leading to thousands more people dying from respiratory problems directly as a result.
I’m afraid this is what happens when politics gets in the way of science.