EXCERPTS FROM GALLUP – complete poll story here
PRINCETON, NJ — Although a majority of Americans believe the seriousness of global warming is either correctly portrayed in the news or underestimated, a record-high 41% now say it is exaggerated. This represents the highest level of public skepticism about mainstream reporting on global warming seen in more than a decade of Gallup polling on the subject.
As recently as 2006, significantly more Americans thought the news underestimated the seriousness of global warming than said it exaggerated it, 38% vs. 30%. Now, according to Gallup’s 2009 Environment survey, more Americans say the problem is exaggerated rather than underestimated, 41% vs. 28%.
The trend in the “exaggerated” response has been somewhat volatile since 2001, and the previous high point, 38%, came in 2004. Over the next two years, “exaggerated” sentiment fell to 31% and 30%. Still, as noted, the current 41% is the highest since Gallup’s trend on this measure began in 1997.
…
Notably, all of the past year’s uptick in cynicism about the seriousness of global warming coverage occurred among Americans 30 and older. The views of 18- to 29-year-olds, the age group generally most concerned about global warming and most likely to say the problem is underestimated, didn’t change.
Americans under 30 are pampered, dissolute Marxists (sometimes anarchists) who underperform pitifully in math, hard sciences, and engineering after 60 years of softened, socialist curricula. May they burn in hell.
These two headlines together today in the middle column at Drudge :
” GALLUP: ‘Record-High 41% of Americans now say global warming is exaggerated’… ”
” Kerry: Climate change delay is ‘suicide pact’… “
It’s probably no news but we are getting free publicity on the “crack pot” list.
http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2009/02/17/marc-morano-jokers/
It looks to me that the guy making the list is the “crack pot”.
The guys mentioned on the list look pretty sane to me!.
timetochooseagain (10:55:38) :
timetochooseagain (11:03:02) :
I like your debating skills!
Here are a few Temperatures plotted for the UK:
http://i522.photobucket.com/albums/w342/thefordprefect/oxfordmonthlymean19611990-2.jpg
These come from diverse locations – small Scottish islands, “rural” mainland and urban mainland. They all show increases.
Here is temperature compared to grape harvest
http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/9180/grapeharvestnantescetmf2.jpg
http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/6204/grapeharvestcetlongqc0.jpg
Note that temperatures of 2000s are increased over total grape harvest period from 1350.
Sea level from gauges
http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/33/sealevel.jpg
(data http://ilikai.soest.hawaii.edu/uhslc/wocestc.html )
JimB (13:03:48) :
Now what will you say to the millions…yes, millions that will perish from starvation due to the policies you are promoting?
“I tried” sounds rather pithy in that light.
What policies am I promoting?
Conserving fuel (more efficient vehicles, house insulation, more efficient energy use)
renewable energy (solar, wind, pv, wave)
phase out coal (do not phase in nuclear!)
I assume your reference is for bio fuel. I certainly would not promote this as the figures prove that it can never replace fossil fuel. I think you will find most “greenies” would now agree with this.
Mike
Obama appointment, 3/10/09, to what is being called “Green Jobs Czar”
From the White House Blog :
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/09/03/10/Van-Jones-to-CEQ/
YouTube video of Van Jones on “The Third Wave of Environmentalism” :
Money from Recovery Package :
http://www.greenforall.org/resources/recovery-package
YouTube video of speech from Van Jones at PoweShift 09 :
rationalpsychic:
The Gallup poll and CO2 have as much in common as global temperatures and CO2 [ie, not very much at all].
And thefordprefect:
That right there will cause much pain, suffering and death among the world’s poor.
Coal is about the cheapest heating energy available, and as any educated person knows, cold kills. But I guess that’s a small price to pay for political correctness — at least for people lacking a conscience. And as long as it’s someone else doing the dying.
And of course, let’s never phase in nuclear energy. Why not? Well, you don’t really say why not. Guess we’ll just have to take your word for it, eh?
Smokey (19:17:46) :
“phase out coal (do not phase in nuclear!)”
That right there will cause much pain, suffering and death among the world’s poor.
Coal is about the cheapest heating energy available, and as any educated person knows, cold kills.
It’s not the poor that’re pouring out the CO2.
And of course, let’s never phase in nuclear energy. Why not? Well, you don’t really say why not. Guess we’ll just have to take your word for it, eh
No not just my word. Basically there is not enough uranium to power the world demand for more than a few decades. Plus we are forcing our descendants to look after our waste products for150 years after WE have dumped it. Thorium and breeder reactors have their problems too.
http://img398.imageshack.us/img398/4262/energycliffij9.jpg
http://i522.photobucket.com/albums/w342/thefordprefect/nuclearenergybalance.jpg
Information worth a read here:
http://www.stormsmith.nl/
Document parts here:
http://www.stormsmith.nl/report20071013/
Mike
I guess we won’t be needing polar cities after all. Life will go on as usual, no major problems ahead. I feel much better now. I agree: AGW is a hoax.
Pragmatic (16:24:31) : Cardinal Bellarmine demanded that Galileo not “hold or defend” Copernicus – a specious command in violation of even the most ignorant understanding of scientific method.
Words effectively meaning “do not advocate.”
The scientific method was just emerging from chrysalis in Galileo’s time. It was novel and hardly widely accepted. You seem to think they should have known better.
Galileo surely was aware of the political climate which makes his gaffe inexplicable. Of course, he could have been one of the very first geeks. IMHO, Urban was doing his best to get Galileo’s view spread.
Not the best place but start here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo
This is hardly important and OT. No need to keep going round about it.
Of course, but they didn’t agree with it before, and look at how many people have already suffered and died as a result. How many millions of lives does one get a free pass on while they figure things out? The green beasts can’t bring people back to life once the miscalculation is realized, nor restore all the years of life people spent suffering.
thefordprefect:
You’re a winner! …well, you would be a winner, if there was a contest for the world’s lamest and most self-centered response.
The poor of this world, unlike you, depend on cheap heating to live — which most often means coal heat. You would deny the lowest income people of the world the only practical means to avoid death from exposure to cold — simply to gratify your green proclivities.
So, why don’t we have a poll of poor folks? We could ask them if some of them wouldn’t mind dying for your globaloney cause. What do you say to that? Let’s ask the people directly affected, whether we should jack up their heating bills just to make you happy.
Deal? Or do you think that instead, we should ram higher heating costs down the throats of poor folks in order to satisfy your self-centered greenness? Because that’s what you’re telling them: “die for the green cause, because it makes me feel good.”
Parse Error (19:51:20) :
…look at how many people have already suffered and died as a result. How many millions of lives does one get a free pass on while they figure things out? …
I am sorry to say that I do not know how many deaths have been caused by fuel crop growing – please point out a mainstream article where these deaths are enumerated.
How many will suffer and die as a result of AGW if it is true? How many areas of the world will become uninhabitable. Will you welcome these refugees to become neighbours? How much area will become unfarmable? What happens to low lying areas (a metre of sea level rise does not just cover land falling below this level additional weathering will erode coasts more than the initial inundation)
Smokey (20:30:12) :
… the world’s lamest and most self-centered response.
The poor of this world, unlike you, depend on cheap heating to live …
I think you misunderstood my simplistic comment.
It’s us in the UK/US/GER/etc powering coal fired power stations that are emitting the CO2. The odd kilo tonne of coal burnt in (somewhere cold and poor) will have little effect on CO2 output.
Some examples:
“Coal Creek Station uses about 22,000 tons of lignite per day, or about 7.5 to 8.0 million tons per year, to generate electricity for Great River Energy’s customers.” to produce 1.1GW
and
“A 600 MWe coal-fired power station operating at 38% efficiency and 75% overall availability will consume approximately:
– Bituminous coal (CV 6000 kcal/kg NAR*): 1.5 Mt/annum
– Brown coal (CV 2250 kcal/kg NAR*): 4.0 Mt/annum”
To support Smokey,
RE: Coal to stay alive
I’ve been to Northern China, Inner Mongolia and the PR of Mongolia 12 times. In northern China, there are about 200,000 people who live in uninsulated brick houses heated primarily with corn stalks or coal. See this village scene on a frosty morn…
http://photoshare.shaw.ca/image/2/d/8/63987/cornsmoke4-0.jpg
I took this picture on a frosty morning in May 2006 in the very upper tip of Heilongjiang Province. (BTW … some 700,000,000 peasant farmers live in small single family brick homes in China.)
The heat in these homes comes from a cooking firebox. The flue runs horizontally through a sitting room/bedroom. The bed sits atop the flue for heat. Then the flue turns upward to a chimney.
This part of the world gets bitterly cold…it is often between -15° and -35° (and colder) for weeks on end. They burn coal or corn straw … or die.
It’s a hard life. Many westerners, especially eco weenies, just don’t get it.
Clive
thefordprefect said “The odd kilo tonne of coal burnt in (somewhere cold and poor) will have little effect on CO2 output.”
See my above post. You don’t get it. The “odd kilotonne” is patently laughable.
thefordprefect, you apparently have no idea what goes on to keep these people alive and warm. The millions of tons of fuels burnt in many regions of the world simply go unaccounted. (Personal observation.) You and I turn on the light switch and that power is accounted for and developed countries have strict monitoring of fuel use. I’ve seen trucks dump tonnes of coal in a village common area and villagers load up wheelbarrows full. This ain’t on some spreadsheet somewhere. We’ve no idea.
To paraphrase: a million wheelbarrows here, a million wheelbarrows there .. and pretty soon we’re talking a lot of coal.
Cheers!
Clive
Moderator…
200,000 in my first post was supposed to be 200,000,000..sorry. Clive
thefordprefect,
Asking your “what if” questions is simply a rhetorical tactic. But since anyone can play, I’m in.
You ask:
“How many will suffer and die as a result of AGW if it is true?”
Answer: Zero. Prove me wrong. I’m waiting.
“How many areas of the world will become uninhabitable?”
Answer: Exactly as many currently uninhabitable areas that will become habitable in a slightly warmer world.
“Will you welcome these refugees to become neighbours?”
Will you? Better yet, will you invite them into your home? Or will you treat them the same way you treat all the poor unwashed, who you want to deny inexpensive heating in the name of eliminating beneficial CO2?
“How much area will become unfarmable?”
The exact same area that will become farmable due to beneficial warming. In fact, with warmer weather the extent of usable land will increase, which will take a burden off the backs of the poor. Not that you would care about that.
It’s clear that you just don’t get it, thefordprefect: a somewhat warmer, more balmy and pleasant climate is more desirable than what we have now; while colder temperatures will certainly kill people.
But they’re only poor people, and therefore expendable for your environmentalist cause, right? It is a universal trait of greenies that they are unconcerned with what is euphemistically called “collateral damage.”
It’s all for the socialistic/green cause, isn’t that the message? A few million people killed here and there is a small price to pay for your dictatorial green UN world government, eh?
As long as those people being killed by green policies aren’t you or your pals, of course.
thefordprefect said “How much area will become unfarmable?”
I’ve spent 40 years in agricultural production on the Canadian prairies and (as noted) worked on agricultural projects in northern China and Mongolia. When I was in university over 40 years ago we were being warned then that the (then) trend to cooling would end corp production in Northern Alberta. Thankfully it warmed again.
A drop of one or two degrees would devastate vast areas of food production on Canada, Northern Europe and Russia. An increase will do (has done) wonders for production. I can’t speak with authority on warmer climes, but would hazard a guess that a shift of one or two degrees in a warm climate will have less of an impact than a shift of one or two degrees in a colder climate. Just a hunch.
But this is all moot because we can’t do a thing about climate. Period.
Cheers!
Clive
thefordprefect keeps digging himself a bigger hole the more he replies, it’s quite funny to watch. Won’t be long until thefordprefect is towed off to a scrapyard for recycling. I wonder what he will return as? Maybe thewestinghouserefrigerator.
DAV (19:44:58) :
Thanks. I find wikis to be overwrought to be of substantial use.
Do you honestly believe that food prices can increase dramatically without pricing some people out of the market so to speak, or does that only matter if this effect can be easily and immediately quantified? If it’s the latter, then how can you possibly claim to care so much about imaginary suffering and death in a hypothetical future?
With good planning and likely technological advancements, probably not a single one. On the other hand, how many might suffer and die if do not waste all our resources on building defenses against alien invasions, since nobody can be certain whether they will ever happen or not?
Hypothetically, what if the Earth does start to descend into another glacial period, and people decided that the best way to preserve the environment as we know it for the sake our children, grandchildren, and beyond, would be to live as lavishly as possible and pump out all the CO2 our coal-fired power plants and Hummers can manage, would you support that solution?
Hits the nail right on the head, well done!
Weare not in a La Nina yet by any defintion. I have constantly used BOM as an indicator and will always do so as it seems a more reliable indicator of ENSO, however on this blog I refer to NOAA as this seems to be the source of choice for many posters (when NOAA start to announce an El Nino prematurely I’m sure that allegiance will change!) As discussed in previous posts we have in the last two months been in La Nina conditions as defined by NOAA and neutral conditions as defined by BOM. Despite the recent cooling in parts of the equatorial East Pacific this is unlikely to allow conditions to persist to qualify as a La Nina. http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/indices.shtml
My prediction in September was there would be no La Nina this SH summer and this has proven correct, even by NOAA definition we are not likely to see a La Nina event. There is a slight possibility that this late cooling discussed may cause an unusual SH autumn La Nina but I still expect conditions to remain neutral, SOI is now at its lowest since September of last year http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/soi30.png
“It’s us in the UK/US/GER/etc powering coal fired power stations that are emitting the CO2. The odd kilo tonne of coal burnt in (somewhere cold and poor) will have little effect on CO2 output.”
Heat is only one part of the equation. What about power?…how much time is spent in poor populations that lack basic electricity to continually gather food that can’t be stored for any length of time? Go spend a month somewhere with no electricity, and see how much of your time/calories are devoted just to keeping yourself fed.
Conservation is great. Higher mileage vehicles are great. Btw?…in Europe you can purchase very fuel efficient vehicles that run on small diesel engines that deliver 50-60mpg. The reason that same vehicle isn’t available here?…the environmental movement has blocked their sale and usage.
JimB
http://www.petersoninstitute.org/publications/papers/rosen0507.pdf
China Energy A Guide for the Perplexed
Of the 50 percent of coal not consumed by the
power sector, the majority is sold directly to industry for
use in boilers, coking ovens and on-site (“inside the
fence”) power generation. Household coal consumption,
which accounted for 20 percent of total demand in 1985,
has dropped to 4 percent as China’s residents move into
homes equipped with gas and electricity for cooking and
heating.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/ene_coa_con-energy-coal-consumption
1.31G short tons = 1.18Gtonnes
4%=47Mtonnes used domestically
This is equivalent to 7GW of electricity generation using coal
http://stats.berr.gov.uk/energystats/dukes5_4.xls
Uk used 53Mtonnes in generation
So to some extent I agree that China domestic coal use is significant in CO2.
Is China planning to put a carbon Tax on coal for domestic use?
The UK is perpetually on the brink of a drought (or inundation!) A couple of degrees +ve shift may allow me to grow mediterranean crops but it could destroy grain harvests (an a green and pleasant land).
Mike
Haven’t reviewed all comments of this thread, therefore this may be redundant.
Interesting blog from the UN in preparation for the Kyoto successor conference – Copenhagen, December 2009:
http://en.cop15.dk/blogs/climate+thinkers+blog
check this arrogant and silly statement (and there is much more…):
“The debate about the reality of climate change is over. Climate change is a fact, and it poses the greatest single global threat faced by humankind in our generation.
L. Craig Johnstone, Deputy High Commissioner, UNHCR”
of course, climate change is a fact – it always changes and humankind has always adapted as best as it could. Why don’t they display some honesty and declare up-front that they mean only AWG?
Ramping up to Kyoto2 may deserve a coordinated task-force approach from the realist side?
Ulrich Lobsiger