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.
thefordprefect wrote:
“It’s not the poor that’re pouring out the CO2.”
I’ve read that cooking fires in Africa (and possibly elsewhere) are significant CO2 contributors.
The impact on the poor from the shift of US cropland to biofuel production is in the headlines now. The advocates of the legislative subsidies for these biofuels yesterday were just as heedless of the side-effect of their actions as are the opponents of coal today. (Somewhere on this site there is probably exact documentation of these costs, but this site isn’t topically organized with forum-type software (like Invision’s), so it’s hard to find.)
The problems of nuclear waste might be made manageable by some combination of pebble-bed reactors, mini-reactors (waterless), fast breeder reactors, and waste-dumping in steel canisters into deep mud northwest of Hawaii, where it could be safely sequestered. (Except that Clinton banned it.)
thefordprefect (09:44:41) :
I do not think there will be anybody on this board to deny that we have been warming since the little ice age.
What is disputed is the Anthropomorphic
in AGW, how much humans are contributing to this rise. The prevailing view here is little contribution by CO2, since the numbers over 1C per century given by IPCC comes from computer models with feedbacks that have been proven wrong. Without humidity feedbacks the models too would predict less than 1C per century.
So to stop all fossil burning CO2 would have no effect on rising temperatures and would mimic King Canute, who ordered the tides to recede.
I will at least be able to face my children when they struggle with a planet very different to today’s and say, “I tried”.
And if I am wrong I will be again able to say to my children that the world is a cleaner place because of the actions we unecessarily took.
This is much better than burying my head in the sand and hoping it will all go away.
Mike
Have you considered that the “unnecessarily undertaken ” action may have horrible consequences on the western societies and even worse on the third and fourth world? ( famine and deaths). Maybe the sand is preferable fo running around on a magic broom like an apprentice magician creating societal chaos.
There is a law of unintended consequences that quite pure hearted people have fallen victim to. DDT for example, and the ethanol fiasco that raised the price of food in the third world starting riots there come easily to mind. The european cap and trade has already brought misery in Africa because the EU stopped importing produce from there because of this idiotic cap and trade stystem.
The rich like Al Gore will enrich themselves with this pyramid scheme, the CO2 emitters will emit to their hearts content, and the third world will die. In the meanwhile all of us will pay more to emit, something like tobaco addiction, and energy for our cars and homes is much more addictive than tobaco.
“thefordprefect,
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)”
The land area available after the total loss of Greenland and Antarctic ice is not much less than currently available. (you will have those nice warm places Greenland and Antarctica to live on).
Almost certainly the food producing areas of the Earth will have increased. (think of all that lovely farmland in the Canadian Tundra and Siberia).
Why do alarmists never seem to think for themselves. You hear them regurgitate the same nonsense. Cities like New York will disappear beneath the waves etc etc.
Yeah right!
Why don’t they ask themselves how long it would take for this to happen(hundreds of years). Why don’t they then think what percentage of NY buildings are currently over one hundred years old? How many over two hundred years?
If sea levels rise, new buildings, which are going to be built anyway, will be built further inland. Over periods of hundreds of years NY will still exist, will still be on the sea shore, just the shoreline will look slightly different!
Alan
It’s not the poor that’re pouring out the CO2.
Wow. That has got to be both the most idiotic and misanthropic statement I’ve seen yet from an AGW ideologue, reminiscent of “Let them eat cake”.
Troll quality seems to be declining of late, and this latest seems more along the lines of the Edsel than the line he purports to be.
Danny Bloom (19:41:07) :
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.
Wow, Danny, sarcasm. How refreshing. But, yes, all of your statements are pretty much true. Polar cities? What bright light came up with that idea? Life will hopefully go on, yes, but unfortunately, the AGW ideologues, eco-fascists, etc. are doing everything in their power to make life more difficult for everyone, especially the poor, by raising energy costs. Glad you feel better now – we aim to please! AGW a hoax? Glad you “agree”, but it’s actually much more than that. The AGW/CC
bandwagon, is huge, and has aboard many wide-ranging political groups, NGOs, and rent-and-glory-seeking individuals such as Gore and Hansen. In short, Belief in AGW/CC is useful to many, be it for political or monetary gain (often a mixture of both). The rest are useful idiots simply along for the ride because it’s fun, and because they believe they’re helping to “save the planet”. These are folks who will sign anything they think is “green” – even a petition against Dihydrogen Monoxide.
I saw Fred Singer last night, who made the same point. He showed a graph of sea levels going back centuries that followed a generally straight line of 18 cm per century. His point was that despite periods of noticeable cooling and warming, the amount of sea-level increase did not change, i.e. anthropogenic ‘global warming’ did not affect it.
The event, by the way, turned out to be a small gathering in a classroom at Harvard, sponsored by a conservative student group. There were only about 20 people there. Dr. Singer’s presentation was informative, but somewhat halting. He had a lot of trouble hearing questions.
One student asked why his sea-level graph stopped at 1980; what about the last three decades? Once Dr. Singer understood the question, he fumbled for an answer, and told the student he’d talk to him after the event. Unfortunately, things dragged on, and the student left. I’d have liked to hear the answer myself.
I don’t mean to demean Fred Singer, who has done yeoman service in the cause of scientific realism and common sense. He gave a passionate defense of the much-maligned CO2, pointing out that if it reached very low levels the plants would die, and so would we.
But the event pointed up the dilemma that Realists face. A well-known Alarmist would have filled a big hall and drawn lots of attention. The press would have been there. Dr. Singer did not even attract a single ‘green’ protester.
The problem is that real science does not need, and should properly eschew, a ‘movement’. But the well-organized, world-wide groups (like Greenpeace, The Sierra Club, et al.) promoting climate Alarmism and drastic ‘solutions’ cannot be stopped without a counter movement. Without any prominent public spokesmen on the Realist side, people who can command an audience simply by showing up, Realists are no more than bugs on the Alarmists’ windshield.
Dr. Singer was wearing a button that said, “Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate.” I came up at the end and suggested that it would make a good bumper sticker. He asked if I was on his SEPP list (I am) and gave me the button.
/Mr Lynn
Bruce Cobb (04:51:41) : Wow. That has got to be both the most idiotic and misanthropic statement I’ve seen yet from an AGW ideologue.
Why attack me. Why not attack the information with data that you have pised off the web? I am not an Ideolog, hit me with research that proves Anthropomorphic cl;imate change is false and I will convert.
Alan Millar (04:49:46) Almost certainly the food producing areas of the Earth will have increased. (think of all that lovely farmland in the Canadian Tundra and Siberia).
I truly hope you are joking. Crops require certain nutrients and soil types to grow. I do not think arctic tundra has any of the requirements.
anna v (04:25:10) :
I do not think there will be anybody on this board to deny that we have been warming since the little ice age.
Many have denied the evidence of warming – actic/glaciers/measured temperature/etc.
DDT for example,
DDT is a persitant poison – does not degrade – see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT
The european cap and trade has already brought misery in Africa because the EU stopped importing produce from there because of this idiotic cap and trade stystem.
I assume the CAP you refer to is not the Common Agricultural Policy which can affect food imports and has nothing to do with GW.
http://www.environmentalleader.com/2008/07/04/mit-report-world-can-learn-from-european-cap-and-trade-system/
The EU cap-and-trade system has operated well and has had little or no negative impact on the overall EU economy, according to an MIT analysis.
this article suggests jobs are being forced abroad damaging the EU:
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=14411
perhaps if you have a link to the suffering in africa you could post it?
Mike
They do think for themselves, sort of. In my experience, the overwhelming majority of them know the claims they use range from wildly exaggerated to patently false, they simply use them as a veneer over their hypocritical contempt for modern civilization even as they enjoy the fruits of it instead of toughing it out in a mud hut like they expect their future slaves to do. Where they cease to think for themselves is in failing to realize that those ambitions are being manipulated; carbon taxes will not reform society to their ideals, they are simply the next logical step in the same old process of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.
rationalpsychic (16:21:04) :
What does a Gallup poll have to do with the amount of CO2 that is actually in the air?
What does the amount of co2 in the air have to do with a discussion about public attitudes to global warming hype?
Comments:
1. “The world’s poor”… NOT First World poor, who maybe can’t afford an Xbox 360 but have food, water, a bathroom, the option of being on the dole… Third World poor, who die the day they stop struggling. People who live in countries where, when a pedestrian is hit by a car their body may lie beside the road for days, with people walking around it, before being removed. These are the majority of people in this world, and are unlikely to be online giving their opinion on anything. We’ve managed to cut their numbers by MILLIONS by banning a relatively harmless insecticide, why not let them starve and freeze to death too? (yes, last phrase sarcasm).
2. Precautionary Principle: “how can it hurt to do this, what if you’re wrong and AGW is real?” … EASY answer. The alarmists are NOT CREDIBLE. Wild-eyed increasingly shrill dire warnings of consequences too horrible to comprehend? Please. Everyone by now MUST know that CO2 levels have been several times what the current straight-line extrapolation will put us at in 100 years. The very concept of a “tipping point” in a stable self-correcting system such as a planetary atmosphere is among the most absurd and ridiculous part of it all. It will hurt FAR MORE to jolt our entire way of life than adapting to all but the most fire-and-brimstone alarmist predicted consequences.
3. It only counts if it’s mainstream / peer reviewed. Still among the most ridiculous arguments around. So because Time Magazine hasn’t done a special “How our desire to screw oil companies killed millions in the third world” issue, there is no such problem? When the “peers” are all in the same club, you wonder why they won’t “review” an outsider’s work? Amazing.
Lucy Skywalker (10:17:56) :
Tallbloke thanks a lot for that bit of work. I’ll try to incorporate it, plus the post-2002 graph showing the correlation still fits. Interesting thing is, Ed had a point too – why does the CO2 shoot up from 2002 on?
Welcome. The co2 curve is detrended to obtain a best fit in my graphs, so the ‘shooting up’ is an artifact of the data representation to an extent. The co2 increase hasn’t accelerated much since 2002. The main reason for the divergence is that the temperature has been falling!
I have just comment on this few days ago…
http://cmichelenapro.wordpress.com/2009/03/12/are-you-skeptical-about-climate-change-global-warming/
Mary Hinge (01:26:47) :
Apparently you spout your own talking points without reading the on-point reply refuting your pal DJ.
Are you commenting from ignorance? Or from laziness? In either case, I’ll help you out by re-posting again what just one (1) skeptical scientist out of hundreds of other publications written by skeptical scientists: click
I have plenty more skeptics’ publications available. Just ask, and I’ll provide the links.
So rather than repeat your *wrong* talking points, the link above lists a couple of hundred publications from only one skeptic — which you should start reading. It will take a lot more time and effort than repeating your dishonest talking point about skeptics not publishing. But you might learn something.
prefect:
“hit me with research that proves Anthropomorphic climate change is false and I will convert”
Again…no one has to prove it is false,…it hasn’t been “proven” to be real.
As for documenting strife in 3rd world countries for you…I’d say the absurdity of that request makes discussions with you a waste of time…
JimB
Merrick (16:59:32) :
“Phil’s Dad… how do you figure? It looks like those lines cross well before 2012 to me.”
Just a bit of fun but I was taking the 98 – 09 rate rather than the current slope.
Just Want Truth… (22:28:21) :
“I suppose if documentaries like The Great Global Warming Swindle and Doomsday Called Off were shown on tv a few times the rate would speed up.”
Maybe; but the (10 month old) MORI survey below shows that it is social group A/B that are the strongest AGW supporters. Programmes need to be made with this in mind.
By the way at the bottom of page 1 it shows that UK attitudes to the “Is it exaggerated?” question are about the same as in the USA.
http://www.ipsos-mori.com/_assets/pdfs/public%20attitudes%20to%20climate%20change%20-%20for%20website%20-%20final.pdf
The technical discussion on climate change is very important. However…
I came accross the video bellow that shows a risk assessment approach to this issue that I believe makes sense. It involves people to act if in doubt.
http://manpollo.org/
“DDT for example,” Yes DDT is a toxin and MUST be used with care.
But the DDT ban was a CLASSIC case unintended consequences.
The DDT ban cost millions of lives due to malaria. The blood of their deaths is on the hands of eco weenies from developed countries who imposed their wants on the poor.
Sound familiar. Here we go again.
thefordprefect (09:44:41)
“I will at least be able to face my children when they struggle with a planet very different to today’s and say, “I tried”.
And if I am wrong I will be again able to say to my children that the world is a cleaner place because of the actions we unecessarily took.”
Ford, you are just the kind of forward-looking person I’m looking for. What you need is an investment strategy for the future. This is your opportunity to be among the first to get a ground-floor stake in the investment opportunity of the century. I’m talking about Sandw15’s South Texas Sea Resort Communities. I can fix you up with real estate which is now nearly worthless ranch land but which will soon be very valuable ocean front property. Imagine having a beach villa on the shores of a brand spanking new shallow sea. You could even afford your own island in the warm waters of the new South Texas Sea.
Worried about cost, you say? No problem. This is the perfect time to invest in real estate…and because of the current economic conditions, large tracts of land can be bought for a song. Building costs in South Texas are amongst the lowest in the country and we can fix you up with anything from a small vacation cottage to a mansion at an unbelievably low cost…and if you commit to building before January 2011 we’ll throw in a fishing pier, absolutely free. All you have to do is tell us where the shoreline will be and we’ll take care of the rest. Imagine having your own paradise-on-earth waiting for the Gulf of Mexico to roll in.
And for the first hundred buyers, we’re offering an all expenses paid trip to the First Annual Sandw15 Death Valley Regatta. (To be scheduled at a later date). Don’t wait. This introductory offer will expire at the end of 2010 or upon the collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (whichever comes first).
“This is much better than burying my head in the sand and hoping it will all go away.”
Sand? You bet, it’s almost my middle name…there’ll be plenty of it. I guaranty it or we’ll truck it in for you…free!
Need some help around the mansion? You’ll need Sandw15’s Displaced Maldivian Employment Service to provide gardeners and maids. We’ve thought of everything. You should act now. As somebody in the White House said…”Never let a global climate catastrophe go to waste.”
CodeTech (08:51:37) :
DDT is NOT harmless – look it up.
In 1955, the World Health Organization commenced a program to eradicate malaria worldwide, relying largely on DDT…initially highly successful, … However resistance soon emerged in many insect populations as a consequence of widespread agricultural use of DDT. …
DDT was less effective in tropical regions due to the continuous life cycle of mosquitoes and poor infrastructure. …Spraying programs (especially using DDT) were curtailed due to concerns over … but mostly because mosquitoes were developing resistance to DDT.[18
Smokey (11:23:32)
JimB (11:30:59) :
Parse Error (07:58:28) :
All you do is insult the oposition – humour us tell us the facts that persuaded you AGW is not real. Answer us with facts not insults please
My last word unless you decide to debate rather than insult:
The problem with you skeptics is you value your current lifestyle (= wealth) over the needs of the planet.
19th Century Cree saying:
Only when the last tree has died, the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught will we realize that we cannot eat money.
Bye
Mike
thefordprefect (07:23:09) :
Why attack me. Why not attack the information with data that you have pised off the web? I am not an Ideolog, hit me with research that proves Anthropomorphic cl;imate change is false and I will convert.
Fine, if you are really interested, as you claim, then start with Lucy Skywalker’s
primer, which has some excellent links. Her story of how she went from being an AGW believer to a Skeptic is compelling. Many of us here have followed a similar route.
Happy reading!
“All you do is insult the oposition – humour us tell us the facts that persuaded you AGW is not real. Answer us with facts not insults please”
The world was warmer in 1200 than it is now.
Seven times in the last million years the world has plunged from an awful lot warmer than now into full-on ice-ages, and then back again.
High CO2 has not stopped ice-ages happening, and low CO2 has not prevented the natural inter-glacial warmings.
Therefore CO2 has no relevance to earth’s climate.
That a natural warming trend should be declared ‘man-made’ and ‘run-away’ may be politically convenient, but it is scientifically unsupportable, particularly after it is over.
prefect:
“All you do is insult the oposition – humour us tell us the facts that persuaded you AGW is not real. Answer us with facts not insults please
My last word unless you decide to debate rather than insult:”
You last word?…would that it be so. You’ve been given references, examples, and challenges, none of which you’ve been either accepting of, or risen to.
Why won’t Hansen release his data manipulation sequences?…more importantly, why aren’t YOU asking HIM that, instead of accusing me of insults and demanding proof to change your mind?
Why aren’t you holding the scientists who’s view you espouse to the same level of proof you’re demanding here?
Frankly, I would hope that it is your last word.
JimB
As for facts, here are some of the things I base my questions on:
1) No adherence to “full disclosure” or transparency on data and experiments. How anyone can fall for that one, I’m still not sure. The very basis of science is the ability to reproduce results. And not by a few of your friends, but by the scientific community at large.
2) Deliberate falsification of “facts” such as Gore’s movie. Why shift the CO2 spikes?
3) IPCC reports. Dig in to those, and discover for yourself who actually writes them, who actually provides input to them, and who controls the reports. Find out if the scientists ever get to review the drafts of the reports before they’re published.
4) Again, with respect to the IPCC, read their reports and discover for yourself that at the heart of everything is the statement “Well…we couldn’t find anything else that explains it, so it must be C02.” WTF???? If that isn’t a “flat earth” statement, I don’t know what is.
I could go on…but why bother?…Do you really have any interest in actually discoving anything?…it seems not, but maybe I’m wrong.
At least I’m willing to admit that…You?…apparently not so much.
JimB
I don’t recall insulting you personally, I asked you a series of questions which you evaded because we both know what the real issue is, and then explained those underlying motives among your demographic in general to somebody else. If you find your own core beliefs to be insulting, perhaps you should either modify them, or not get your feelings hurt when people point them out.
Now, as for AGW being real, that depends on what you mean. Is CO2 a trace, weak greenhouse gas capable of causing a small amount of warming? Absolutely! The question is, does that small amount of warming result in the proposed catastrophic positive feedback loop? If that were demonstrated to be occurring in the real world, I’d throw away my computer and television immediately, change into a comfortable loincloth and go swinging on vines through the jungle. However, countless scientists funded with unimaginable sums of money have spent decades searching for that evidence, and I have yet to hear anything about it despite saturation coverage of this “climate crisis” of the glaciers melting, which they were already doing before we even came up with agriculture, let alone industrialization. The more facts and even the planet itself refuse to cooperate with the alarmists, the louder they scream that the end is nigh unless we repent, because they have a chip on their shoulder against society and this issue is their perfect weapon.
So what about you? You’re on a computer, which took a respectable release of greenhouse gas to manufacture, and even if you happen to run it off a solar panel rather than the coal-fired power grid, you’re still being served resources from a vast network of coal powered hardware, and that’s just for a start. Why aren’t you living in a mud hut or a cave or something, instead of telling other people they should, while you continue to live in modern luxury? Not to mention, why do you feel it’s appropriate to make a generalization about our values when you consider it insulting for anyone else to so much as mention your own?
thefordprefect says:
The problem with you skeptics is you value your current lifestyle (= wealth) over the needs of the planet.
And that, sir, is what makes you an AGW ideologue. You’ve just outed yourself. Thanks for playing. Bye, now.
“thefordprefect says:
The problem with you skeptics is you value your current lifestyle (= wealth) over the needs of the planet.
No sir, that is NOT the case. Maybe we may have different definitions of what those needs are? Funny…why didn’t you think of that, instead of resorting to ad hom? And you said I was tossing insults? Unreal.
Anyway…No…I do NOT value my current lifestyle over the needs of the planet. I believe the most basic, rudimentary needs for the poorest populations is cheap, available power. It is the single most influential element in raising the standard of living of third world populations.
Give them power. Give them a means to cultivate crops. Give them the means to store food for more than a day.
No…I say it is you who have put your lifestyle above the needs of the planet.
Jim