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.
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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.
DJ (13:30:28) :
Can someone explain to me why sceptics are so fixated with public opinion. CC is a science debate – well it would be if the sceptics ever got around to publishing science papers.
It’s more political than science. I’m still waiting for that smoking gun proof from your side of the fence DJ.
DJ (13:30:28) :
Can someone explain to me why sceptics are so fixated with public opinion
I’m sorry, but I thought global warming was proved by consensus, rather than the scientific method. What is “consensus” but an opinion survey outcome?
Dorlomin,
Alfred Wegener proposed the ridiculous idea that continents have moved over time, and suffered through a lifetime of ridicule from the scientific community for proposing such an absurd idea.
Same story for Galileo. Anyone looking up in the sky at night can see the stars going in a circle around the earth.
And those foolish women who refused to take thalidomide in the 1950s, after the scientists told them it was perfectly safe. The nerve…..
Only a complete idiot would stand in the way of a few fanatical scientists who demand that we shut down our primary source of electricity and heat. Because the loudest scientists are always the most correct ones.
BillBodell (13:14:35) takes the cake for one of the best succinct responses I’ve seen.
Terry46 (13:23:26), you missed the joke.
I would like to call myself a proud member of the 19-29 year old group, but I’m Canadian, not American 🙂
Note that the old farts are smarter 🙂
I’m a 24 fan but the global warming PSA’s make me want to throw the remote through the screen. How could we get a pro-rational science PSA on 24? Someone must have some money. Watts Up With That has the talent…
Robinson (14:07:33) :
Sadly, you just cannot fix stupid. 🙂
DJ:
“The laws of physics won’t change just because a group of non-experts have been confused by the misapplication of media norms.”
Correct. The problem is that the physics are not clear, as evidenced by all the debate among physicists (and don’t kid yourself, there is a LOT of debate among accomplished physicists, although you are being told there is not by the political types). Much of the stuff you read about the physics of AGW is spouted by non-physicists, some of whom don’t know any more physics than us chemists.
> Steven Goddard
Same story for Galileo. Anyone looking up in the sky at night can see the stars going in a circle around the earth.
Steven,
Galileo did not come up with the theory that the earth circles the sun, that was Copernicus. Galileo though he proved that the earth circles the sun by engineering a better telescope. He was proved wrong using mathematics. Later it was Kelper who showed that the earth ellipses around the sun.
Mike
DJ–Here’s a published paper showing the sun might have had something to do with CC.
http://climatesci.org/2009/03/11/a-new-paper-on-solar-climate-forcing-acrim-gap-and-tsi-trend-issue-resolved-using-a-surface-magnetic-flux-tsi-proxy-model-by-scafetta-et-al-2009/
Mike J,
But it was Galileo’s outspoken support of Copernicus’ theory that got him in trouble.
Reply to DJ’s comment:
“Can someone explain to me why skeptics are so fixated with public opinion. CC is a science debate – well it would be if the skeptics ever got around to publishing science papers. The laws of physics won’t change just because a group of non-experts have been confused by the misapplication of media norms.”
Your comment is very naive isn’t it? Climate Change is NOT a scientific debate any longer. It has become a political debate. And politics are driven by public opinion. The politicians then make policy and pass foolish legislation based upon those public opinions… such as taxing us for carbon footprints.
We’ll be taxed and our lifestyles will be changed long before the debate is settled and all the science is in. Then what are the governments gonna do if the AGW theory is wrong? You think they will give me a CO2-tax rebate?
You must already know that the California Air Resources Board is already making changes to car emissions standards based upon the “science” of global warming. Soon we will all be driving those tiny Smart cars. They even proposed taxing us on how many miles we drive each year and tax us proportionally to the CO2 emissions for it (as if the gax taxes aren’t enough). They are actually considering it in the state assembly!
I just can’t wait until they (politicians) decide to consider putting an exhale-o-meter on everyone’s face and tax them for how much CO2 we breathe-out. Or maybe they should add a surtax on health clubs because there is a lot of extra CO2 pumping out of those places as people do their workouts. Then, there is the ever popular proposed methane-limitation taxes for cattle farms.
There are so many variables in the climate that I doubt debate can ever be won in our lifetimes.
Here near San Diego, the POLITICIANS almost shut down a relatively harmless desalination plant project that will supply clean water to 100,000 homes. Local public opinions from (some) environmentalists actually believe that the small amount of CO2 expelled from running the plant is going to cause more global warming. In order to proceed, the project owners had to agree to purchase carbon offsets (plant trees)…which I am sure Al Gore and his offset trading deals will get a piece of that money.
The skeptics just don’t want their data suppressed or ignored by politicians and the media. But data and whitepapers don’t sell as much as a P.T. Barnum-type show. Hype sells (like Al Gore’s fear mongering movie and all the Hollywood types who used fame and glitz to promote it).
DJ said “well it would be if the skeptics ever got around to publishing science papers.”
I don’t think you are aware of the hundreds of papers and opinions the skeptics have indeed published and often reference in this blog and elsewhere. The problem is: the politicians and grandstanders don’t read them either. Instead they go with media hype and megalomaniacs (Al Gore, Hansen – in my opinion), because we humans all need that gloom and doom headline that say things like: “Asteroid narrowly misses hitting earth!” or “The bird pandemic is going to wipe out large populations!”
“”” DJ (13:30:28) :
Can someone explain to me why sceptics are so fixated with public opinion. CC is a science debate – well it would be if the sceptics ever got around to publishing science papers.
The laws of physics won’t change just because a group of non-experts have been confused by the misapplication of media norms. “””
Dj, Gallup is a polling organisation; that’s what they do; that’s what they get paid good money to do; so that’s why they did this poll.
I doubt that any MMGWCC “skeptic deniers” commissioned the poll, but since it’s been published it simply becomes news; just like the news that Hansen’s predictions have so far failed to come to pass.
We have already endured a big enough fraction of his 2100 AD prediction that we should be able to observe what his “trend” data predicts; and of course that hasn’t happened; if anything it has gone in exactly the opposite direction; which doesn’t say much for his prediction AlGorithms.
You only have to look at any published version of GISStemp anomaly or any of the weather station inputs to his AlGorythm, to realize that in no case is the next data point predictable, or even whether it will be up or down from the most recent data point. It is simply fractal random data that looks the same on any time scale; so there is no “trend” to extrapolate out 100 years.
Why would any of the “Skeptics” want to publish “science papers”; the peer review system is so corrupted they never would get published anyway. Even the National Academy of Sciences will not publish a “minority report” of even its own members who dissent from the “concensus” view that the academy finally issues; and that is from an organisation that self selects its own members; but is not against having a back door entry ticket for “environmentalists” who will follow the party line.
As for the laws of physics not changing; it wouldn’t matter if they did, because one thing is for sure; they certainly aren’t being followed by that field of endeavor that calls itself “climatology”.
The Japanese government Science advisors recently described the IPCC trappings as “ancient Astrology” and in that they are being unkind to ancient astology.
Even in the posts on this forum; there’s a lot more that is simply statistical mathematics than there is that is physics. And shifting a standard deviation a few points this way or that is not going to suddenly shift a quite robust stable physical system into an unstable system that has been unseen over the last 4.5 billion years.
There are experts and there are experts; but who is going to pay any attention to self annointed “experts” whose predictions come within a 3:1 fudge factor and all their findings are “within the range of the projections.”
Real scientists are alarmed by a model that predicts a discrepancy of a measly 34 seconds of arc per century in the observed and predicted rates of precession of the perihelion of Mercury. And they are supposed to be impressed by a science whose most vaunted models predict a 3:1 range of outcomes that is already falsified after only 10% of the prediction time frame. Don’t call that Science; it’s wild A** guesswork (at best).
I’d be happy if the “experts” of the climatology world (who are they by the way) would simply admit that their global surface data measuring system; upon which the whole public exposure depends, simply fails by orders of magnitude to follow the most basic laws of sampled data systems. So much for them being experts; just point me to one who even knows what the basic rules of sampled data systems even are. These experts would show up for a golf game with their chess sets tucked under their arms; that’s how much they know about the laws of physics that apply to the system they are trying to model.
I’m sure there are those among the climate “realists” who know that the earth is not behaving the way the models say it should; who would be happy to debate the physics with those who dream up those non-working models; but it is the “experts” who are unwilling to join the debate; well the science is settled right.
So if the science is settled; why the blazes are the taxpayers still putting out billions of dollars each year to otherwise unemployed “climate scientists”. What’s to study if the science is settled? move out those “Experts” their science work is done; time to call in the engineers to fix the problem; the experts can go flip hamburgers at McDonalds.
George
For you 24 viewers that want to give FOX feedback about the global warming stuff they are spouting, here is the email;
askfox@fox.com
Dorlomin,
You’re name was invented by one of the greatest geniuses of the 20th century (born in the 19th, actually). And he was a devout Christian who didn’t believe in evolution.
So what was your point?
Probably more due to economic realities than to a change in perception.
Still, it speaks well of the grounded common sense orientation of the American public. After years of an incessant AGW-oriented media blitz, the whole silliness is still not being swallowed. Give ’em a bit of cap and trade along with the resulting run-up in their bills and those poll numbers will really look like a hockey stick…
As was reported earlier, the temperature this morning at the Edmonton, Alberta airport was -42 degrees C. However, in downtown Edmonton, it was “only” -30 degrees C. This gives you an idea of how significant the UHI effect is. The lower the temperature, the greater this effect is since more heat will be supplied to the buildings to make the temperature inside “normal”.
Jae,
Speak for yourself. I’m a PhD physical chemist and there isn’t a single discipline related to global warming (molecular spectroscopy, black body radiation, emissivity, (non)adiabatic heating/cooling and heat transfer, radiative heating, etc.) that aren’t required fields of study for the degree. Look up who Svante Arrhenius was, what his profession was, and what interesting theory involving atmospheric CO2 he first postulated.
There is no single “disinterested” field of scientific specialization more suited to understand the merits of the scientific arguments involved in “climate change.” Of course, when the AGW crowd gets busy playing fast with the data the statisticians are the best front line.
Global warming and Galileo:
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/03/global_warming_and_galileo.html
Galileo and sunspots: (Leif, Dave, Hathaway and others)
http://www.orbit.zkm.de/?q=node/194
>Steve
But it was Galileo’s outspoken support of Copernicus’ theory that got him in trouble.
He was sort of like Hansen. He insisted he was right when we was proven wrong mathematically – and he was just as obnoxious.
Mike
Mike J.,
So your theory is that obnoxiousness is proportional to correctness? In that case, this must be the world’s smartest person.
http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/03/worlds_most_ann.html
Quick thoughts:
The millennials are quickly acquiring the repuation as being the dumb and/or gullible generation.
Aron, you crack me up – a welcome addition to the board.
Given the view that once a person crosses over to the dark side (i.e., skeptical side) that persone stays on the dark side (i.e., one has made up his/her mind to be a skeptic), I don’t see how this poll is good news to Gore. Right now, in my opinion, you have 41 people out of 100 that will be forever skeptical.
Same Poll different graph, more interesting:
– republicans, 66%
– independents, 44%
– democrats, 22%
See: http://algorelied.com/?p=841
The politics will change the split second those lines cross; but at the current rate that will not be for another eight years. Anything significant in that?