A survey report titled Climate Confidence Monitor commissioned in part by the Earthwatch Institute, World Wildlife Fund, and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute shows that confidence that we can actually manage climate change has been falling for the last two years in most countries:
The question was: “I believe we will stop climate change”.
They cite in the report:
A fall in optimism and low levels of confidence in leaders suggest that people are becoming more pessimistic about the scale of the challenge that climate change presents.
I suppose that is one way to spin it. Here’s some other findings from the report.
First here is the report that you can read yourself:
Here’s a graph I found interesting:
The answers suggest to me that the responses are more about saving money than saving the planet.
h/t to WUWT reader PaulM
Cool – I’m a “pessimist”…
Of course, my actual position is 100% optimistic, in that I don’t believe “we” are a “problem” therefore nothing “we” do will provide a “solution”.
I find it interesting that the two most optimistic countries, China and India, are the same countries given a free pass in the Kyoto Treaty and who are on record as presently unwilling to “buy-in” to a cap and trade system. India’s position is there is no global warming whereas China’s position is there may be but they’re not willing to ruin their economy over it unless everyone else ruins theirs first. So, I’m guessing their optimism is founded in the belief that you can’t fix what isn’t broke?
Shame the question wasn’t – “Does climate change need stopping?”
Copenhagen Treaty
November 3, 2009
The famous Copenhagen Treaty, which few seem to have read, is here:
Copenhagen 2009.pdf
http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2009/11/copenhagen-treaty
It’s good to see people are coming around and understanding that you can’t control the climate or weather .
Ed Scott,
Thanks for the Copenhagen link. I’ve had a quick look and unearthed this little gem:
“PP.11 Further acknowledging the findings of the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and that delay in reducing emissions significantly constrains opportunities to achieve low stabilization levels and
increase the rise of more severe climate change impacts,”
In other words, signing parties will be bound by the IPCC position alone. No amount of research by Lindzen, or Spencer or anyone else, no matter how debunking as to the efficacy of the IPCC, can be admitted as contrary evidence. Game over!
Hank, both India and China are going to milk the Europeans for every thing they can. They will do or say whatever is required to further that end. If the greenies are fools enough to give stuff to them, they will go right along until the well runs dry.
“The question was: ‘I believe we will stop climate change’.”
The question is meaningless. Does “climate change” mean man-made “global warming” or just a natural process that has nothing to do with the human race?
No wonder there is a fall in optimism. When man-made global warming was replaced by the more ambiguous “climate change” it became more difficult to make up one’s mind about what the issue is, let alone take a stand regarding it.
Maybe the question should have been, “Do you believe we can reliably, safely and consistently control the weather?” 😉 I’ll bet the trend line wouldn’t be much different.
It’s indeed very questionable whether these “pessimists” are on the same side as the skeptics, or on the opposite side of the barricade.
During a recent MIT speech, Barack Obama who is the acting president of the U.S. said that the deniers (naysayers) were being successfully “marginalized” but the pessimists were even worse than the deniers! 😉
How would you answer the question “Do you believe we will stop climate change?” Of course, we won’t, at least not in the next 1,000 years. Who knows what planetary air-conditioning they will use in 3009.
But what’s “pessimistic” about the answer “No”? It only deserves to be called “pessimism” if stopping climate change is one of the goals of one’s life i.e. if one is not quite mentally stable.
“I believe we will stop climate change” is a bad survey question because it leaves so much open to interpretation. Who’s we? What does “stop” really mean? Or “climate change” mean? That any more than a couple of percent of the respondents actually think they can “stop” a mostly natural process means they’re conflating several ideas. Worthless.
Me:
A natural climate optimist
A climate science realist
A big cliam pessimist
A reasonable solution denialist
An American captialist
A social government Revialist
A free market revivalist
BTW: I’ve got an interesting set of videos from gridded RSS and UAH simulteneously plotting lower troposphere, mid troposphere, and lower stratosphere. They show some unique things.
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/11/03/rss-and-uah-videos/
The Survey Says: The concensus on climate exists solely within the Agenda itself.
It also speaks volumes on the integrity of the leadership of the world.
The survey method is questionable too. 1000 online responses from “consumers” in each of 12 countries that represent 50% of the world’s population. The biases are obvious.
Can protection of the status quo be more extreme than trying to prevent “change?”
Or is it extreme change they seek, the death of billions?
If change is too scary for some people, it is because it is being driven by a dishonest/unstable money and banking model. Fix that and the lunacy will go away.
“There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.” Henry Thoreau
Tim S. (10:15:10) :
The ambiguity of AGW was becoming all too apparent. They had to shuffle the deck in the middle of the deal because the cards weren’t playing out in thier favor (bad predictions), and they had already been caught altering the deck.
After reading the HSBC Climate Confidence Monitor, several blatant statistical spins stood out:
65% worldwide express support for a new global deal on carbon emissions (69% see it as an equal or higher priority than the world economy).
Only 2% worldwide believe a new climate deal isn’t important.
After looking at the charts presented I am struck by how none of them seem to support the above conclusions. But then again, we need to consider who’s working the numbers. HSBC stands to make billions in trading carbon allocations. Of course their study would conclude only 2% of the world population doesn’t see the need for a global carbon trading system.
Another case of “lies, damn lies, and statistics.”
Steve in SC (10:11:29) :
I totally agree.
World wide? Why those particular twelve countries? They are hardly representative of the ‘whole world’. The entire North American continent is represented, but nothing from the African continent? What about the Middle East? Without any explanation from the report, we must assume the deck was stacked.
It’s a stupid survey. But here pretty well everyone knows that (Scott Mandia etc being the exceptions). What I want to see is people get their basic info right.
* CO2 is doubleplusgood for plants and no danger to us.
* Warmer is on balance better for us than cooler.
* The planet is now cooling.
* Climate Science is still young and knows precious little with certainty.
* Sensational disinformation has been rampant.
* Muzzling of the science is unthinkable, but it has happened.
* We cannot solve the real problems without checkable Science.
Page 3 of the report says that
“The number of people rating climate change as the major issue they worry about has dropped to fourth place”.
Concern about climate change has dropped since last year in 11 of the 12 countries surveyed, from 26% to 18% in the US and from 26% to 15% in the UK .
Report: Climate confidence falls worldwide
So what!
Even if 99% of the people on this planet state they thing Global Warming and Climate Change is a hoax, it will not make any difference.
Why? Because our legislation is already poisonous and now serves the forces that are out to destroy our economies from the inside.
We have to develop a totally new strategy to resist.
Today, one of the world’s most prominent Skeptics, Vaclav Klaus was forced to surrender the sovereignty of his country, twenty years after the fall of the Iron Curtain, because the legislative system of his country has been infiltrated.
Don’t mind the outcome of Copenhagen. All the tools and mechanisms out to destroy our countries are in place now. We need to think of entirely new ways to fight this.
Read here what Claus said about signing the Lisbon Treaty today and learn:
http://motls.blogspot.com/2009/11/klaus-signed-lisbon.html
Looks to me that Gore would be most effective by spending more time in India. Lots and lots of time in India.
Accurate estimation of CO2 background level from near ground measurements at non-mixed environments
http://www.klima2009.net/en/papers/4/6
Atmospheric CO2 background levels are sampled and processed according to the standards of the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) Earth System Research Laboratory mostly at marine environments to minimize the local influence of vegetation, ground or anthropogenic sources. Continental measurements usually show large diurnal and seasonal variations, which makes it difficult to estimate well mixed CO2 levels.
Historical CO2 measurements are usually derived from proxies, with ice cores being the favorite. Those done by chemical methods prior to 1960 are often rejected as being inadequate due too poor siting, timing or method. The CO2 versus wind speed plot represents a simple but valuable tool for validating modern and historic continental data. It is shown that either a visual or a mathematical fit can give data that are close to the regional CO2 background, even if the average local mixing ratio is much different.
A validation check has been made for 3 historical CO2 series. The overall impression is one of continental European historic regional CO2 background levels significantly higher than the commonly assumed global ice-core proxy levels.
OT – just to say that is is official in English law – belief in man-made climate change is a religion:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/oxfordshire/8339652.stm
Quote: Tim Nicholson’s solicitor, Shah Qureshi, said: “Essentially what the judgment says is that a belief in man-made climate change and the alleged resulting moral imperative is capable of being a philosophical belief and is therefore protected by the 2003 religion or belief regulations.”
As an athiest, all I can say is thank God I live in Scotland 😉