Excerpts from the New York Times article.
Climate Fears Turn to Doubts Among Britons
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
LONDON — Last month hundreds of environmental activists crammed into an auditorium here to ponder an anguished question: If the scientific consensus on climate change has not changed, why have so many people turned away from the idea that human activity is warming the planet?
Nowhere has this shift in public opinion been more striking than in Britain, where climate change was until this year such a popular priority that in 2008 Parliament enshrined targets for emissions cuts as national law. But since then, the country has evolved into a home base for a thriving group of climate skeptics who have dominated news reports in recent months, apparently convincing many that the threat of warming is vastly exaggerated.
A survey in February by the BBC found that only 26 percent of Britons believed that “climate change is happening and is now established as largely manmade,” down from 41 percent in November 2009. A poll conducted for the German magazine Der Spiegel found that 42 percent of Germans feared global warming, down from 62 percent four years earlier.
And London’s Science Museum recently announced that a permanent exhibit scheduled to open later this year would be called the Climate Science Gallery — not the Climate Change Gallery as had previously been planned.
“Before, I thought, ‘Oh my God, this climate change problem is just dreadful,’ ” said Jillian Leddra, 50, a musician who was shopping in London on a recent lunch hour. “But now I have my doubts, and I’m wondering if it’s been overhyped.”
Perhaps sensing that climate is now a political nonstarter, David Cameron, Britain’s new Conservative prime minister, was “strangely muted” on the issue in a recent pre-election debate, as The Daily Telegraph put it, though it had previously been one of his passions.
And a poll in January of the personal priorities of 141 Conservative Party candidates deemed capable of victory in the recent election found that “reducing Britain’s carbon footprint” was the least important of the 19 issues presented to them.
…
“Legitimacy has shifted to the side of the climate skeptics, and that is a big, big problem,” Ben Stewart, a spokesman for Greenpeace, said at the meeting of environmentalists here. “This is happening in the context of overwhelming scientific agreement that climate change is real and a threat. But the poll figures are going through the floor.”
The lack of fervor about climate change is also true of the United States, where action on climate and emissions reduction is still very much a work in progress, and concern about global warming was never as strong as in Europe. A March Gallup poll found that 48 percent of Americans believed that the seriousness of global warming was “generally exaggerated,” up from 41 percent a year ago.
…
In a telephone interview, Nicholas Stern, a former chief economist at the World Bank and a climate change expert, said that the shift in opinion “hadn’t helped” efforts to come up with strong policy in a number of countries. But he predicted that it would be overcome, not least because the science was so clear on the warming trend.
“I don’t think it will be problematic in the long run,” he said, adding that in Britain, at least, politicians “are ahead of the public anyway.” Indeed, once Mr. Cameron became prime minister, he vowed to run “the greenest government in our history” and proposed projects like a more efficient national electricity grid.
…
In March, Simon L. Lewis, an expert on rain forests at the University of Leeds in Britain, filed a 30-page complaint with the nation’s Press Complaints Commission against The Times of London, accusing it of publishing “inaccurate, misleading or distorted information” about climate change, his own research and remarks he had made to a reporter.
“I was most annoyed that there seemed to be a pattern of pushing the idea that there were a number of serious mistakes in the I.P.C.C. report, when most were fairly innocuous, or not mistakes at all,” said Dr. Lewis, referring to the report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Meanwhile, groups like the wildlife organization WWF have posted articles like “How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic,” providing stock answers to doubting friends and relatives, on their Web sites.
It is unclear whether such actions are enough to win back a segment of the public that has eagerly consumed a series of revelations that were published prominently in right-leaning newspapers like The Times of London and The Telegraph and then repeated around the world.
…
The public is left to struggle with the salvos between the two sides. “I’m still concerned about climate change, but it’s become very confusing,” said Sandra Lawson, 32, as she ran errands near Hyde Park.
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Read the complete story here
Colin Porter says: May 25, 2010 at 5:15 am
If any one is hoping that David Cameron and the Tories will deliver us from this global warming travesty,
Colin, don’t you think that if the tories thought it at all important there would be a tory in the post!
Nicholas stern, influencer of UK govt policy, purveyor of doom laden outpourings, oh and director of a carbon trading company….
It’s hard to keep a lie afloat for long, even with trillions of tax scams in the balance.
The trap was too many people with the expertise, physics, chemistry, space science … and more, that couldn’t be bought off with government grants. Once the nut was cracked, good science and scientist with reputations to protect, will come forth — And they did.
Thank Steve for leading the way.
The latest desperate warmist tactic, grooming in reverse…
“Young climate campaigners adopt an MP
Campaign by UK Youth Climate Coalition aims to keep global warming at the top of the political agenda”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/may/25/youth-climate-adopt-an-mp
I’ve been waiting for them to dust off the idea presented a couple years ago that models predict it will turn cold for the next 30 or so years before it gets all hot again. And that this fluctuation is a part of global wa…never mind.
@symon
re; wouldn’t a more efficient electrical grid be a good thing
Not just a good thing but a required thing. Our grid is old and working at and sometimes over capacity. It gets older and less able to meet rising demand every day.
You don’t see much press about this. Electrical transmission lines are expensive to build and nobody wants them running over their homes or schools (NIMBY). Electric vehicles where the batteries are recharged by plugging them into a wall socket in your garage can’t become a reality without a huge upgrade in transmission lines which can barely handle peak demand without adding electrical vehicles into the mix. It’s also a basic, show-stopper kind of problem with putting huge solar power farms out in southwestern US deserts. Theoretically there’s enough sun and open space in the deserts to git ‘er done if you discounting the problem of no way good way to store power for nighttime demand. But even if the storage problem is solved there’s no way to get the power from way out in the desert to where it used. That would require a huge capital outlay for new and upgraded transmission lines. And if you’re talking about electrical vehicles then the new or upgraded lines have to go all the way to every residential meter.
It’s clear enough we are going to desperately need to have a viable replacement for fossil fuels in this century. I see only two practical means at the current time. One is biological where we have genetically engineered bacteria that turn air & sunlight into clean burning liquid fuels or we put photo-voltaic collectors in orbit (space based solar power) which solves the first two problems of reliable sunlight and overnight storage (sunlight is much more intense and shines 24/7 in orbit). The distribution problem is solved by having decentralized rectenna farms on the surface which can feed into the existing grid. That would still require beefing up local distribution to the point everyone can recharge the electric vehicles overnight in the garage. The best hope I think is the biological solution. At this point the biological solution is just folks like Craig Ventor continuing to plug away at bleeding edge genetic engineering. Doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of scientific discovery required at this point. It’s an engineering problem not a science problem. Engineering problems are solved by time and money in a more predictable fashion than scientific problems which require largely unpredictable discoveries to move forward. The space-based solution is almost entirely an engineering problem too at this point but requires far more capital outlay and radical transformation in how we power things since it doesn’t produce liquid fuels easily accomodated by extant internal & external combustion engines.
The thermometer told the story.
It were not Al Gore in the Pantry having sex with a media Mogul.
It were not Gaven Schmidt of NASA in a coffee House in Brooklyn, Hoboken to be more exact.
The truth is Models failed and measurement is measurement.
It aint winning or losing but in one decade , we know more than we did before.
Science under adversity, the public can read thermometers, they can see the beach and rivers.
All they need is a BS call. THey knew they just needed scientists real scientists. Willing to fight science as it should be fought.
Economists will talk for a decade yet, but the science argument is over.
Carbon trade is dead, you can’t regulate elements on the periodic table to quote a Green peace legend.
Cutting down Rain forest is not a good idea, killing species is not a good idea, but there is a place for sustainability.
Beware, all is not done and dusted in the UK media, not by a long way. A couple of weeks ago The Times published a climate change article online, resulting in a deluge of adroit and well- argued grumbles from climate sceptics. Recommends on sceptical posts went through the roof and The Times promptly pulled the article completely.
Several reasons.
The CRU/climategate exposé
Also, laymen have an aptitude, or else an instinct for a semblance of truth, regardless of what ideologists tell them.
If you tell a bus driver that the faster he goes the shorter the distance between two points, he will not believe it, regardless of how abstruse mathematics equations can be concocted to demonstrate that higher speed will shorten the distance.
Its similar to the experiment by Galileo at the leaning Tower of Pisa. Aristotle maintained, with valid logical, that two weights dropped from the same height, one weighing ten times the other will lead to the heavier weight reaching the ground ten times more quickly. Of course Aristotle never tried the experiment.
Several thousand years later Galileo audaciously proved Aristotle wrong when he dropped the weights from the tower and both landed simulataneously. Even the professors refused to believe that Aristotle could be in the wrong, and therefore considered that their eyes were deceiving them.
The layman thinks otherwise.
The sceptics are Galileo, and the AGW’s are Aristotle
Politicians are ahead of the curve? That one made me laugh, not least because it shows just how clueless these so called climate experts are. Well, it was Lord Stern who said it, so what to expect?
The reality is that the politicians are shown once again as being behind the curve. They got on board several years back when public concern was detectable. Even then it wasn’t as strong as politicians realised. Now the tide has gone out and shown that they have all been swimming naked. Eventually they will gather their clothes and quietly slink away, but not before inflicted still more damage on their economies.
The Greek government, for example, has decided that they can grow their way out of their debt crisis by investing in “green technology.” Perhaps they’ve been reading too many Stern reports, or haven’t noticed whats been happening in Spain.
My favorite quote:
“I was most annoyed that there seemed to be a pattern of pushing the idea that there were a number of serious mistakes in the I.P.C.C. report, when most were fairly innocuous, or not mistakes at all,” said Dr. Lewis…”
Okay…maybe it is a matter of semantics. Perhaps it is not a ‘factual error’ to base the entire argument on a logical fallacy, but it certainly is atrocious! Proclaiming that “AGW must be true because we can’t make our models work otherwise.” is argumentum ad ignorantiam: a claim that it must be true because they can’t figure out how it could be false! (And heads up boys…your models don’t work if you DO make anthropogenic forcing the dominant influence on climate, accept for a few decades in the last 20th Century. For the rest of Earth’s history…your models are useless!)
Well here is how it could be false: natural variability! Real climatologists are unlocking the secrets of natural climate variability, while the IPCC ignores such variability in the present and actively denies it existed in the past! This is delusional. The IPCC claims that it does not know of any natural climate variability that could cause the observed changes. Well, here is a clue…read the research of climatologists who actually study the Earth’s climate and not computer programs. That may help!
North Sydney and Went worth is rich bastards doing socialism for a buck..
Looks ALP to me.
Those two seats are ALP. We will take 30 seats, we dont need born to rule Bastards.
Wise guys.
The lesson here is simple and ancient. Those who live by the anecdote, die by the anecdote. CAGW alarmists, when asked for proof of their position always turn to the flavor of the month anecdotal evidence of warming (or when really pressed they will even try to explain how an incident of cooling is actually due to warming – that really goes over poorly with sentient beings – but they keep trying). They give the impression that their whole theory is based on today’s weather, today’s glacier melt, today’s ice extent, today’s sea level, today’s polar bear numbers etc. And when tomorrow’s numbers turn against them they are caught out in the lie. Hence the poll numbers show that the ruse has been understood by the people. If they would have just stuck to the science of the thing instead of waving wildly at every anecdotal incident of apparent warming as if it meant the end of the world…. oh, that’s their problem, apparently there is no science.
The Merchant Banker and the real Estate Agent actually think they have the cred to lead the wide brown Land.
I love this line:
…efforts to come up with strong policy in a number of countries. But he predicted that it would be overcome, not least because the science was so clear on the warming trend.
Just because the world is maybe warming does not mean that humans are causing it. Can’t they understand that. Show us the proof that humans are causing any warming then we might believe them. So far I haven’t seen one thing to convince me that we have anything whatsoever to do with the present warming. For that matter, I haven’t seen anything that shows that the warming is unusual.
Idiocy like this makes you wonder how the Earth recovered from the last couple of ice ages without all those coal fired power plants and SUVs. Personally, I think it’s that little fusing ball of hydrogen hanging out in space might have a little something to do with it. 🙂
——————————
David L. says:
May 25, 2010 at 5:31 am
LOL, Save the cute widdle cavebear! That made my day
Web 3.0 – Open Information + Critical Thinking
They are not ready for it, and will have to throw out their whole playbook, or take control of the web.
North Sydney has a name, it is Rhyde.
That is the beach’s name North Rhyde, not Sydney.
David Cameron may well have been “strangely muted” during the UK election campaign and I would suggest with good reason.
With a £156Bn current account deficit and compelled by market forces to perform radical financial surgery, he would no doubt have been shocked to find that The Carbon Trust, a so called independent yet government funded Quango that for years has bribed the UK Press with huge amounts of advertising money in the CCAGW cause, was reportedly in receipt of £100M in 2007 from Governmental sources, according to this excerpt from the National Audit Office report.
“The Carbon Trust used 77.1 million in funding from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in 2006-07, plus 23.1 million from the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and the devolved administrations.”
I have been unable to find more recent figures, but anecdotally the run up to Copenhagen produced a plethora of full and double page adverts masquerading as scientific articles.
Will he have the courage and sense to abolish this chimera which uses our taxes to indoctrinate us to accept yet more taxes? Or will the intelligent fraction of the Nation continue to groan inwardly and develop repetetive strain injuries from exasperated daily turnings of the offending pages?
Time will tell.
—
Writes John Q Public:
“No one really took AGW as a serious threat until it became a ‘political game changer’. Once that happened – thanks to President Obama – the sceptics decided it was time to shine a light on the weak science and models that propped the ‘straw man’ up. Even the sceptics didn’t take it seriously enough at first.”
Hm? Where does that perception come from? I’ve been monitoring the anthropogenic global warming contention since its current instantiation broke surface in about 1979, and the “skeptics” (myself included) have been taking the assertions of the AGW charlatans about as “seriously” as it’s possible to get.
The political ramifications of the “only-man-is-vile” campaign armed and engined by the AGW blunder were evident from the beginning. The election of Barry Soetoro in 2008 had vanishingly little with any decision on the part of scientific critics of the “global warming” fraud “to shine a light on the weak science and models” of the warmist’s Cargo Cult Science.
Admittedly, the ascendancy of our flagrantly unconstitutional Mombasa Messiah drove home the urgent need for political opposition to the machinations of thugs and bunko artists like Algore, but the election of Crash Test Johnnie (the other socialist party’s candidate in that year of choice between seppuku and falling on one’s sword, Roman-style) would’ve resulted in a creature squatting in the Oval Office with just as blind and pig-headed a determination to ram cap-and-trade down upon this nation.
Bear in mind that John McCain is very much the “bipartisan” figure when it comes to helping his nominal opposition to do vicious, unlawful, destructive, thieving, and murdering things to the American people. I picture him happening on a gang rape, and “going along to get along.”
Heavens, wasn’t that the same sort of “zipper control problem” that sunk the Navy’s Tailhook Association? So much for naval aviators….
I would ask those who, like John Q Public, think that the skeptical opposition to the anthropogenic global warming fraud is a recent phenomenon to take the time required to look into the record of sound and well-reasoned critique of this idiocy, which was manifest from the earliest days of this error’s promulgation.
The political aspect of this dead-from-the-neck-up pseudoscience is certainly harrowing, but as damned bad science it has been lucidly and conscientiously opposed for the past three decades, and this is worth bearing in mind.
—
Alarmist fight back is far from over, and behind the scenes gravy trains still rumble on (excuse mixed metaphors, please)
Everyone properly convinced of it, must continue to press the sceptical case down the pub (bar), in shops, queues (lines), wherever, or the drip drip of pro CAGW articles and media nonsence – esp. BBC – will gradually change perception again. Continuing to report, person to person, the lack of ongoing warming signs, is essential, while mentioning that climate may still warm but doesn’t seem to be from man made CO2…. we must stay alert and not ourselves actually become “deniers”, or refute the fact that in the end we must get off oil etc in a planned and sensible way, for political and resource exhaustion reasons?
Thanks to all the proper scientists who contribute on this site and allow those like me with ancient science degrees to catch up!
It’s worth noting that the British people just voted ‘none of the above’ en masse in a general election; it’s not just ‘global warming’ they’re sick of but politicians in general, particularly those who believe they are ‘ahead of the curve’ (i.e. who don’t give a damn about what the people think).
For the Tories to still be pushing insane ‘green’ tax rises and money pits for the sake of ‘global warming’ when the winter was the worst in decades and the economy is in the toilet with borrowing at record levels is truly infantile behaviour. Labour may come back laughing next year after the Tories have dug their own grave.
The beaches have names, Convict names.
The land has Squatters names.
We have history other than politics. None of it perfect but it is ours, not politicians.
The beaches of Sydney have names.
We will have our history.
“t . f . p . says:
May 25, 2010 at 5:08 am
Gareth Phillips says: May 25, 2010 at 1:02 am
As a gardener in the UK I have observed no signs of warming.
Try doing a plot of airfrost days in UK – the decline is obvious
for a starter here is a blinker image 1961-90 cf 1971-2000 snow days in uk from met office Add http:// to image url:
img690.imageshack.us/img690/9668/daysofsnowlyinguk.gif
Here is one from alaska it is just a record of dates – no tweaking possible.
Nenana (alaska) river ice breakup date:
img72.imageshack.us/img72/8913/nenanaco2tsi.png”
You’re missing the point. The plots and ‘data’ see one thing but the observers see another. That’s why we are sceptical. If all the gardeners said there was no change would that make any difference to the data set torturers? No. It varies a bit but for the past 30 years but May 5th is the last frost in my garden.
cheers David
pat says:
meanwhile:
25 May: Age, Australia: Adam Morton: Climate debate ‘almost infantile’
…..
”It’s a no-brainer. If you go over the last couple of decades you see tens of thousands of papers in the peer-reviewed literature, and you have less than 10 that challenge the fundamentals – and they have been disproved,” Professor Steffen said
Wot Prof. Steffen don’t understand is that we now know how that bias in the number of published “peer-reviewed” papers came about. By fixing it, Prof. STeffen, so the grants continue to flow. Are you worried that your budget may be axed?
Time for the left to leave, and for climate to freely change without the help of politicians and investment banks.
Time, also, for Saint Al Baby (AKA: Fat Bedwetter) to move to his new sea level residence and forget Gaia church.