Stanford and Woods Institute didn’t like the recent polls like these:
Pew poll: 2 of 3 Americans think Congressional action on climate change is not a priority
Gallup: Americans’ Global Warming Concerns Continue to Drop
Pew Poll: global warming dead last, down from last year
So with public money from the National Science Foundation, they conducted their own poll, and issued a press release:
Large majority of Americans still believe in global warming, Stanford poll finds
Three out of four Americans believe that the Earth has been gradually warming as the result of human activity and want the government to institute regulations to stop it, according to a new survey by researchers at the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University.
The survey was conducted by Woods Institute Senior Fellow Jon Krosnick, a professor of communication and of political science at Stanford, with funding from the National Science Foundation. The results are based on telephone interviews conducted from June 1-7 with 1,000 randomly selected American adults.
“Several national surveys released during the last eight months have been interpreted as showing that fewer and fewer Americans believe that climate change is real, human-caused and threatening to people,” Krosnick said. “But our new survey shows just the opposite.”
For example, when respondents in the June 2010 survey were asked if the Earth’s temperature probably had been heating up over the last 100 years, 74 percent said yes. And 75 percent said that human behavior was substantially responsible for any warming that has occurred. Krosnick has asked similar questions in previous Woods Institute polls since 2006.
“Our surveys reveal a small decline in the proportion of people who believe global warming has been happening, from 84 percent in 2007 to 74 percent today,” Krosnick said. “Statistical analysis of our data revealed that this decline is attributable to perceptions of recent weather changes by the minority of Americans who have been skeptical about climate scientists.”
In terms of average Earth temperature, 2008 was the coldest year since 2000, Krosnick said. “Scientists say that such year-to-year fluctuations are uninformative, and people who trust scientists therefore ignore this information when forming opinions about global warming’s existence,” he added. “But people who do not trust climate scientists base their conclusions on their personal observations of nature. These ‘low-trust’ individuals were especially aware of the recent decline in average world temperatures; they were the ones in our survey whose doubts about global warming have increased since 2007.”
According to Krosnick, this explanation is especially significant, because it suggests that the recent decline in the proportion of people who believe in global warming is likely to be temporary. “If the Earth’s temperature begins to rise again, these individuals may reverse course and rejoin the large majority who still think warming is real,” he said.
‘Climategate’
Several questions in the June survey addressed the so-called “climategate” controversy, which made headlines in late 2009 and early 2010.
“Growing public skepticism has, in recent months, been attributed to news reports about e-mail messages hacked from the computer system at the University of East Anglia in Britain – characterized as showing climate scientists colluding to silence unconvinced colleagues – and by the discoveries of alleged flaws in reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC),” Krosnick said. “Our survey discredited this claim in multiple ways. ”
For example, only 9 percent of respondents said they knew about the East Anglia e-mail messages and believed they indicate that climate scientists should not be trusted, and only 13 percent said the same about the controversial IPPC reports.
“Overall, we found no decline in Americans’ trust in environmental scientists,” Krosnick said. “Fully 71 percent of respondents said they trust scientists a moderate amount, a lot or completely.”
Government solutions
In the June 2010 survey, 86 percent of respondents said they wanted the federal government to limit the amount of air pollution that businesses emit, and 76 percent favored government limitations on greenhouse gas emissions generated by businesses. Only 14 percent said that the United States should not take action to combat global warming unless other major industrial countries like China and India do so as well.
Among other survey results:
- 78 percent opposed taxes on electricity to reduce consumption, and 72 percent opposed taxes on gasoline;
- 84 percent favored the federal government offering tax breaks to encourage utilities to make more electricity from water, wind and solar power;
- Four out of 5 respondents favored government requiring or offering tax breaks to encourage the production of cars that use less gas (81 percent), appliances that use less electricity (80 percent) and homes and office buildings that require less energy to heat and cool (80 percent);
- Only 18 percent said that policies to reduce global warming would increase unemployment.
For additional information on Krosnick’s research, visit: http://woods.stanford.edu/research/surveys.html
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“only 9 percent of respondents said they knew about the East Anglia e-mail messages and believed they indicate that climate scientists should not be trusted”
so 91% are dead set wankers. Have another go, Krosnick. Take a random sample, sure. But first make sure that they can read.
Did my tax money pay for this nonsense? The perpetrators should be fired for malingering on the job, and forced to repay every penny.
If you selected 1,000 Americans at random, how many could name the Vice President and the Secretary of State? How many could be induced by clever questioning to declare “di-hydrogen monoxide” a dangerous pollutant?
/Mr Lynn
Agree with what mack says here –
“For example, only 9 percent of respondents said they knew about the East Anglia e-mail messages”
OK then ,time to call the other 91% and give them the news!”
But given that only the second of the three surveys canvassed opinion ap to 29th November – just a week or so after the climategate story broke and surveys 1 and 3 ended on Sept 9th and Oct. 21st I think that a 9% result is a blinding result for awareness!
Survey 1 ran from Oct 2008 to Sept 2009 – therefore respondants not possible to be aware of Climate gate because it had not happened in that time frame.
Similarly with survey 3 that ran from Oct 7th 2009 to Oct 21st 2009.
Only survey 2 that ran from Nov 17th to Nov 29th 2009 had any chance of finding someone that could possibly be aware of “Climategat”
To get a meaningful percentage of awareness of Climategate you can only use Survey 2 and you would have to filter out all respondents before say the 21st November (and that is being generous given that it took a while to bet MSM interested) and THEN look at the figures!
It seems laughable that someone could set out such percentages knowing that the data sample for Climategate awareness is so flawed!
But then maybe i should stop being surprised anymore.
Doug
I suppose if one polled 1,000 randomly selected children under the age of 6 and asked if they believed there is a Santa Claus you would get about 95% saying yes. That doesn’t make it true. However, perhaps a funding grant would be needed to find out for sure.
@derise
“A couple of years ago, I was one of these “randomly selected American adults” for one of these poles. I carefully answered the questions honestly, writing down the questions and my answers…they hung up on me! How offensive!”
Probably not an actual poll, but a “push poll.” They pretend to be gathering data but really they’re just trying to shape your thinking on an issue (usually to get someone elected.. not a coincidence that your poll was timed around an election.)
As soon as they realized they weren’t going to be able to manipulate you they stopped wasting their time to move on to more productive pastures.
Regarding the number of people that don’t believe regulation would cause a rise in unemployment, I read a WSJ bit the other day with a poll that indicated that the majority of democrats have the same problems reconciling their world view to actual economic realities. I guess some people don’t like to acknowlege the down-side of a policy and want to pretend it simply doesn’t exist, while others are simply ignorant about cause/effect. 18% is rather low, actually.. I would have expected higher.
“Stanford and Woods Hole didn’t like the recent polls like these:…”
I don’t think this is Woods Hole Anthony.
Seems to be Woods Institute which appears to be some sort of subsidiary of Stanford”
Nonetheless, they did roll their own. I would bet they had some sort of selection criteria as to who they gave the survey(s) to. Comes under the heading of continued propaganda to keep the grant stream going.
Anthony,
Don’t give this bogus poll more stature than it deserves.
I doubt you really intended to write Woods Hole. As in Oceanographic Institute. It is the Woods Institute that was involved with this travesty. Not the same organization.
A long time ago I spent an afternoon in the library looking at political polls and how well the margin of error fit low polling candidates. The best resource I found was a book by George Gallup and one of the points he made was to never accept poll results unless it included a copy of the questions. He probably also said the polling methodology was vital too, but I knew that. (We have the UNH polling center, which is a master at skewing polls, their director even wrote a book on it.)
I looked at one set of questions and detailed results, see http://www.ap-gfkpoll.com/pdf/AP-Stanford_University_Environment_Poll_Topline.pdf . I like the first few questions, but some later ones may be leading, and there are things I would have done differently or explored (e.g. break out CO2 from “pollution”).
Some of what they do is done to steer the questioning toward climate, kinda interesting as Q1 (What do you think is the most important problem facing the country today?) saw only 1% say climate. Q2 (What do you think will be the most serious problem facing the world in the future if nothing is done to stop it?) did “better” and climate ranked #2, though with only 11%.
It’s pretty hard to summarize the .pdf, I recommend everyone here read it.
There’s only one stat I’d hang my hat on here.
3/4 of those surveyed made up 75% of the respondents.
Was Professor Krosnick a European Union bureacrat before becoming a professor of communication and of political science?
The poll follows the EU precedent. When Denmark voted against the treaty, they were required to vote again. When Ireland voted against the Treaty of Lisbon they were required to vote again. No votes in referenda are not acceptable in the EU.
Similarly Woods Hole appears to stipulate polls which do not provide the right answer must be disgarded in favour of those that do.
“Stanford and Woods Hole didn’t like the recent polls like these”
Please never refer to simply “Woods Hole” as that is a very ambiguous term:
Woods Hole, MA: A smallish community at the southern tip of Cape Cod that is overrun with important research institutions. (My sister was at the Marine Biological Labs when Emperor Hirohito came to visit in the 1970s.)
Woods Hole Oceangraphic Institute: The largest research and educational organization at Woods Hole. My brother-in-law got his Phd there. BTW, they don’t like hearing WHOI mispronounced. It’s should be Hooey, not Huey. IIRC.
Woods Hole Research Center – an activist organization that is happy when people think they’re WHOI.
And new to the list(!)
Woods Institute for the Environment – This is at Stanford on the left side of the country. While Stanford is known (in part) for big trees, this is really “The Ward W. and Priscilla B. Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University harnesses the expertise and imagination of leading academics and decision-makers to create practical solutions for people and the planet.”
Creek crossing. The water is cold and swift. One third of the population (world wide) comes to the creek with exposed stepping stones, showing intimidated behavior, crosses with neither foot dry and bruises on their posterior. A middle third of citizens, having some experience, does not miss a stride, most with dry feet, one or two with one wet foot, arriving on opposite bank. The final third, being provocative over analyzers (do not think outside of the box) sets down to contemplate a solution, all the while the two thirds are continuing up the path on the opposite creek side.
Polling to determine the act of ‘take that machine gun nest’ is not wise as a common rule.
“Our surveys reveal a small decline in the proportion of people who believe global warming has been happening, from 84 percent in 2007 to 74 percent today,” Krosnick said.
Good spinning! Even if a politician was running at 84% in the polls, a drop to 74% would have him denying that he pays attention to them.
If we turn this around, then 16% believed the globe wasn’t warming in 2007, and now 26% believe the globe isn’t warming. That means the group of disbelievers has grown 62% in just three years. Clearly we need a hot summer to “fix” that. Or maybe more alarmists cranking up the rhetoric while keeping it believable.
Or – Climate warming disbelievers improve to 162.5% of the 2007 group!
Growing public skepticism has, in recent months, been attributed to news reports about e-mail messages hacked from the computer system at the University of East Anglia in Britain….
I love the smell of ClimateGate in the morning…..
Ric Werme,
Thank you for pointing out the differences between the Woods Hole Oceangraphic Institute and the NGO fakers that use the Woods Hole name.
It could not be more clear.
Large research institutions, which depend on government funds, are using these very funds to finance their own advocates for their own interests.
It is really sick.
Modern science is rotten to the core. Totally corrupt. These institutions should be torn down. They are mostly running a Ponzi scheme built on fabricated & manipulated results and alarmist propaganda. For another example, just look at MIT and Susan Hockfield and the alarmist nonsense that she and this once respected institution spouts.
It is really sick.
So, it sounds like the questions were worded like:
Do you think, like, maybe, the temps like have been warming, possibly, in the, like, last 100, like, years or so?
Who coached them on these questions? A smart aleck mall-roving band of pre-teenagers?
“Scientists say that such year-to-year fluctuations are uninformative, and people who trust scientists therefore ignore this information when forming opinions about global warming’s existence,” he added. “But people who do not trust climate scientists base their conclusions on their personal observations of nature
In as much an admission that scientists and climate scientists are not the same. Also I do tend to trust my own eyes.
“…a small decline …. from 84 percent ….. to 74 percent…”
My computer model suggests that by early 2011, minus 23 percent of people will believe in global warming.
The MSM has done its job in spiking this story. This is why alternative sources are gaining credibility.
What Ric Werme said (June 10, 2010 at 5:55 am):
The perpetrators of this faux poll are at
“Woods Institute for the Environment – This is at Stanford on the left side of the country.”
Please correct the reference to “Woods Hole” in the first sentence, as that is a mistake, and will mislead people reading quickly. There is only one ‘hole’ appropriate for these agenda-mongers.
/Mr Lynn
Hiding the decline again … are we.
Why not ask people if they think Al Gore’s warm CO2 blanket exists? Then ask them to prove it … LOL
The real revealing part of this robust study is the statement, ” only 9% of the people surveyed knew about the East Anglia e-mail messages”. This confirms what I have stated many times before- Most people are stupid and uninformed about their world. That Is why 535 people can lead 300 plus millions around by their noses.
Sigh …
“# Four out of 5 respondents favored government requiring or offering tax breaks to encourage the production of cars that use less gas (81 percent), appliances that use less electricity (80 percent) and homes and office buildings that require less energy to heat and cool (80 percent);”
Giving “Tax Breaks” for desired behavior is identical to Taxing undesired behavior. Why are people so dense?
They simply used the MST Method (Mann Statistical Trick) and eliminated all samples that did not comply with their predetermined final result.