IBD picks up on the SciAm poll WUWT covered here.
Global Warming: Wouldn’t the followers of Scientific American have a pretty good understanding of what’s really going on with the climate? If a reader poll is any indication, they’re skeptical man is heating the planet.
For years we’ve heard that scientists have reached a “consensus” that the earth is warming due to a greenhouse effect caused by carbon dioxide emissions resulting from man’s use of fossil fuels. No use in discussing it further, Al Gore and others have said. It’s happening.
Not every reader of Scientific American magazine is a scientist. But the responses of the 7,000 readers (6,767 as of Friday morning) who’ve taken the magazine’s online poll strongly suggest that claims of a consensus are, at best, an exaggeration.
More than three-fourths (77.7%) say natural processes are causing climate change and almost a third (31.9%) blame solar variation. Only 26.6% believe man is the cause. (The percentages exceed 100 because respondents were allowed to choose more than one cause on this question.)
Whether climate change is man-caused or natural, most respondents don’t believe there’s anything that can be done about it anyway. Nearly seven in 10 (69.2%) agree “we are powerless to stop it.” A mere one in four (25.7%) recommend switching “to carbon-free energy sources as much as possible and adapt to changes already under way.”
It seems even some of those who would endorse changing energy sources don’t believe the benefits are worth the costs (which indicates they aren’t taking the alarmists’ claims seriously). Almost eight in 10 (79.4%) answer “nothing” to the question: “How much would you be willing to pay to forestall the risk of catastrophic climate change?”
A small but apparently hard-core 12.3% say they’d be OK with spending “whatever it takes.” Only 4.9% choose “a doubling of gasoline prices” while 3.4% don’t mind paying “a 50% increase in electricity bills.”
That small, but hard, core likely makes up most of the 15.7% who think “the IPCC, or Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, is an effective group of government representatives, scientists and other experts.” These holdouts are overwhelmed, though, by the 83.6% who agree the IPCC “is a corrupt organization, prone to groupthink, with a political agenda.”
This isn’t what we expected from the readers of a magazine that Cato’s Patrick Michaels says “has been shilling for the climate apocalypse for years.” Yet we’re not shocked. A new consensus is emerging as the unraveling of the global warming tale picks up speed.
See editorial at IBD here
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Sharperoo: allow me to penetrate your obtuseness: more skeptics gamed it because there is now more fervor against the theory of AGW than for it. That is a new development in the past two years or so. The fervor was once primarily on the side of the true believers in AGW. Now it appears to be primarily on the side of the skeptics.
It was only a matter of time, given the condition of the “consensus” science.
Ooops missed out an ‘ing’ there. I just hope some tedious pedant doesn’t use it to discredit the idea, as we all know how much more important grammar and spelling are to some folk than concepts, sigh!
Sharperoo:
I think John and the Duke pretty nicely summarize the answer to my rhetorical question. Motivation.
—————–
Pamela Gray,
The sun is just over the yardarm here in NY, so perchance, you have authorization to proceed even though it may not be where you are . . . . cold or no cold. : )
Enjoy, and recover soon.
John
All the skeptics who post here and who voted in the SA poll are getting big fat checks from the fossil fuel lobby for accomplishing the goal that was organized and executed by a crack team of deniers. In their underground base, the denier leaders plot the overthrow of the consensus. The deniers huge influence on the MSM and reality has clearly had an effect on public opinion …………… ooops,sorry…… I left the ACME sarcasm machine on again.
Despite the fact that the poll was so bad, as a poll, that I refused to take it, and despite the fact that it was, no doubt, “gamed”, there was still an interesting result. The big winner was “yes, Climate Scientists should engage with skeptics”. Apparently, people who claim never to have heard of Judith Curry agree with her on this point. To me, “the debate is over” and “the science is settled” sound a lot like “lalala I can’t hear you”. Apparently, I’m not the only one. This seems good!
Best,
Frank
I remember reading in a biography of John Kennedy that he told aides that he had learned not to worry about polls showing unexpected 10% support for weird or silly positions, saying something like, “in any poll there will always be 10% of support for even the strangest positions”.
I hope the editors and designer of that ill designed and non-random poll are embarrassed that its results are getting attention in other press. I suspect that the readers of IBD are well aware that an Internet poll isn’t worth the paper its not printed on, but at least it suggests there are more skeptics out there than there are members of the Flat Earth Society.
(Aside to Dave Ball – you got your check? Mine must be late, I’ll talk to Mr Big at the lobby about it, they must not have my address right.)
Nick, Sharperoo,
10
I suppose you are suggesting that W. Connolly and others who have gamed Wicki for years on climatescience, even erasing parts of biographies, and the esteemed synod of CAGW bishops who blocked publication of skeptical papers, blackballed heretical journal editors, had some fired, even rejoiced at the death of a prominent skeptical climate scientist whose arguments and data were problematical to them – refrained from stuffing the ballot box? I’m sure you are honorable gentlemen but I hope you wouldn’t keep company with such as these. Check out all the other polls in the last 6-10 months – they tell you the same thing – It would seem you are in the 16% group.
Nick makes a good point, that some believe the IPCC does research rather than just summarize it.
Not sure I know the difference, if the IPCC takes the summaries, or properly, the results of the research, filters it, subjects it to censorship by people of its choosing who contort it to obtain a pre-determined product……..Then what is the difference?
Triggered instinctive involuntary laughter:
“the IPCC, or Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, is an effective group of government representatives, scientists and other experts.”
That ship has sunk.
From an old text, the treatment of a cold: Hang your hat on a bedpost, get into bed, and drink from a bottle of good whiskey until you see two hats.
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Curiousgeorge says:
November 14, 2010 at 9:29 am
The “correct” interpretation (spin) of these results is that it shows a need for a massive “education” and media campaign to “enlighten” the obviously ignorant peasants of their fate should they continue to reject the righteous conclusions of the Environmental Illuminati. (sarcoff)
Yes. Look out for CCDPs.
Skeptical Science moving into solutions #23 Roger A. Wehage at 06:40 AM on 13 November, 2010
Trying to educate the upper echelon is not working, so the only recourse may be to start at the bottom. Bring in Climate Change Denial Psychologists to learn how to sway the masses.
An online poll that lets you vote more than once …..believable?
REPLY: Only if you cheat by disabling cookies- A
sharper00 says:
November 14, 2010 at 8:37 am
Bonus points though since WUWT posted a link to the poll and then later posts a link to an article about the poll. Now the people who themselves voted on it can comment and say the result shows their opinion is gaining momentum!
yeah that’s the best we can do around here. we lack the trillions in funding from governments, NGOs, and the fossil fuel industry to generate an echo chamber of alarmist size…you know, the IPCC, entire University departments, AP, Reuters, the NYT and virtually every other media outlet.
and for your edification don’t forget the actual SCAM article called the good Dr.Curry a denier and a heretic. for merely suggesting scientists do actual science.
This winther will be interesting.
What was that popping sound in the Scientific American offices?
See this Dilbert reference.
(Sounds like they’re making popcorn in there!)
John M said on November 14, 2010 at 9:52 am:
To help you on figuring out what spelling is appropriate, you could check with Sandra Bollock.
I suspect the editors of SciAm would have trumpeted the outcome of their “unscientific” poll, had it gone their way. I used to subscribe to the mag back when it was filled with real science, not the dumbed-down fluff of today. Now I get my copies free from my barber, who wonders why it turns up in the mail unsolicited. Fallen are the mighty!!!
>>John M says:
November 14, 2010 at 9:50 am
“97 percent agreeing humans play a role”
Who (except Jonesy and his mates) wouldn’t agree that humans play “a role” in warming … via UHI ?
The question was incorrectly phrased. It should have been “do you agree that man’s CO2 emissions are causing significant and dangerous global warming ?”
The Scientific American has, unfortunately, become a misnomer.
The magazine is now run by an elite editorial staff that openly practices the art of abusing scientific principle, twisting fact with fiction and propagandizing it as scientific gospel [I know what else is new].
Sadly science has taken a back seat to sell an ever diminishing print publication that’s appears to be incapable of surviving the passing of paper as a major media…,
How many pine for the glory days of Albert Ingalls and C.L. Stong?…,
Nick,
Science is not governed with a poll on a website. The “consensus” you hear refers to published literature, the examined evidence, rather than some vote within the scientific community.
Nick, you’re taking this way to seriously. Of course we don’t think this means your side lost, but it is a little like watching you score on your own goal. This was a poll at a warmista site after all so don’t think the results were only because of WUWT.
MikeEE
Nick seems to be saying that it can’t be due to increased heat output from the sun. That’s the old straw man argument. The actual theory is that when the sun’s magnetic field is strong, when there are numerous sunspots, the magnetic field and solar wind causes less cosmic rays to reach the earth, causing a change in cloud cover, causing increased temperatures.
By misrepresenting the argument to be that increased heat from the sun warmed the earth, Nick has erected a straw man that he can easily demolish, as there is nowhere near enough extra heat from the sun to explain the warming.
Such tricks indicated advocacy, not a search for the truth. It would be better to examine the actual theory, rather than set up a false one to demolish.
David Ball says:
November 14, 2010 at 11:28 am
‘All the skeptics who post here and who voted in the SA poll are getting big fat checks from the fossil fuel lobby for accomplishing the goal that was organized and executed by a crack team of deniers. In their underground base, the denier leaders plot the overthrow of the consensus.’
LMAO. Anthony has to be the one with the cat, as he has already confessed in another post. (Or is it really a meeting of the now defunct CCX.)
John M says:
November 14, 2010 at 9:50 am
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-01/uoia-ssa011609.php
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Interesting that in this very controlled survey taken last year; 97% of Climatologists active in research believed humans played a role in global warming whereas the biggest doubters were Geologists and Meteorologists at 47% and 64%.
So how does one become a Climatologist?