From the: University of Michigan
It’s all in a name: ‘Global warming’ vs. ‘climate change’
ANN ARBOR, Mich.—Many Americans are skeptical about whether the world’s weather is changing, but apparently the degree of skepticism varies systematically depending on what that change is called.
According to a University of Michigan study published in the forthcoming issue of Public Opinion Quarterly, more people believe in “climate change” than in “global warming.”
“Wording matters,” said Jonathon Schuldt, the lead author of the article about the study and a doctoral candidate in the U-M Department of Psychology.
Schuldt co-authored the study with U-M psychologists Sara Konrath and Norbert Schwarz. For the research, they conducted a question wording experiment in the American Life Panel, an online survey conducted by RAND, with a national sample of 2,267 U.S. adults. Participants were asked to report their level of certainty about whether global climate change is a serious problem. In the following question, half the participants heard one version, half heard the other:
“You may have heard about the idea that the world’s temperature may have been going up [changing] over the past 100 years, a phenomenon sometimes called ‘global warming’ [‘climate change’]. What is your personal opinion regarding whether or not this has been happening?
Overall, 74 percent of people thought the problem was real when it was referred to as climate change, while about 68 percent thought it was real when it was referred to as global warming.
These different levels of belief may stem from the different associations carried by the two terms, Schuldt said. “While global warming focuses attention on temperature increases, climate change focuses attention on more general changes,” he said. “Thus, an unusually cold day may increase doubts about global warming more so than about climate change. Given these different associations and the partisan nature of this issue, climate change believers and skeptics might be expected to vary in their use of these terms.”
As part of the study, the researchers also analyzed the use of these two terms on political think tank websites, finding that liberals and conservatives used different terms. Conservative think tanks tend to call the phenomenon global warming, while liberal think tanks call it climate change.
And when the researchers analyzed responses to the survey by political orientation, they found that the different overall levels in belief were driven almost entirely by participants who identified themselves as Republicans. While 60 percent of Republicans reported that they thought climate change was real, for example, only 44 percent said they believed in the reality of global warming.
In contrast, about 86 percent of Democrats thought climate change was a serious problem, no matter what it was called. Why weren’t they influenced by question wording? “It might be a ceiling effect, given their high level of belief,” Konrath said. “Or it could be that Democrats’ beliefs about global climate change might be more crystallized, and as a result, more protected from subtle manipulations.”
The good news is that Americans may not be as polarized on the issue as previously thought. “The extent of the partisan divide on this issue depends heavily on question wording,” said Schwarz, who is also affiliated with the U-M Ross Business School and the Institute of Social Research (ISR). “When the issue is framed as global warming, the partisan divide is nearly 42 percentage points. But when the frame is climate change, the partisan divide drops to about 26 percentage points.”
For a free reprint from the journal’s online depository: http://poq.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/nfq073?ijkey=YcGpwzhzykOYkl7&keytype=ref
U-M Sustainability fosters a more sustainable world through collaborations across campus and beyond aimed at educating students, generating new knowledge, and minimizing our environmental footprint. Learn more at sustainability.umich.edu
===============================================================
From that reprint, the results in Table 2, proving once again that the people belive the climate has changed and will continue to do so. It is a rather obvious result. – Anthony
Whether we call the changes “global warming” or climate change”, the effects on ecological systems are the same. When glaciers melt in Greenland, for example, and fresh water is added to the oceans, the currents slow down and this affects weather in northern regions. This phenomenon has been well documented.With the loss of sea ice, much more solar energy is absorbed by the oceans, warming them, and causing causing a thermal expansion which is resulting in rising sea levels everywhere. (This too is well documented)
Information such as this is poorly understood in the USA largely because the media either avoid the subject, or they present muddled information made available by “amateur scientists”. The effect then is obvious; large numbers of people simply don’t understand the problems, and many others “believe” that the issues being described by the scientists are really within God’s sphere of influence.
It is only in the USA that doubt regarding climate change is prevalent. This is not unexpected, given that a significant minority of people do not accept the most basic tenets of science, especially the theory of evolution.
It all reminds me of :
It seems to me that they missed the central point of the whole Global Warming Climate Change debate when phrasing the question. IMHO it would have improved their survey had they also asked participants to respond to the terms Anthropogenic Global Warming and Anthropogenic Climate Change. I wonder how that would have panned out amongst the political classes.
“Hugh Pepper says:
March 9, 2011 at 4:31 am”
Where is your proof Gleenland ice sheets are melting AND cooling the oceans AND slowing currents? I’ve seen it in the movies, but there is not one shred of proof it is happening AND it os caused by AGW.
Hugh Pepper says:
March 9, 2011 at 4:31 am
Whether we call the changes “global warming” or climate change”, the effects on ecological systems are the same. When glaciers melt in Greenland, for example, and fresh water is added to the oceans, the currents slow down and this affects weather in northern regions. This phenomenon has been well documented.With the loss of sea ice, much more solar energy is absorbed by the oceans, warming them, and causing causing a thermal expansion which is resulting in rising sea levels everywhere. (This too is well documented)
Information such as this is poorly understood in the USA largely because the media either avoid the subject, or they present muddled information made available by “amateur scientists”. The effect then is obvious; large numbers of people simply don’t understand the problems, and many others “believe” that the issues being described by the scientists are really within God’s sphere of influence.
It is only in the USA that doubt regarding climate change is prevalent. This is not unexpected, given that a significant minority of people do not accept the most basic tenets of science, especially the theory of evolution.
1. Its not only in the US that belief in AGW is waning, same is happening in the UK, Australia and in Europe even in Germany home of the Green political party. Mainly due to the tempetures not actually rising, the predicted endless doughts being replaced by floods and the no more snow in winter predictions being shown to be 100% false.
2. Belief in scientists is not 100% and never should be, if we believed Scientists in the UK we would still be eating BSE infected beef and being told its safe. Thats just one of many.
Media coverage of the carbon tax “debate” is shocking in Australia, I mean really, it’s way overkill every days since the Govn’t announcement that it would install a “carbon tax”. If the “consensus” was so solid and the “science was so settled” and most Australians believe all “facts” are presented in support that emissions of CO2 from activity is killing the planet, then why is Gillard having such a hard time selling the tax to the public? The answer, to me at least, seems obvious.
The question on whether GW has been happening is a tricky one because, while hardly anyone would say that it hasn’t warmed some the past 100 years, it now appears the warming has stopped. Therefore, although warming did happen (past tense), it no longer appears to be, therefore, to say it has been happening (present tense) would be incorrect. Republicans and Independents would be more apt to suss out that difference, whereas Dimocrats would not.
In other naming news:
“Top Climate Scientists to Give Themselves Nicknames.”
In an effort to build a bridge between the elite climate science community and ordinary, common citizens, top climate scientists will be referring to themselves using colorful nicknames. “I think we can better reach the public with our message” said James “Jimbo” Hansen. “Yes, and removing formal titles like ‘Dr.’ should make us more accessible,” offered Gavin “Bubba” Schmidt. Also on board with the new approach are Michael “Big Mike” Mann, Kevin “Kiwi Kev” Trenberth, and Mark “Moondoggie” Serreze.
\sarc
The “100 year warming” argujment is nionsesne. Even IPCC admist that AGW started only since 1975.
Truth is, at least Northern hemisphere since 1900 warmed a lot, then cooled, then warmed barely above the previous peak and now it is cooling again.
Alas, we haven’t all drowned, broiled or been blown out to sea, as Gore & Hansen promised.
The only dangerous thing about Climate Change is the vermin who are out to de-energize the West, leaving it helpless to cope with any change in climate, physical, economic or political.
A rose by any other name ….
Yikes!
Reading this thread has ruined my whole day and I may not be able to sleep tonight.
The climate is changing?
Whoa!
Why wasn’t I informed?
Why hasn’t this been discussed somewhere on the Internet?
I like it here in Florida but I’m not staying here now. I’m moving to a place where the climate isn’t changing. Change is just too disruptive and challenging for me.
The first step in my search for a new place to live will be to look at http://www.surfacestations.org/ and find the place that is the furthest from any of the monitoring stations. The logic – if there is nothing there to detect the change, it might not be changing.
You just gotta believe.
/grin
How unbearably stereotypical. They’re “focus-grouping” new global warming euphemisms.
Whatever the science may eventually converge to (catastrophe or non-problem or somewhere inbetween), I’d expect renaming and reframing at this stage, in fact I’d exxpect more to come…
http://judithcurry.com/2011/03/06/climate-story-telling-angst/#comment-53804
These doctoral candidates 🙁 seem quite unaware of the political evolution of the concepts of their “research.”
When temperatures were higher during the 1998 El Nino, the term used by the converted was ‘Anthropological Global Warming.’….. But then, post 2000, temperatures plateaued. Not to worry, the Ministry of Truth knows what to do, let’s call it ‘Climate Change.’ Fits the facts, (climate always changes and any skeptic who disagrees is shown to be scientifically unaware and we can call them ‘flat earthers!’)
Things get hot! (Metaphorically, that is.) Climategate- delete all emails! McIntyre/ Mosher& Charles the Mod, et al, Anthony and WUWT Award winning Blog & Surface Stations exposures, Willis’ postings… we all know the history 🙂 Hmm, change it to ‘CLIMATE DISRUPTION’ …. That’ll scare the living daylights out of them…
LOL!
On topic, remember that the issue for the naive left is neither weather, nor climate, nor any empirically verifiable hypotheses. Indeed, the word ‘hypothesis’ would be anathema to these folks, for it explicitly challenges ‘belief’. ‘Climate change’, ‘carbon pollution’, etc., are just codewords, telling the listener that you accept and pay obeisance to the prevailing politically-correct ideology of ‘sustainability’ and statist intervention to ‘save the planet’ from man and his works.
To say that you ‘believe in climate change’ is in effect to say that you subscribe to the good feeling you get from joining with other fellow-traveling watermelons in opposing the nasty right-wing capitalists, warmongers, and other despoilers of the Earth. Never mind that it was those evil men who built the factories and refineries and power plants that keep you and your family housed and your Toyota Pious running.
/Mr Lynn
Put AGW into perspective. The “scientists” say 10 years is too short a time to determine a temperature trend, i.e 1998-2008/9 for cooling. Yet they would concede though that 30 years is too short a trend for warming/cooling, but they say their 30 year ranges are appropriate for the purpose. However, the planet is 4,500 million years old. If the planet is that old, & let’s say the atmosphere was relatively fixed component wise by 4,000 million years ago, for argument sake, we’re talking about 150 years of temperature increase, which means we’re talking ab out 150/4,000,000 x 100% = 3.75 x 10^-6% of the Earth’s history, which I personally think ain’t worth a brass farthing of worrying about!
U-M Department of Psychology!!!!! Blimey! Everyone wants a piece of the AGW grants!
Is anyone in the study qualified as a “Climate Scientist”?
Sarc<
Every time one of the AGW gang accuses us on denying Climate Change makes me want to………….Phttttttttt!
It’s what happens when you get a bunch of closed in true believers trying to figure out what went wrong, then someone pops up claiming that it wasn’t that they were wrong, but that they just didn’t market it properly. Suddenly the mood elevates to near delirium as they convince themselves that they have dodged a bullet, when in fact all they have done is change the subject without dealing with the problem. The original issues still remain, but wishful thinking overwhelms their senses and they force themselves to act as if nothing is wrong–and continue making the same mistakes. This usually precedes a massive failure, which finally forces the participants to face the problems head on, but by that time it is way too late. Look at how GM has behaved, or Egypt etc. Same thing.
Cheers! (ex-INGSOC)
“the lead author of the article about the study and a doctoral candidate in the U-M Department of Psychology”
Yet another example of how, IMHO, ‘higher education’ is becoming not only worthless but harmful to the intellect of those involved.
“Intelligence appears to be the thing that enables a man to get along without education. Education enables a man to get along without the use of his intelligence.” – Albert Edward Wiggin
The name game… Yeah, “carbon dioxide emissions” are now “carbon pollution.” Why do they just pick on the carbon of carbon dioxide? I mean, there are TWO oxygens for each carbon in carbon dioxide. Wouldn’t it make twice as much sense to refer to carbon dioxide emissions as “oxygen pollution”?
As for “climate change”, I make it a point to always say “Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming.” Anytime CAGW alarmists use a name that leaves out any of those four attributes — catastrophic, anthropogenic, global or warming — then they are moving the goal posts to cover up their lack of accurate predictions.
This is obvious. Can’t believe a doctorate can be awarded for this. Obviously more people will agree with a wider statement than a narrower one. It does not require research.
The various rebrandings of AGW as “climate change” or “climate disruption” or whatever just aren’t catching on with the public. The new term is “Clean Energy,” as in maybe greenhouse gases aren’t really changing the climate, but we need to get off carbon anyway.
This isn’t a name change so much but an attempt to change the topic. The greens decided long ago that fossil fuels are evil and jumped on the global warming bandwagon as a justification of that belief. (Notice the belief came first and the purported reason for that belief came second.)
Another attempt to change the topic of discussion is claiming we need to stop using fossil fuels because of national security. Never mind that we buy almost new oil from Arab nations and especially never mind that producing our own oil would also help ensure our own security. Debating with facts and logic won’t win points in this game. The greens decided long ago what the solutions should be based upon their beliefs, not facts.
Wowser, what is happening in the middle troposphere lately in the NH AMSU TMT Brightness Temperature The TLT channel is cold too.
“Overall, 74 percent of people thought the problem was real when…”
When looking at the inferred results of a survey *always* look at the actual question that was asked:
“You may have heard about the idea that the world’s temperature may have been going up [changing] over the past 100 years, a phenomenon sometimes called ‘global warming’ [‘climate change’]. What is your personal opinion regarding whether or not this has been happening?”
You’ll note that this question says nothing (all-caps underlined, bold, italics) about there being a problem. Stating that 74% of people thought there was an actual problem is just plain lying.
Mike.