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
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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
Perry at 2.48 am said listen to Andrew Bolt chatting to Jill Duggan. Thank you Perry. It was well worth listening to. If only the BBC could do that kind of interview. The BBC is a disgrace. We should know in the UK what the EU is doing with carbon taxes and we don’t because there is no Andrew Bolt over here.
Make it go viral Perry said – I wish I could, but I don’t know how, but I hope that somebody reading this does. It’s the best think I’ve heard for a long time.
berniel says:
How much money did we pay for this research that totally misrepresents the debate? Do they seriously think that the sceptical position is that the climate is not changing? …that we are arguing about whether the globe has warmed over the last 100 years?? Can they really be so removed from reality, or are we lead to conclude that this is another type of “careful speaking.”
I would say they really think their detractors are actually that stupid.
Frank K. says:
“Top Climate Scientists to Give Themselves Nicknames.”
…said James “Jimbo” Hansen.
Obviously trying to get us to confuse him with our own “Jimbo”
Patrick Davis says:
At least Jesus could build a boat. Not sure about the carpentry abilities of Al Gore however, I am also not sure of his floating capacity
I forget, do witches sink or float?
If the climate never changed, if it has always been truly stable, would our language have ever thought of the word “climate”?
R. Shearer says:
March 9, 2011 at 11:11 am
“As a scientist, I would rather explore whether there is a better term for AGW than “hoax.””
I agree. Hoax sounds too minor and ‘unscientific.’
How about a Piltdown hypothesis?
“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?
Ask a different question… get a different answer. Who knew?
The flawed premise is that the terms Climate Change and Global Warming are equivalent. They are only to the indoctrinated.
What they proved is that the terms are equivalent to one group of people but not to the other. In doing so they show which group they identify with.
Some may have attempted to answer accepting the terminology of the questioner, and some may answer using their own terminology. This could account for the differences in responses attributed to the more conservative.
With regards to the question of global warming, we can’t be confident that there has been any warming in the instrumental record when considering the error. We also know, thanks to Anthony, the sad state of the collection network and the erroneous corrections to the record, if you get Hansen’s drift.
Once they prove there has been warming, then they can try to attribute it’s cause. Until we have actual evidence there is only faith. Fortunately the believers identify themselves by adopting the mantra of their masters.
One day they will call it Climate Science
“Conservative think tanks tend to call the phenomenon global warming, while liberal think tanks call it climate change.”
I find this result odd, since I am pretty sure ‘climate change’ was popularized by Fox News.
Climate challenges? So we’ve got to be politically correct about this crap now?
Someone here suggested “the CACA Cult.” (CACA = Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Alarmism)
“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.”
not referred to as ANTHROPOGENIC GLOBAL WARMING, naturally.
obviously those who didn’t thought it was a problem when it was called “climate change, were being asked about a “problem”, so associated with the AGW.
in australia, the “carbon” tax for “climate change” refuses to use any proper definitions, so many people believe it’s about soot to deal with pollution. some believe it’s about carbon monoxide. the MSM on the whole, does nothing to enlighten them.
a breakthrough of sorts:
8 March: Herald Sun Australia: Terry McCrann: Carbon not the same thing as CO2
ASTONISHINGLY, the PM, the Cabinet and members of the Canberra Press Gallery don’t know the difference between carbon and carbon dioxide.
There are two great lies told about the need to “put a price on carbon”. Lies which I can’t recall a single member of the gallery ever confronting the liars with — far less the prime liar herself.
And it’ll be a cold day in hell before you see a critical commentary from any of the supposed leading lights of the gallery such as Fairfax’s Michelle Grattan or Peter Hartcher applying a critical analysis to the claims…
Every time Gillard or Climate Change Minister Greg Combet mouths the term “carbon pollution”, a competent journalist would ask questions like:
Do you understand that you are referring to what you are breathing out? Please explain how this is pollution? How are you going to stop personally polluting? Why don’t you use the accurate term carbon dioxide?…
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/business/terry-mccranns-column/carbon-not-the-same-thing-as-co2/story-e6frfig6-1226017312737
reclaiming the language is vital.
@Tom
Reply: Ok, but I’m not going near chunck or headace. ~ ctm
Hey ~ ctm, thanks for that. I got an extra laugh because I understood “splitting headace”.
As always, in grateful appreciation of our moderators.
Cheers Jack
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)
Perhaps you haven’t heard, sea levels since about 2006 have slowed their slow but steady rise since the end of the last little ice age, and as of right now, that formerly very slow rise has stopped, or even started going negative. So, tell me, where is this “well documented”?
The statement you have made here is, frankly, a bald faced lie. Perhaps you can be excused if you are merely repeating the constant propaganda you are bombarded with where you live, which tells me that that place does not have a free press any longer. Even if that is true, however, you are posting on THIS site. This site has presented the evidence of the actual non rise in sea levels (as have many others, many of them official government agency in charge of that sort of measurement/peer reviewed etc type sites) Thus, at the very least, you have not done due dilligence to find out if what you beleive is fact or not.
Conclusion, the central tenet of your argument is easily demonstrated to be false, your argument is rejected. You should go look up the meaning of this word >SCIENCE.
“How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg.”
— Abraham Lincoln
Hugh Pepper says:
March 9, 2011 at 4:31 am
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.
So, in contrast to the alleged lack of scientifc thinking allegedly proven ipso facto by those who are deniers or questioners of evolution – which I don’t find to be the case, as a ‘believer’ in evolution in some sense myself – if you and, allegedly, the majority of “the rest of the world”, say or repeat things enough times, or there is a “consensus” about “what most people say”, or receive as true simply on authority from “experts” and then repeat, therefore what is said becomes true?
No, Hugh, as to your claims above, instead there is almost no doubt that you are merely another foreigner, here to tell us what the whole rest of the world outside of the U.S. thinks, which by now always seems to need to include the usual pro forma self-gratificational diss of Americans.
Or, Hugh, are you even aware of the existence of a “rest of the world” outside of America and wherever you are?
Regardless, since you obviously don’t know what the whole rest of the world believes in terms of the prevelance of a belief in CO2=CAGW, don’t you think that perhaps the rest of what you say could be on shakey ground, too?
Because, where the rubber meets the road, both China and India have convincingly communicated via their concrete actions involving crash programs to construct at least hundreds of coal-fired electricity plants each, that they think what the ipcc Climate Science alleges to be the cause of its alleged catastrophic CO2=CAGW disease, the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, to instead be necessary to the cure of their own current diasaster, underdevelopment. It’s really that simple, they “voted with their feet”, and their decision was reasonable and eminently based upon “the science”.
Therefore, Hugh, since you don’t seem to know even the rudiments of proving a rational argument and thus are at best probably only repeating vacant memes that you’ve heard “most people say” regarding the rest of the world and America, and have probably taken what “experts” and “scientists” say as true on authority, it’s not surprising that you also don’t know that the CO2=CAGW ipcc Climate Science is not only not doing real, scientific method and principle, science, but is also even assiduously avoiding doing it.
Because, Hugh, ipcc Climate Science is nothing more than a massive Propaganda Operation, directed at people like you, which aims at looting and controlling as much of the people of the world as possible. It’s just that simple in this case, too.
For example, are you aware that since the ipcc Climate Science Propaganda Operation – via its drastically failed “word game” sophistry – has now even managed to make the term “climate change” mean or equal “CO2=CAGW”, therefore, its “Climate Science” now essentially asserts the “denalistic” absurdity that there was no “climate change” ever, prior to the alleged CO2=CAGW “climate change”? And that concerning which its “science” so far has been unable to make even one successful prediction uniquely attaching its CO2=CAGW “science”, that is, a real prediction born out empirically by what then happens in the real world? Or as having produced anything at all provenly abnormal for the usual “natural” climate – something you, too, can even see by the fact that its “science” is now reduced to having to propagandize any possible fear mongering weather event of its choice which happens to occur, as an alleged effect of CO2=CAGW, but which never pans out to be abnormal in the light of facts.
From there on, Hugh, ipcc Climate Science “science” even gets worse, while its disasterous effects on Humanity continue to get worse, and will continue to get worse, unless we stop what is really a criminal and infiltrative Propaganda Operation from being on course toward its completly non-scientifically based and oriented goals of looting and controlling as much of the world as possible, which also involves at some level the intentional creation of true “man made disasters”.
Hugh, if you by chance want to save the world or do anything meaningful regarding the ipcc’s, enc., Climate Science science, you need to somehow get yourself on the right side.
No way its Irritable Climate Sydrome, I saw the poll.The words these acedemically educated ignoramists are seeking is , “Among the Climatically Challenged, belief as opposed to logic/real life experience allows the systematic and continual looting of 86% of this group.
Both questions are useless, as the answer has to be yes to both of them. Both climate change and global warming are happening – always have and always will. The question should have been : “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’]. Do you think human influence is significant in causing this to happen?”
It’s been fascinating over the last couple of years to observe the behavior of people of good intelligence, good will, and honorable inclinations – who’ve been exposed to precisely zero credible information discrediting the CAGW model(s) they’ve been fed, and fed by the very people that we were all raised to respect – scientists, and purveyed in publications that were once rightly respected for rigor and empirical veracity.
Interestingly, the more “political” they are, in the sense of their politics representing a larger as opposed to a smaller part of their self-identity, the more likely they’ve been to react to skeptics with more than one reflexive label: The “Flat-Earther” smear of course we’re all familiar with but it isn’t really the cheerful initial response I’m thinking of. I’m more intrigued by the slightly less disrespectful sobriquet for skeptics that’s popped into the minds of the kindlier of these folks and that is the label “Denier” or “Denialist. ”
Now most of us are aware of all the pseudo-pathological baggage such terms have picked up over the last decades. Although there seems to have been a recent lull in this sort of response as we proud Denialists have become more in evidence and are beginning to be perceived as clearly capable of primitive reasoning, if not even some crude but recognizable patterns of ape-like reflection.
The evolution of these labels, along with all the rank political jockeying of the Warministas for the terminological high ground, reminds me of the Bolshevik mentality, and its bizarre apotheosis toward the end of the Soviet “experiment” with their invention of what I’d call a politico-psychiatric diagnostic theory – especially as described by Alexander Solzhenitsyn in The Gulag Archipelago.
The disease model for describing threateningly individualistic behavior (e.g. drunkenness, fondness for drugs, excessive flash and panache etc., think of wild men like Charlie Sheen or Andrew Jackson) enjoyed a bang-up success in the West. Consequently, Soviet psychiatrists, when tasked with the growing predicament of clearly intelligent, if not brilliant, celebrity dissidents to Communism, had an inspired idea. These creatures were no longer to be seen as slimy lickspittle running-dog lackey-tools and dupes to Capitalist/Imperialism – and therefore intrinsically evil. No, they were just really sick, the poor devils. It was realized that just as one could be politically healthy, one could likewise become politically sick.
When the wall came down, a lot of this kind of thinking migrated west into Western Europe and even, dare I say, Great Britain and the US.
But hereabouts nowadays lately, the burgeoning Twelve Step Industry in the States has put the notion of “dissident as sicko” firmly into the heads of our own home grown proto-Bolshevists, a great many of whom have gravitated into both the radical Gender Movement and the Academy. And alcoholism and drug addiction have long since been visualized as diseases (and with about as much justification for being so designated as say, a talent for billiards or a hankering after limericks – IMHO)
Anyhow, if the hallmark symptom of sickness is DENIAL, then we dissidents from the party line of CAGW are almost certainly going to be tagged as suffering from the disease of CAGW Denialism, and therefore worthy and therefore worthy of pity for being “sick” as opposed to merely Ignorantly and Parochially Evil. It’s not only a dandy way to trivialize someone; it’s an even more effective ad hominem technique for shutting them the f*** up.
All of which babbling leads to this:
It’s imperative to beat them to the draw. I would propose that in order to get out front in the Great Terminological Climate Disparagement Race and stay there, it’s time to understand the CAGWism problem not as political, or even religious, but pathological. It’s a disease you see, and they can’t help it. And like all brain problems, its first tip off is of course the phenomenon of being – I’ll say it again – in DENIAL.
But in denial of what, you may ask? Elementary, Watson. They suffer from a serious case of Scientific Triumphalism and Modernity and what might be called the “Humans are God” Problem. Or HAG. More precisely put, they’re in denial of the clammy, disquieting certainty that the world is so much bigger than they are that they can’t flatter themselves with the ability to slow it down, or stop its rotation or revolution, or divert its orbit, or change its ocean level, or anything that’s noticeable from even a miniscule distance into space.
And it terrifies them that they’re really really little too. And the earth is still really really – I mean really – BIG. In the late sixties, Bucky Fuller proved mathematically that he could fit the entire human race on Manhattan Island with two feet separating each individual – if he could use all the floors of the buildings, parking decks, etc. Today I imagine it’s down to one foot, or maybe six inches, but that’s not the point. Even the bio-mass of the world’s insects outweighs the combined weight of all the humans on the planet by some huge factor that I can’t seem to recall at the moment. But you get the idea…
So you see, they aren’t evil or a pack of timorous hand-wringing little neurotic pessimistic wusses and worry-warts. Well…they’re not evil at least. They’re just really really sick with a dormant case of Stinkingthinkitis or something. And I for one feel sorry for them and firmly believe that every day that passes without one or more complete Twelve Step programs set up to help them, and maybe a whole bunch of Montessori schools to reach out to their poor miserable terrified children, is just one more day of prolonging their misery. The time has come. Our common humanity dictates that we have to reach out to those suffering from this disease. I speak of course of “HAGism” and especially that most virulent form of it known as “CAGWitis” (pronounced kag-why′-dis)!!
The expression “Climate Change is real and we must take action now” is so incredibly funny.
It’s amazing that so many seemingly intelligent folks do not get the joke.
Jimmy Haigh says:
March 9, 2011 at 1:24 pm
Climate challenges? So we’ve got to be politically correct about this crap now?
This is really bad…..but how about “Special Climate”
Neither. As I attempted to point out earlier (March 9, 2011 at 6:39 am), these student pollsters and their audience alike understand that these terms (‘global warming’ and ‘climate change’) are just codewords, meaning roughly, ‘accept the prevailing ideology of the enviro-Marxist left’. The pollsters’ aim is to simply help the propagandists decide which term furthers their (currently faltering) campaign to convince the American people that, as Algore said, “The planet has a fever!” and requires draconian state intervention in our lives to cure it. They have no interest in whether there is actually any scientific basis to the claims of so-called ‘climate science’, which practitioners have simply been enlisted as ‘useful idiots’ in the cause, and are either dupes or willing participants.
/Mr Lynn
It sure would help if those who are knowledgeable and realize this “Climate Change” is merely a ploy would stop using that very coined term in discussions, it only helps instill some incorrect validity. Probably someone can come up with a better term but it needs to tell it as it is, hold back no punches. Whatever decided of a good term I will follow suit from here out and I’m sure most other would also. See, I’ve already modified my first stab made at it earlier.
Climate ChangeMass Climate Deceptionor
Climate ChangeThe Mass Climate Delusionor
Climate ChangeThe Climate MirageMost here know this is a psychological disorder and it should be treated so. It will take clinical psychiatrists years to cure the worst as
Hugh Pepper has displayed above, and I feel sorry for him. And this is a during a period when a 300+ year temperature record recorded the same mean temperature as it was in the 1600’s. But he is in a panic, and blaming whole countries for his delusion, and clearly needs some help. Being somewhat like a cult mentality, it would be better termed “de-programmed” that removes the brain washing.
I’m sure others here also hate speaking with “terms” they know deep down are not only incorrect but very misleading. Simply stop doing it.
ctm,
Thanks for making the change I asked you to make for me, it was above and beyond your call of duty. My head was pounding so bad, I couldn’t even look at the screen. As for “headace” and “Chnuck”, I propose that these are the two new words we can use to refer to the whole Global Warming debate.
Tanhk you for yuor hmour and wit.
‘Climate Fraud’?
‘Globaloney’?
‘Carbophobia’?
/Mr Lynn
This is an excellent idea for a Grade 5 Science Project.
These days it appears they include free college degrees & doctorates inside cereal boxes.
How pathetic.
Hi Mr Lynn,
‘Carbophobia’, not bad, very descriptive of the effect. The others are, of course, true but best not be so strong to cause a backlash from the soft spoken. Need to stay serious on this so what is happening now in Great Britain and Australia doesn’t find it’s way here.