This must be “polarization week” in social science, as this is the second study published this week on political polarization of the global warming issue. See the previous story on WUWT: Democrats and Republicans increasingly divided over global warming
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From the UNH Carsey Institute:
Disagreement on causes based on political views, not science
DURHAM, N.H. – Most Americans now agree that climate change is occurring, but still disagree on why, with opinions about the cause of climate change defined by political party, not scientific understanding, according to new research from the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire.
Republicans most often point to natural causes of climate change while Democrats most often believe that human activities are the cause. The greatest polarization occurs among people who believe they have the best understanding.
“Although there remains active discussion among scientists on many details about the pace and effects of climate change, no leading science organization disagrees that human activities are now changing the Earth’s climate. The strong scientific agreement on this point contrasts with the partisan disagreement seen on all of our surveys,” said Lawrence Hamilton, professor of sociology and senior fellow with the UNH Carsey Institute.
“However, most people gather information about climate change not directly from scientists but indirectly, for example through news media, political activists, acquaintances, and other nonscience sources. Their understanding reflects not simply scientific knowledge, but rather the adoption of views promoted by political or opinion leaders they follow. People increasingly choose news sources that match their own views. Moreover, they tend to selectively absorb information even from this biased flow, fitting it into their pre-existing beliefs,” Hamilton said.
A series of regional surveys conducted by Carsey Institute researchers in 2010 and early 2011 asked nearly 9,500 individuals in seven regions in the United States about climate change.
Key findings include:
- Most people say that they understand either a moderate amount or a great deal about the issue of global warming or climate change.
- Large majorities agree that climate change is happening now, although they split on whether this is attributed mainly to human or natural causes.
- Level of understanding about climate change varies considerably by region.
- Beliefs about climate change are strongly related to political party. Republicans most often believe either that climate is not changing now or that it is changing but from mainly natural causes. Democrats most often believe that the climate is changing now due mainly to human activities.
- Political polarization is greatest among the Republicans and Democrats who are most confident that they understand this issue. Republicans and Democrats less sure about their understanding also tend to be less far apart in their beliefs.
- People who express lower confidence also might be more likely to change their views in response to weather.
“If the scientists are right, evidence of climate change will become more visible and dramatic in the decades ahead. Arctic sea ice, for example, provides one closely watched harbinger of planetary change. In its 2007 report the IPCC projected that late-summer Arctic sea ice could disappear before the end of the 21st century. Since that report was written, steeper-than-expected declines have led to suggestions that summer sea ice might be largely gone by 2030, and some think much sooner,” Hamilton said.
“We will find out in time—either the ice will melt, or it won’t. The Arctic Ocean, along with other aspects of the ocean-atmosphere system, presents an undeniable physical reality that could become more central to the public debate. In the meantime, however, public beliefs about physical reality remain strikingly politicized,” he said.
The complete report about this research is available at http://www.carseyinstitute.unh.edu/publications/IB-Hamilton-Climate-Change-2011.pdf.
This research was supported by grants from the Ford Foundation, Kellogg Foundation, Neil and Louise Tillotson Fund, New Hampshire Charitable Foundation, Office of Rural Development in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, UNH Sustainability Academy, and the Carsey Institute. The UNH Survey Center conducted all telephone interviews.
The Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire conducts research and analysis on the challenges facing families and communities in New Hampshire, New England, and the nation. The Carsey Institute sponsors independent, interdisciplinary research that documents trends and conditions affecting families and communities, providing valuable information and analysis to policymakers, practitioners, the media, and the general public. Through this work, the Carsey Institute contributes to public dialogue on policies that encourage social mobility and sustain healthy, equitable communities.
The Carsey Institute was established in May 2002 through a generous gift from UNH alumna and noted television producer Marcy Carsey. For more information about the Carsey Institute, go to www.carseyinstitute.unh.edu.
The University of New Hampshire, founded in 1866, is a world-class public research university with the feel of a New England liberal arts college. A land, sea, and space-grant university, UNH is the state’s flagship public institution, enrolling 12,200 undergraduate and 2,300 graduate students.
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I believe whenever these surveys are carried out they should include a specific definition of what exactly they mean by Climate Change. It seems to me that there has been deliberate obfuscation of this term, something which I believe scientists such as Roger Pielke and Richard Lindzen have already pointed out. It is fundamentally dishonest to infer that respondents do not believe in ‘Climate Change’ when it may be that it is simply Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming in which they do not believe. Many of these surveys seem to be deliberately vague in some respects.
For example this one –
“I would like to ask you some questions about the issue of global warming or climate change”
Are they equating ‘global warming’ to ‘climate change’ or not. It seems to me that these surveys would be far more meaningful if they were much more specific.
Jeff L says:
April 20, 2011 at 5:39 am
“…The fact that the authors don’t seem to grasp this obvious observation is either a stunning lack of perception or clearly showing their bias for the left wing AGW position…”.
Agreed, ‘showing their bias’ by continuing the propaganda for their left wing power grab…
I think that what is ‘stunning’ is that they continue to seemingly extol the now blatant tactic of ‘repeat it until they believe it’, in face of the fact that so many are now aware of their motives.
They are either incredibly stupid (my vote), or can they really believe they can win this thing through attrition? This tactic worked brilliantly for the Nazis but this is weather / climate right…I mean we can all see it, right outside the window. I mean, c’mon…
I wonder if this spate of ‘studies’ is a direct response to all the Alarmist hand-wringing over their failure to ‘communicate’ the urgency and ‘truth’ of ‘climate change’ (i.e. CAGW). Someone fed these academics a bunch of grant money and said, “Time for some studies! Blame it on the Republican ‘deniers’! Tout the ‘consensus’! Appeal to authority, dammit!”
This is essentially the same topic as the earlier one today on the ‘left-right divide’, so with moderator’s permission, I will refer to my comment in that thread:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/19/democrats-and-republicans-increasingly-divided-over-global-warming/#comment-645154
/Mr Lynn
If there ever was a scientific discipline at risk of research bias, it is opinion survey research by sociologists, and readily shows up in their peer-reviewed articles. Their own bias is nearly impossible to eradicate from their endeavors. It would be rather interesting to analyze such articles for evidence of opinion and fact “spin” compared to other scientific disciplines. Anyone in need of a self-submarining Ph.D. sociology research project? If you get it passed your doctorate panel and manage to publish, you will never work again in the field.
“Wow. The Ford Foundation, Kellogg Foundation, Neil and Louise Tillotson Fund, New Hampshire Charitable Foundation, Office of Rural Development in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, UNH Sustainability Academy, and the Carsey Institute all funded this stuff?”
As I have posted many times before, there are corporate wealth funds which are providing fuel for the organizations that are trying to influence us all with respect to the environment.
Sadly, this website refuses to investigate this aspect of the big propaganda gamw.
Why are these huge corporate wealth funds doing this?
Why did the Economist turn distinctly pro CAGW once it was acquired by the Rothschild’s?
What is Ted Turner’s actual agenda ?
This is the CAGW elephant in the room, IMHO. The money behind all the dire predictions and all this propaganda designed to create fear and, possibly, to control or influence outcome in the commanding heights of the economy!
Just think about Lenin’s desire to control the commanding heights, isn’t the current attack on private industry just the same wolf but in different clothing. After all, what are the preachers asking for? They are asking for more control over industry (for the sake of the planet or so we are told)!
How sad that this study was done by sociologists and not by scientists. What do the sociologists know about climate change and how did they learn it? This study is a continuation of the socialist methodology of ideologically corralling groups of people so that they can be managed by the state. There ain’t no science involved that wouldn’t be fully understood by any high school clique.
There’s nothing here that WUWT contributors don’t already know. Every time a phrenologist weighs in on these issues the water just gets muddier.
Gas $5.00 in lots of places. US debt is soaring and the S&P rating of US just lowered, Europe falling into economic crisis, and the Mideast is afire. These things are going to stop all the talk about “Global Warming” and all other such stuff. The magnitude of these things are going to be the only news shortly.
You can tell the bais of the researches when they use the ambiguous term “climate change”. Anyone with half a brain knows climate has always been changing so a good researcher would NEVER use that term. End of story.
What total drivel.
There is something special about climate change and how people think about it?
One could rewrite this article on economic change, or religious tolerance change, or attitudes toward legalization of drugs, prostitution, gambling….and on and on forever. Change just a few words and you get the exact same conclusions.
People get info from sources they trust and are aligned with their personal belief systems and are biased in their conclusions as a result. The most polarized and vocal opinions come from the people who believe themselves to be best informed. The final judgment is always meted out by the real world when actual results trump theory…or at least for the few years that it takes for people to forget the past and condemn themselves to repeating it.
This “study” has diddly squat to do with climate change. This is how people are on every issue you can think of. This is just an article trumped up to make climate change look special. The authors who no damn well this is the case stand convicted of joining that long list of pigs shouldering their way to the public trough to gorge themselves on other people’s money while pretending that they’ve done something special.
People were asked “Is the climate changing?”?
Well duh. Today, yesterday and tomorrow.
I would like to see them ask instead “Do you believe the normal state of climate is 100% static”.
What I know about climate change; it happens.
What I know about AGFW; the UN wants more money.
jack morrow- agreed the 800 lb. Gorilla in the room is Iran. He is about to let wind (methane) and the world is going to have to deal with him (meaning the USA)
It is August 1939,not October 1929…
Prediction: in a few weeks the least of our worries is going to be AGW..
Rigging and kissing.
They said, “no leading science organization disagrees that human activities are now changing the Earth’s climate”.
Aren’t the leading science organizations government organizations having been caught rigging their research and reports to agree with their political benefactors?
They continued, “The strong scientific agreement on this point contrasts with the partisan disagreement seen on all of our surveys”.
Why use the word partisan, and why add it to disagreement? I would say the survey is a partisan survey. And what strong scientific agreement are they talking about, consensus maybe.
From a special dictionary: consensus equals kissing the hand that pays you. Or knowing which side of the bread the butter is on.
The strong scientific agreement on this point contrasts with the partisan disagreement seen on all of our surveys,” said Lawrence Hamilton, professor of sociology and senior fellow with the UNH Carsey Institute.
As I said a little further down the blog page in the previous post, he has “Scientist” tagged on to the end of his “Sociology” bit of his qualification! My recollection of Sociology students at Kingston college was that they were out all night, every night”socialising” in the pubs & bars around Kingston. During the day they seemed to hang around campus supposedly spending time in the library (pronounced “bar”) reading. We engineering students went out for a few drinks on a Wednesday eveing, & Friday & Saturday evenings. All other times we had assignments to get in every week for 10 subjects. Sociologists seem to me to spend a lot of time analysing “feelings”. Very scientific I must say.
Many here have missed the point of the article. The NH Senate is voting this week on the RGGI (Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative),. The House has resoundingly supported the Bill at a 2:1 rate. The Bill would have New Hampshire withdraw from the Massachusetts promulgated RGGI and be a first nail in the coffin of the EPA ruling.
Now that we Scientists (I put us here with a capital “S”) know the above little extra fact, what is your hypothesis as to what this article is all about? What is your hypothesis as to why this article came out now? I’ll let you all have 3 guesses for each query, first two don’t count.
The authors of this survey are clearly biased in favor of AGW. Like all surveys, the devil is in the details. I don’t have the time or curiosity to delve into the guts of the survey, but based on the tone of the authors, I am skeptical of the accuracy and fairness of the results. On the other hand, the results sound like what I would have expected. Getting anyone who has invested time and effort into personal research on climate to change their mind will not be easy.
People increasingly choose news sources that match their own views. Moreover, they tend to selectively absorb information even from this biased flow, fitting it into their pre-existing beliefs,” Hamilton said.
So normal people’s ‘bull-hat meters’ really do work.
Wonderful, now we have a socialogist stating “facts” which are not correct.
Have a gentle look around at society today, you will see the results of socialogy and I would guess, nay I know that their models 20 years ago would not even be close to reality.
Forget this twaddle and move on folks. AGW is a myth.
Most Americans now agree that climate change is occurring, but still disagree on why, with opinions about the cause of climate change defined by political party, not scientific understanding,…….
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Well, with an opening statement as such, I can see where they’re trying to go with this tripe. Most of us rational people know the climate as always changed. And there isn’t anything that has changed about that. They’re arguing semantics as understanding.
Now agree? We’ve always agreed. It is simply the way it is worded.
“However, most people gather information about climate change not directly from scientists ….. Well, if we did, then we’d know winter snow is both increasing and decreasing because of CAGW. And that CAGW simultaneously causes both floods and droughts in the same places. And saltier oceans and desalinized oceans……. and my favorite term, climate change causes “warmcold”.
Warmcold is the fruition of Arthur Blairs dystopian vision……….
“But it means also the ability to believe that black is white, and more, to know that black is white, and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary. This demands a continuous alteration of the past, made possible by the system of thought which really embraces all the rest, and which is known in Newspeak as doublethink. Doublethink is basically the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.”
This is what you’d have to believe if you were to believe the information of CC from climatologists.
This is most likely the same UNH Institute that has a very unreliable record as a polling organization.
In the 2010 MA election of Scott Brown (R) vs Martha Coakley (D), they predicted the looser Coakly would be the winner.
“jack morrow says:
April 20, 2011 at 6:45 am”
Perfect timing for a royal wedding, a distraction, taxes and laws past without constiuent input.
jack morrow says:
April 20, 2011 at 6:45 am
“Gas $5.00 in lots of places.”
Remember when that used to be a crisis??
Gas prices rattle Americans
By Judy Keen and Paul Overberg, USA TODAY
Updated 5/9/2008 11:16 AM
“Record high gas prices are prompting Americans to drive less for the first time in nearly three decades, squeezing family budgets and causing major shifts in driving habits, federal data and a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll show.”
…
“Dawn Morris, a consultant in Dover, Del., is blunt about how gas prices are affecting her family.”
“It’s killing us,” she says. She and her husband often stay home on weekends, and when she balances her checkbook, “every third line it says gas: $20, $30, $50.”
—
Nowadays, it simply means we need to buy a new “green” $40,000 electric vehicle…
And this is but one of the fruits of the current CAGW scientific/political cult…
JohnQPublic wrote: “Here’s a simple explanation: Democrats mistrust humanity and its place in nature and Republicans trust humanity and its place in nature.”
Not if you are a biologist who wants to create a new stem cell line in order to keep up with the rest of the world in the most cutting edge science of all.
Not if you are a geneticist studying ancient DNA in ways that support instead of deny Creationism.
Not if you are a nutritionist trying to point out to people the errors of the Ancel Keys “processed grains are good for you and fat is bad” food pyramid.
Republicans continue to be Bible thumpers, basically, and Global Warming caused by man rubbed them the wrong way, as especially does Darwinism. They are an “enemy of an enemy” rather than a particularly good friend.
[Not if you are a geneticist studying ancient DNA in ways that support instead of deny Creationism]
typo word flip: support/deny
Do I believe in climate change? Yes. 120,000 years ago my house would have been under a lot of ice. Now it is not. About 9000 years ago we had a cold spell followed by a warm spell. Then this happened again about 5000 years ago, the Minoan warming followed by cold spell, roman warming followed by cooling and MWP followed by LIA
The Real question is “do I believe in CO2 induced global warming?”. NO.
Don’t let them change the question.