Of course, things like lack of any warming trend for a decade couldn’t have anything to do with it. Could it? Climategate? Glaciergate? Fakegate? Naw. It’s the economy, stupid.
Source: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:2001/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:2001/trend
Climate Change Skepticism Stems from Recession, UConn Study Finds
By: Christine Buckley, CLAS Today
In recent years, the American public has grown increasingly skeptical of the existence of man-made climate change. Although pundits and scholars have suggested several reasons for this trend, a new study shows that the recent Great Recession has been a major factor.
Lyle Scruggs, associate professor of political science in UConn’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, suggests that this shift in opinion is related primarily to the public’s concern about the economy.
“That the economy impacts the way people prioritize the problem of climate change is uncontroversial,” says Scruggs. “What is more puzzling is why support for basic climate science has declined dramatically during this period.
“Many people believe that part of the solution to climate change is suppression of economic activity,” which is an unpopular viewpoint when the economy is bad, Scruggs continues. “So it’s easier for people to disbelieve in climate change, than to accept that it is real but that little should be done about it right now.”
Scruggs and UConn political science graduate student Salil Benegal published their findings online in the journal Global Environmental Change on Feb. 24. An abstract is available here.
The study relies primarily on information drawn from a number of national and international public opinion surveys dating to the late 1980s.
The researchers found significant drops in public climate change beliefs in the late 2000s: for example, the Gallup 2008 poll reported that between 60 and 65 percent of people agreed with statements of opinion that global warming is imminent, it is not exaggerated, and the theory is agreed upon by scientists. By 2010, those numbers had dropped to about 50 percent.
The authors also found a strong relationship between jobs and people’s prioritization of climate change. When the unemployment rate was 4.5 percent, an average 60 percent of people surveyed said that climate change had already begun happening. But when the jobless rate reached 10 percent, that number dropped to about 50 percent.
The paper also evaluated three other explanations for the crisis in public confidence: political partisanship, negative media coverage, and short- term weather conditions.
“We think that this is the first study to consider the economy and these explanations at the same time, says Scruggs.”
Of these, the authors found that faith in climate change dropped across political parties, among Republicans, Democrats, and independents. They also found that that the “Climategate” email hacking controversy and reported errors in the 2010 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, which both occurred after public faith in climate change began to drop, were not factors.
The authors did find that if people had experienced a recent change in short-term weather, they were more likely to believe that climate is changing over the long-term. But when the study controlled for these effects, the economy mattered more than the weather, says Scruggs.
The authors also marshaled international evidence showing that European opinion points in the same direction.
“There is probably a stronger overall ‘pro-climate’ ethos in Europe,” says Scruggs. “Still, even in Europe, countries experiencing more severe national recessions saw larger declines in beliefs that global warming was occurring.”
The researchers speculate that cognitive dissonance, which arises when people experience conflicting thoughts and behaviors, could explain this pattern. Most people view economic growth and environmental protection to be in conflict, so admitting that climate change is real but should be ignored in favor of economic growth leads to an internal philosophical clash.
“Psychologically, people have to evaluate economic imperatives in the recession, and that can create conflicting concerns,” Scruggs says.
When confronted with a desire to boost the economy, he continues, people seem to convince themselves that climate change might not really be happening.
Now that the economy is beginning to bounce back and the unemployment rate is shrinking, Scruggs says it makes sense that belief in global warming has begin to rebound.
“We would expect such a rebound to continue as the economy improves,” he says. “You wouldn’t make that prediction if you think something else, like political rhetoric, is the issue.”
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Per the top graph, so as to dispel the wailing and gnashing of teeth from the defenders of faith, here’s the larger HadCRUT record for the last 30+ years – it WAS warming, but seems to have stopped in the last decade and is now headed down a bit.
Source: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1980/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:2001/trend
I think the unexpected cold winters and cold springs, along with the Climategate emails, might have something to do with it. I think it is a safe bet the Eastern Europeans don’t believe in global warming right now.
“Pro-climate.”
Sigh… I have to rank that right up with the bumper sticker that proclaimed:
“More Environment Now!”
Well, it’s no surprise that temperatures have headed down in bad economic times. It takes literally millions of dollars to make all those adjustments every month and with money tight, maybe they have been letting things slip a bit. But judging from the size of the adjustment in Feb 2012, they must have found some extra money somewhere.
A professor of political sciences doing research on AGW sceptics and coming up with such humorous conclusions makes him surely something of a trickster, His research must be in trying to find out how utterly ridiculous he can be and still make people believe he is being serious. He must be a con. man because even the dimmest professor couldn’t really believe the utter rubbish that his report is, I think we should all move on to more serious subjects of which there are many on this site, and not give any more space to cranks and tricksters of the likes of Professor Scruggs,
They’re reaching. Man are they reaching.
No, no, no. It’s because the president is black.
“Occupy” their communication inputs. Introduce bacteria into the Bubble that the Group-think Sycophants inhabit.
Lyle.scruggs@uconn.edu
WRT: http://today.uconn.edu/blog/2012/03/climate-change-skepticism-stems-from-recession-uconn-study-finds/
In which you are quoted: ““That the economy impacts the way people prioritize the problem of climate change is uncontroversial,” says Scruggs. “What is more puzzling is why support for basic climate science has declined dramatically during this period.”
Support for “basic climate science” has declined dramatically because more and more people are examining the output of Orthodox “Prove The Hockey Stick, Prove The CO2 and Feedbacks” Science and their Bullshit Detectors are going Apeshit.
It’s pretty easy to recognize when you aren’t part of “The Machine”.
Ed Jones
Ordinary Citizen
That is funny. Ironically I also have come to the conclusion Warmism is based on the economy. Their own. No doubt this poser will apply for a lucrative grant that will incorporate a fine stipend to further study and publicize his ‘findings’, Calling the EPA and George Soros.
Did some poor taxpayers fund this claptrap?
Well, let me be the first to say “it’s the warmest decade on record!”
ok, it had to be said by someone.
“Many people believe that part of the solution to climate change is suppression of economic activity,” which is an unpopular viewpoint when the economy is bad, Scruggs continues.
The real problem is that more and more of the general public are coming to realize that almost all of those “many people” are from the active proponents of CAGW and that the economic activity that they want suppressed is the activities of all those outside their elite clique, while they themselves fully expect to experience greatly enhanced economic activity (via research grants, loan guarantees, subsidies, tax breaks, etc,) and that that has been their goal all along. The larger public is also coming to realize that the present dismal state of the world economy is due in no small part to to the incredibly stupid diversion of resources into these “solutions” which, even if they were fully embraced and implemented, would do absolutely nothing to help us avoid the “catastrophic” future, which the alarmist community has been using as a propaganda bludgeon to advance their agenda. An agenda that at heart has nothing to do with protecting the climate or the planet, but has always been about political power and control. The vast improvements to their personal financial positions are either a nice side benefit or a coequal goal to increased political control, depending on whether you choose to consider these people as just nefarious or as exemplars of pure evil.
As more and more of the “climate community” have openly admitted that the “science” is really irrelevant and that the goal is and always has been “redistribution of wealth” the worm has turned. Unfortunately, knowledge of those admissions is still mostly confined to those who garner their awareness of world events from nontraditional sources.The fellow travelers in the MSM are still doing their best to maintain the charade, but that worm is also turning as people increasingly come to realize that the legacy media have absolutely intention to provide them with anything other than exactly the story that their shared agenda demands. The “consensus” climate community’s communication problems all boil down to one thing, as so nicely aphorized by Megan McArdle back at the beginning of the Gleick incident, in what I still nominate as Climate Quote of the Century So Far
“After you have convinced people that you fervently believe your cause to be more important than telling the truth, you’ve lost the power to convince them of anything else.”
Mr Lynn says:
March 13, 2012 at 8:54 am
Who is paying this guy Scruggs for such rampant (and inedible) baloney?
I sure hope it’s not the taxpayers, but I fear the worst.
/Mr Lynn
Report of the ISA Workshop Grants Committee for 2003
isanet.ccit.arizona.edu/…/Governing_Council_Agenda_2003.doc
File Format: Microsoft Word – Quick View
While we had fears that Portland was a relatively unknown city for many of our members …… Lyle Scruggs and Cyrus Ernesto Zirakzadeh are Comparative Politics …
Well I’m sure this is the strand of Spaghetti that hangs off the edge of the bowl. Clicking numerous google links took me to docs. and pages with the word “Sustainability” prominent therein.
I’m ‘shocked’.
Pro climate? I can say with complete confidence that 99.9999% of people are pro climate, without it we would all be dead.
I can can claim with supreme confidence that an ever growing number of people are becoming anti CAGW fraud and anti CAGW fraudster and anti CAGW dishonesty and anti CAGW ignorance.
Speaks volumes about these people when they claim sceptics are anti climate, no I am just anti being lied to on an industrial scale.
Yes, I agree the economic nose dive did have an influence but not in the way they think.
People got ticked off and went looking for answers just like I did and like me they found that the “Economic Collapse” was orchestrated. They find it leads right to the World Trade Organization (treaty ratified by Bill Clinton.) They found investigation of the AIG Bailout Scandal lead to five key new banking laws all signed by Bill Clinton. They found the entry of China into the WTO that exported their jobs to China was thanks to Bill Clinton. Did I say Bill Clinton?
And when you go digging into Bill Clinton you find he is a Rhodes Scholar, aligned with the London School of Economics and an international group pushing The Third Way Clinton is heavily aligned with Tony Blair who collects a couple million pounds from JP Morgan investment bank as an Advisor while he works as a special envoy to the middle east for the UN Incestuous ain’t it.
Also Clinton’s Mentor was Carroll Quigley and that is the real eye opener to what is actually going on. Read the rest in my comment: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/03/13/climate-craziness-of-the-week-eugenics-is-making-a-comeback-with-climate-optimized-human-engineering/#comment-921845
Once you see who is behind all the crud it is a lot easier to follow the money behind all the scams.
(Yeah Jim I am bashing the Bankers and elite again. We will take your protest as given and save you the trouble.)
“So it’s easier for people to
disbelieve in climate change,thanand to accept that it is realbut thatalthough little should ever be done about itright now.”One of many possible improved variations. The above applies to coolish luke-warmistas.
🙂
Your tax dollars at work !
Was the grant for this masterpiece provided by EPA, NSF, NIH or ….?
Probably the money came from TARP or some other Economic Stimulus monies which Obama HAD to spend to get the “economy moving again”.
So, the hypothesis is: Recession causes an increase in climate skepticism? To falsify that we just find an economy that is not in recession but the prevailing culture is still skeptical of “The Consensus” right? China. We’re done now, right?
I am deeply suspicious of any piece of “research” which is based on opinion polls. We know from the “97% agree” survey that construction of the questions can be so facile as to fail to distinguish between alarmists and skeptics. And on a controversial subject such as climate change there is a severe risk that misunderstandings on the part of whoever drafts the questions regarding the nature of the dichotomy between alarmists and skeptics can result in a question based on a false implied premise. An example ….
“When the unemployment rate was 4.5 percent, an average 60 percent of people surveyed said that climate change had already begun happening.”
If this sentence accurately reflects the wording of the question in the survey then there is an implied premise in the question that the climate didn’t used to change. Unfortunately, many of the general public who haven’t been following the debate may be unaware that the climate has never been in stasis. Indeed, this must be so otherwise the survey would have received a 100% vote as climate change began happening 4.5 billion years ago. Or did the drafters of this question do what many alarmists do and regard “climate change” and “catastrophic man-made climate change” as synonymous ?
ChE says:
March 13, 2012 at 9:56 am
No, no, no. It’s because the president is black.
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LOL…..1/2 black, he only became wholly black after the election
..and the waters did stop rising after all
What got me was the energy prices will necessarily have to skyrocket…………
liberal ideas are a product of an affluent society…with spare time
…no one has time to pontificate about liberal ideas when they have no time and money
Well….that and the whole warm/cold, wet/dry, drought/flood, snow/rain….thing
Everyone gets tired of doom and gloom predictions that do not come true……..
The last thing anyone wants to hear right now is more doom and gloom
Mann is interviewed on ‘The Michael Smerconish Radio Show’. Humping his book.
Smerconish is a Faux “Conservative” or “Moderate”, (depending on how far to the Left you are).
Not holding my breath for the counterpoint interview with a qualified dissenter.
“Pro-Climate”? I am anti-climate. I hate the climate. Boo Climate. Go home Climate! Climate sucks.
I like (not) the way that psychologists are always quick to tell us why we are thinking what we are thinking and keep a straight face while explaining it even though they demonstrably have no idea. Cognitive dissonance indeed, people have just (finally!) understood that gullible warming has nothing significant to do with human activity.
The conceit, the silly nomencalture and the unneccessarily complex rationale is very like the way champions of gullible warming are always conceitedly talking over their noses to the rest of us.
Two peas in a pod, and unfortunately neither seem to be familiar with Occam’s razor. Nor have the faintest idea about climate variation.
Bill Davis says:
March 13, 2012 at 9:42 am
Certainly not the only source of stupidity out there – A proposed potential role for increasing atmospheric CO2 as a promoter of weight gain and obesity
http://www.nature.com/nutd/journal/v2/n3/full/nutd20122a.html#Background
____________________________________
Yeah and lets forget about all the hype against milk and eggs so kids now eat sugar coated cereal and drink soda by the gallon. If I recall correctly about 1900 the consumption was about 27 gr of carbs a day now it is often in excess of 300 gr. Of course all that Corn Syrup could not have anything to do with it…..
Oh wait! The CO2 in the atmosphere is converted in to sugar by the corn plant and Coca Cola makes that into Sody Pop to rot out the teeth of the kiddies. Now I understand the link.
Sugar – a Toxin?: http://stay-healthy-enjoy-life.blogspot.com/2007/12/sugar-toxin.html
The Truth about High Fructose Corn Syrup: Sweet Surprise or Health Demise? http://www.sparkpeople.com/resource/nutrition_articles.asp?id=486
The paper also evaluated three other explanations for the crisis in public confidence: political partisanship, negative media coverage, and short- term weather conditions.
So learning the truth about the ‘behind the scene’ actions and thoughts of the “TEAM” is now called ‘Negative Media Coverage’? Sure glad to know there was no political partisanship during the Bush years.
Call me skeptical about Now that the economy is beginning to bounce back and the unemployment rate is shrinking, Scruggs says it makes sense that belief in global warming has begin to rebound.
See this on the GDP calculations.
How does the deficit affect the GDP calculation?
Probably the largest shortcoming of GDP is that its numbers are artificially enhanced by government deficit spending. Currently the U.S. federal government is borrowing and spending roughly 10 percent of GDP per year. This deficit spending is included in the GDP calculation, making it appear that economic growth is stronger than it really is, although borrowing and spending at such levels is not a reflection of a healthy economy. The GDP calculation does not distinguish between changes in structural GDP and private GDP. To do that, the GDP calculation would have to be adjusted and shown net of deficit spending. The United States may need our GDP to contract some in the short term (due to reduced governmental spending) for the structural and private sector GDP to be able to produce sustainable long-term growth.
http://www.brightworth.com/insights/white-papers/gdp-not-all-its-cracked-up-to-be/
Remember to subtract that 10 percent off the GDP growth in any news stories you read. It is not just your kids money they are stealing, they are also taking away any growth they actually will generate for years to come.
Last thought. If the cAGW trolls tell us only ‘Climate Scientists’ can report on climate change, do we really have to listen to a Poly Sc major?
The answer is simple. IF they want to get people to start believing in their little fairy tale again, they need to get Obama to stop messing with the economy.