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
It ain’t that simple. Yes, I’m sure that the state of the economy has something to do with changing attitudes, but only in the sense that difficult times make those with common sense examine with more care the enormous cost of so-called mitigation schemes and realise how destructive they would be. But in another take on the declining support of CAGW dogma, Dr Karl Braganza from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology is quoted in “The Australian” today as saying “People want to see the things projected for the next 20 to 30 years happening now and if they don’t see it, their acceptance of the science is ameliorated by that.” Could I suggest, Dr Braganza, the reality is that our acceptance of the science has been ameliorated because the things projected over the past 20 to 30 years have not eventuated.
Ammonite says:
March 13, 2012 at 1:58 pm
The underlying temperature trend since satellite measurement began (~30 years) is ~0.16C per decade once known sources of short term variability are backed out (ENSO, volcanoes, solar). This holds true for both terrestrial and satellite records and is unchanged across the last 10 years. Please refer to Foster & Rahmstorf 2011
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Lmao!! More of the linguistically challenged. What part of the present participle do you guys not understand? BTW, try the last 15 years or no warming….. http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1997.25/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1997.25/trend
Ammonite, you know, people laugh at you guys when you say that warming has continued unabated when it clearly has ceased. You can rationalize any way you want to. You can pretend Foster and Rahmstorf know how to quantify certain signals (they’ve demonstrated they can’t) and you can even pretend you all know what signals are most important. But, none of that matters because it has clearly quit warming for the present and moving more and more distant past.
Tell me, what weight did they put on the AMO and the AO? Or are they positing that they have nothing to do with our global temps? Clouds? ….lol
Ammonite says:
March 13, 2012 at 1:58 pm
The underlying temperature trend since satellite measurement began (~30 years) is ~0.16C per decade once known sources of short term variability are backed out (ENSO, volcanoes, solar). This holds true for both terrestrial and satellite records and is unchanged across the last 10 years. Please refer to Foster & Rahmstorf 2011
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/6/4/044022/pdf/1748-9326_6_4_044022.pdf. Global warming continues no matter how many times “pause”, “lack” and “stopped” are sprinkled into such articles.
There is such a big logical disconnect in there that I’m not sure it’s even worth pointing it out because if you really believe what you typed then you probably don’t have the high-school maths needed to see the error!
However, being a sucker for punishment, I’ll give it a try:
Imagine for a moment that the global average temperature follows a perfect sine wave with a period of 60 years, because of purely natural influences. We’ll also pretend for now that a “global average temperature” actually has some sort of physical meaning.
We start measuring it and we notice that it’s trending upwards. Of course, we don’t actually know about the natural cycle so we have no way of knowing where in that (unknown) cycle we started to measure. But we still notice that it’s trending from our start point.
Let’s suppose now that we just happen to have started our measurements at the very lowest point of a cycle. Because of the shape of a sine wave, by the time we get to about 25 years of measurements we’ll have a pretty big trend and that trend will continue as our measurements go past the peak and start dropping down the other side of the sine wave.
In fact, our measurements won’t show “no trend” until we reach the very bottom of the next cycle exactly 60 years after we started. By 61 years, we’ll have an increasing trend again as it starts up on the next cycle. This does NOT mean that our average temperature is “continuing to increase” throughout the whole cycle any more than it would be “continuing to decrease” if we’d happened to start our measurements at the very peak.
Exactly the same thing applies with your assertion. If GAT has trended up for the first 20 of the last 30 years then OF COURSE it will still show a trend upwards now, unless for some reason it had plummeted all the way back to it’s old level after the peak – in which case we really would have cause to worry!
It’s the same fallacy built into the “last decade was the warmest” argument – OF COURSE it would be if we’ve just passed the peak of a relatively gradual curve. If you heat a pot of water rapidly until it boils, then turn the heat off completely, and keep measuring it’s temperature as it slowly cools then the average temperature over, say, 10 minutes, will continue to increase until the time it boiled is more than 10 minutes ago.
If you bring it to the boil then turn the heat down but not off, it will continue to show “the hottest 10 minutes” for a long time after it stopped rising!
And they say we’re the ones in denial…
Joe, have you read the F&R paper? As a thought experiment, you posit a sine wave of 60 years for temperature evolution with randomness superimposed atop. Does this appear to you to be consistent with F&R? F&R show randomness superimposed on a straight line – straight across the entire 30 year duration. If this were part of your sine wave up-slope we could not be nearly near the top and 60 years would appear to be far too short for the period. What do you think? Lets see you demonstrate your mathematical reasoning before speculating on mine.
James Sexton says: March 13, 2012 at 3:41 pm
Please refer to Foster & Rahmstorf 2011
Lmao!! … Tell me, what weight did they put on the AMO and the AO?
Rhetorical question James. Do you believe projecting from an El Nino high to a La Nina low is likely to be a better predictor of temperature across the next ten years than F&R? Your question about AMO and AO makes no sense given the content of their paper. Feel free to have 1,000,000 last words.
How did they miss the clear issue of Cause and Effect?
The number of Blue Post Office Drop Boxes has declined 50% since 2000:
SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 1 — The number of U.S. Postal Service boxes on the streets has dropped by more than half since 2000, officials say.
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2011/09/01/Postal-mailboxes-vanishing-from-US/UPI-87721314911891/
Clearly, Fear of Loss from the actual, measurable decline in letter boxes, is the principle reason why people no longer have to use CAGW’s Fake Fears to get their “Fear Fix.”
They transferred their need to fear something, from the imaginary, debunked and unsupportable CAGW claims, to the obvious and measurable decline in Blue Post Office Drop Boxes.
🙂
At http://www.altenergyshift.com we have analysed the sources of anti-climate denial in extent. You are welcome to debate our findings but be prepared for a taste of humility. Hayden
The failure of renewables to pay off as promised, and the news about their difficulties in Europe, has played a role.
The authors also should have considered that support was artificially whooped up by a stream of MSM commentary and crusaders’ activities–and that it is unnatural for whipped up enthusiasm to persist for long–fatigue sets in.
And I think the vocal commentary of disbelievers in Comments and face-to-face interactions is having an effect.
Ammonite says:
March 13, 2012 at 4:26 pm
Joe, have you read the F&R paper? As a thought experiment, you posit a sine wave of 60 years for temperature evolution with randomness superimposed atop. Does this appear to you to be consistent with F&R? F&R show randomness superimposed on a straight line – straight across the entire 30 year duration. If this were part of your sine wave up-slope we could not be nearly near the top and 60 years would appear to be far too short for the period. What do you think? Lets see you demonstrate your mathematical reasoning before speculating on mine.
Never mind the paper, did you even read my post? Nowhere did I specify “randomness superimposed on top” because I wasn’t suggesting a realistic model for climate.
All I was doing was pointing out with the simplest cyclic model I could think of (a sine wave) why there is a complete logical disconnect in your assertion that “there’s still an upward trend so it hasn’t stopped”. If that holds true of the simplest cycle then it also holds true as any cyclic changes become more complicated.
It also holds as a false logical step if non-cyclic changes are superimposed on the cycles unless we know with 100% certainty that the non-cyclical change far exceeds the cyclical one. Which we don’t seeing as we don’t know any non-cyclic climate signal that may be present with any certainty, let alone all the natural climate cycles. So your original statement “it shows 0.16 deg / decade so warming is continuing” that I challenged is, logically, unsupportable.
That doesn’t mean it’s wrong, just that it’s unsupportable – it can’t be relied on or stated as a “fact”.
>>Scruggs and UConn political science graduate student Salil Benegal published their findings online in the journal Global Environmental Change on Feb. 24………. The study relies primarily on information drawn from a number of national and international public opinion surveys dating to the late 1980s.
No doubt Scruggs and company got a handsome grant from which they drew equally handsome stipends while they produced this tripe… ultimately at taxpayer expense. Heck. If the feds want to pay me to produce garbage, I’ll produce as much as they like too. The truth, apparently, doesn’t matter. Propaganda does matter, and the feds will continue to pay for it as long as some people pay attention and others are willing to provide it.
Well, when the economy is down people have time toi actually look at the information.
Foolish the idea may be, but (at least for now) its proponent is being scientific. Make a prediction. See if it holds. Let’s see what the belief level is in two more years.
Shortpoet-GTD says:
The best you can do is give a reference to an entire website? Specific references please, to specific articles making the case you want us to consider. No one with a life has time to waste ferreting through hundreds of articles on the say-so of a rude semi-anonymous bad-mouther (“anti-climate denial” if you are too locked into the meme to get the point).
“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.
It looks like they’ve finally discovered a negative feedback — the economy! The more they use climate change as a reason to suppress economic activity, the more unpopular their climate religion becomes. Unfortunately for these rabid environmentalists, suppressing the economy is a higher priority than suppressing CO2. It’s such a conundrum that I almost feel sorry for them.
“Shortpoet-GTD says:
March 13, 2012 at 5:07 pm
At http://www.altenergyshift.com we have analysed the sources of anti-climate denial in extent. You are welcome to debate our findings but be prepared for a taste of humility. Hayden”
Somehow I don’t think anybody is against climate.
I know for a fact that climate exists LOL. I also know that CAGW causes IQ levels to drop to alarmingly low levels that are unsustainable. I havn’t quite come to the conclusion if it is excess CO2 which is the cause and will need a $11,438,123.00 grant to study this phenomena.
/sarc
Is there any doubt that climate scientists are in fact the very brightest of the environmentalist crowd and environmental issues are at the very core of their passion for activism? It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the vast majority of them support the CAGW cause. In contrast, I think it is revealing that a healthy number of statisticians and physicists are a bit more circumspect as evidenced by many of the great posts and comments on this blog and others.
I know this is OT but I think it is important to recognize who these people really are.
Jim
Ammonite says:
March 13, 2012 at 4:36 pm
James Sexton says: March 13, 2012 at 3:41 pm
Please refer to Foster & Rahmstorf 2011
Lmao!! … Tell me, what weight did they put on the AMO and the AO?
Rhetorical question James. Do you believe projecting from an El Nino high to a La Nina low is likely to be a better predictor of temperature across the next ten years than F&R? Your question about AMO and AO makes no sense given the content of their paper. Feel free to have 1,000,000 last words.
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It won’t take 1,000,000. First, you and F&R are confused as to what ENSO is. Do you think it’s shifts are random? It is a function not a cause. And ENSO can’t be quantified. Secondly, F&R’s argument, is that if not for ENSO, volcanoes, and solar activity, ….(natural forcings), then everything would be continuing as it had during the 90s. Okay, well what of the other naturally occurring events? Do they all just cancel out each other? Are they part of the “increasing” temps?
It is either arrogance or fallacy, but either way, they forgot many other factors which go into our climate which operate irrespective of GHGs. They failed to address them. The work is nothing but sophistry.
Alternate conclusion …. maybe even the average Joe realizes trying to go “carbon-free” is a cost we can’t afford, especially when the economy is bad.
It is useless to try to covert hard AGWers to a rational point of view. Any observation they make , they will twist to support their case.
Hopeless.
Joe says: March 13, 2012 at 5:47 pm
All I was doing was pointing out with the simplest cyclic model I could think of (a sine wave) why there is a complete logical disconnect in your assertion that “there’s still an upward trend so it hasn’t stopped”.
Ok. Take the 2nd derivative of a function. If it is small, what does it imply about its likely progression across the short term? There is no “logical disconnect” in observing the consistency of the F&R slope across 30 years and extrapolating it forward another 10. In agreement with your analysis, trying to project it forward 100 years would seem overly ambitious. F&R is worth reading and considering Joe.
Economy rebound??? Decreasing unemployment ??? Same people in the msm that bring us the lie of agw. Bring lies about the economy. Real unemployment is far above what is reported. They changed how it is calculated from 3 years ago. Similar massaging of the numbers. Just like global temps. Also , the percent excludes those that have given up looking. The housing market is bad, the debt is worse , gas continues to go up. Only improvement as stated above is inflated GDP, and inflated stock market in part due to fed manipulation. Just an article to support two lies agw and economic recovery.
Reverse causation. The expenditure on useless green things has caused the decline in standard of living. It will get worse while the inertia continures. Wake up, sleepy World.
Ammonite says:
March 13, 2012 at 8:32 pm
F&R is worth reading and considering Joe.
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As one who has read it, and revisited more times than I care to admit, I disagree.
If “if and buts” were candy and nuts, we’d all have a merry Christmas.
The entire paper is centered around the thought that something odd is occurring to keep the otherwise rising temps down. While in an entire denial of cyclical happenstance, they call on cyclical and natural events to explain why the temps have rose. Ignoring the fact that these cyclical events occurred during the time period reference…. only more predominantly causing the temps to rise. For example, ENSO when in a negative phase, (according to the paper) is partially the cause of the negative trend. But, when it is in a positive phase, GHGs are the cause of the temps rising?
Well, which is it? Do natural occurrences dominate the climate or does our influence?
Sigh…. “haven’t” should be substituted on the second “have” of the comment.
I find a strong relationship between the rising number of failed predictions and people’s prioritization of climate change.
Now, aside from Climategate, Glaciergate, Fakegate, and other gates here are some more possible reasons or a combination of some or all.
1) People where led to believe that snowfalls would become a thing of the past. The snow industry was doomed. They were told to expect milder winters, now they are being told to expect colder winters.
2) People have become bored, fed up with reports of climate change in the media. I recall from memory only that media studies showed large swathes of people going to make cups of tea or changing channels when global warming came up on the news.
Plus the numerous other ‘gates’ and failed predictions / projections, that those with an little more than a passing interest made them more sceptical. Some of these people passed on the news to some of their Warmist friends and associates.
The employment and scepticism link is just ONE reason.