From the Institute of Physics , a surprising study being published by them, which not only measures the increase, but now has provided labels for type1 through type 3 skeptics. It seems they really don’t understand, but they are trying to quantify it anyway. I had to laugh at the inclusion of Anderegg et al (the 97% of climate scientists nonsense), which tell me they really haven’t a clue as to how to separate the wheat from the chaff. Should any of the authors read this post, be sure to read: What else did the ’97% of scientists’ say? to understand just how badly you’ve been duped. – Anthony
Figure 1. The number of articles containing sceptical voices as a % of the total number of articles covering climate change or global warming, 2009–10.
Climate sceptics more prominent in UK and US media
Climate sceptics are being given a more prominent, and sometimes uncontested, voice in UK and US newspapers in contrast to other countries around the world, new research suggests.
The findings have been published today, 5 October, in IOP Publishing’s journal Environmental Research Letters, as part of a study looking at how climate scepticism manifested itself in the print media of the US, UK, Brazil, China, India and France during a 3-month period which included ‘Climategate’ in 2009/10 and a second period which covered the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report in 2007.
In an audit of over 2,064 newspaper articles from the six countries during the first period, the authors, from the University of Oxford and University of London, found that around one in nine articles contained a sceptical voice.
In the US, 34 per cent of all climate change stories appearing in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal during this time had a sceptical voice. Of the 511 climate change articles appearing in the Guardian/Observer and the Daily/Sunday Telegraph during this time, 19 per cent contained a sceptical voice.
Chinese newspapers came next with seven per cent of stories containing sceptical voices. India and France followed with around six per cent each and Brazil was last with three per cent.
The researchers also examined whether there was any correspondence between the political leaning of a newspaper and its tendency to give a voice to climate sceptics. Excluding China – their right and left splits are not relevant – the researchers found that there were slightly more articles containing sceptical voices in the left-leaning newspapers than in the centrist or right-leaning newspapers.
This was surprising considering the strong association of climate scepticism with the political right, especially in the US, and previous studies showing that right-wing newspapers were more inclined to question climate science.
On closer inspection of the figures, however, it was found that in the US and UK, a significant amount of the sceptical voices appeared in opinion pieces and that in the right-leaning newspapers these views were uncontested.
In the UK, the Guardian/Observer ran 14 opinion pieces containing sceptical voices during the two periods, all of which were countered or balanced by mainstream scientists. The Daily/Sunday Telegraph on the other hand ran 34 opinion pieces, more than half of which were not contested. The New York Times ran 14 opinion pieces that included sceptical voices, all of which were contested. In contrast, the Wall Street Journal ran 17 opinion pieces, all but one of which was left uncontested.
The researchers also chose to look at the type of climate sceptics that were being quoted in these stories. The types of sceptics who question whether global temperatures are warming at all appear almost exclusively in the UK and US newspapers. These two countries also give a very strong presence to the type of sceptic who challenges the need for robust action against climate change.
Even though ‘Climategate’ was a UK-based scandal, the researchers picked a period which included this event to sample data as they believed the story was big enough to spark international reporting. A further 1,263 articles were analysed between 1 February and 30 April 2007 at the time when the IPCC released their Fourth Assessment Report as this was a period in which scepticism wasn’t the central issue.
Lead author of the study, James Painter, said: “These results are significant because they do seem to support those who argue that climate scepticism is much stronger in ‘Anglo-Saxon’ countries, such as the USA, UK, Canada and Australia, as measured by its presence in the media.
“The data would also suggest a lot of the uncontested climate scepticism is found not so much in the news reports but in the opinion pages of right-leaning newspapers in the USA and the UK.”
The newspapers chosen for analysis were Folha de São Paulo and Estado de São Paulo in Brazil, People’s Daily and Beijing Evening News in China, Le Monde and Le Figaro in France, The Hindu and Times of India in India, the Guardian/Observer and the Daily/Sunday Telegraph in the UK, and the New York Times and Wall Street Journal in the USA.
From Friday 5 October, this paper can be downloaded from http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/7/4/044005/article
Abstract
Previous academic research on climate scepticism has tended to focus more on the way it has been organized, its tactics and its impact on policy outputs than on its prevalence in the media. Most of the literature has centred on the USA, where scepticism first appeared in an organized and politically effective form. This letter contrasts the way climate scepticism in its different forms is manifested in the print media in the USA and five other countries (Brazil, China, France, India and the UK), in order to gain insight into how far the US experience of scepticism is replicated in other countries. It finds that news coverage of scepticism is mostly limited to the USA and the UK; that there is a strong correspondence between the political leaning of a newspaper and its willingness to quote or use uncontested sceptical voices in opinion pieces; and that the type of sceptics who question whether global temperatures are warming are almost exclusively found in the US and UK newspapers. Sceptics who challenge the need for robust action to combat climate change also have a much stronger presence in the media of the same two countries.
Figure 3. Types of sceptics by country.
Key: Type 1 sceptics (those who deny temperatures are warming), marked in blue, are almost exclusively found in the US newspapers. Type 2 attribution sceptics in red (who accept the trend, but either question the anthropogenic contribution saying it is overstated, negligent or non-existent compared to other factors like natural variation, or say it is not known with sufficient certainty what the main causes are) and Type 3 impact sceptics in green (who accept human causation, but claim impacts may be benign or beneficial, or that the models are not robust enough) and/or question the need for strong regulatory policies or interventions.
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Hmm, having a diagnosis is often a relief, as you then know what treatments to try. I’m a type 2 skeptic, though lately I’ve also a type 1 skeptic. Yay!
OTOH, “I am not a number!” Colors are in. Instead of a type green skeptic, can I be type emerald?
interesting piece. one of the first times I’ve seen scepticism portrayed at various levels of sanity. I think the centre ground is somewhere between levels 2 and 3 (and bearing in mind the actual temperature record has issues which may or may not be significant).
human induced catastrophic warming may or may not happen. but the science doesn’t point towards it.
belief in catastrophic warming and that the science is ‘settled’ on the matter is truly up there with moon landing denial.
what about…
type 4 – believe humans are changing the climate, the effects may be benign, beneficial or negative, but adaptation is what we and the natural world have been doing for aeons
type 5 – humans are causing GW and the effects will be largely negative and maybe we will cope, maybe we should reduce CO2 emissions
type 6 – cagw. our emissions will cause society to collapse
type 7 – human emissions will render Earth uninhabitable and a dead Venus-like planet
type 8 – James Hansen
I didn’t see where the CAGW adherent’s; Type I, II, and III, are categorized. Perhaps some grant money can be tossed my way.
Dr. Norgaard’s “work” is referenced. I think the physical sciences should start making some distinctions between them and the “soft” sciences.
After following the climate discussions for many months, I find that the term CAGW brings together the four issues that keep coming up between believers and skeptics:
1. Is there warming around us?
2. Is the warming global (everywhere)?
3. Is warming caused by human activity?
4. Is warming catastrophic now or likely to become so?
Here’s my take of the state of the debate:
1. The instrumental records show a pattern of warming, with accelerating and decelerating phases. The amount of warming depends upon the time periods selected for comparisons. The measurements are in decimals of degrees, with error ranges of a size to significantly impact on the results. The records have been subjected to various adjustments for various reasons, and not all of these have been verified to prove the adjusted numbers are more reliable. Many people accept that we are in a modern warming period, though there are uncertainties with the measurements. There is considerable disagreement about whether any warming has occurred this century, and whether any lack of warming is significant.
2. Global averages have been produced and they show a warming trend. These are averages of anomalies, since the actual temperatures vary greatly according to both place and time. Again the selection of the baseline (normal) for comparison affects the results. There is great diversity of warming and cooling patterns around the average; for example, at least 1/3 of US land surface stations showed cooling trends over the same period that the average was rising. Also, patterns in the mostly oceanic Southern Hemisphere (SH) are quite different and the average lower than the NH, where most of the land is. Often, two microclimates differ significantly even when a few KM apart, so that the selection of stations affects greatly the results. This issue is open to debate and is currently subject to extensive investigation.
3. Human activity directly impacts the environment and climate through land and water use: the effects of urban settlements, forest clearing, water extraction, damming of rivers, etc. appear to cause changes and often warming in the places they occur. The major debate is over the claim that burning of fossil fuels causes global warming by the increasing presence of CO2 in the atmosphere. Many issues are involved: Does rising CO2 cause rising temperatures, or the other way around? How much does the radiative effect of 400ppm CO2 affect the climate, considering the effects of convection, evapotranspiration, multi-decadal ocean heat oscillations, cloud patterns, among other factors?
4. How dangerous is the present pattern of climate change, defined by IPCC as manmade global warming? The extent of human contribution to observed warming is uncertain. Even so, the modern warming period was preceded by the Medieval, the Roman, and the Minoan warming periods–each was cooler than the previous, and all of them warmer than the present. The last 1.5C of warming has been a boon to human agriculture and civilization, and the next 1.5C is likely to also be beneficial. Yet numerous studies are funded to examine any and all negative consequences that could result from increases in temperature. The funding monopoly dedicated to climate change ensures a steady drumbeat of warnings. The public’s concern is required for governments to impose carbon-pricing regimes as the proposed means of reducing CO2 emissions. Many doubt whether these regimes will reduce either CO2 or warming. Some believe that natural forces are already beginning to cool the climate, in spite of emissions. This is a battle for public opinion waged daily in the media and the blogger sphere.
“Type 2 attribution sceptics in red (who accept the trend, but either question the anthropogenic contribution saying it is overstated, negligent or non-existent compared to other factors like natural variation, or say it is not known with sufficient certainty what the main causes are)”
Negligent? Negligible perhaps.
I am very skeptical of this article GK
Type 1 Skeptic: those willing to work their way through primary source literature to understand a topic
Type 2 Skeptic: those that will not attempt primary sources, but seek objective secondary sources
Type 3 Skeptic: those that detest environmentalism and are not really interested in the facts, the Climate Depot crowd
The word “denier,” absent any Holocaust implications, actually fits reasonably well to Type 3. CAGW adherents would like you to believe that all skeptics are Type 3, when in fact all the damage has come from Type 1s.
From the article on the IOP study:
IOW: if you want scientific truth, don’t go looking for it in the op-ed pages of politically conservative publications, because you won’t find it there.
Why couldn’t the study tell us something we didn’t already know?
Can we get a type 0:
Believe that the world is not warming but that people are purposely producing fake research to claim it is…
I think I’m a type 2 and a type 3. I don’t know how much influence anthropogenic effects have, I don’t know the optimal temperature, don’t think the models are correct, and certainly have no clue what good policies would be.
Consider the ranking in light of “qui bene”, or, more to the point, who does NOT benefit.
If global governance of carbon reduction and carbon “harm” strategies occurs, Brazil, China, India are not going to suffer, but will be the recepients – China will ignore it all, what with their building of coal and nuclear plants, and they will sell both solar plants and carbon credits to the white-and-guilty-and-rich. France is already largely nuclear: their non-carbon energy sources are present already. Of this group, only Britain and the US will be financially suffering.
So who is sensitive to reality and who is sensitive to the sensitivity of others? That’s what the list tells me.
There needs to be a Type 1.5. They do not “deny temperatures are warming”, But they do question one or more of the following:
a) changes in the instrumentation and recording processes
b) adjustments to the recorded temperature record
c) analysis processes to “correct” for gaps and station moves.
d) the degree to which the land temperature record is more a measure of Urban growth and and wealth (energy consumption = waste heat) and less an accurate proxy for temperature changes on the 95% of the globe away from cities and houses.
In short, responsible, inquisitive, objective, questioning scientists.
This type 1.5 are concerned with the quality of the measurement and the data: the What, Where, and When, and How Certain.
This type deals not with the Why (models), or How (theory), or the Who (politics), or the “So What?” (speculation + theory + politics), or the “Should” (theory + Politics + money + crime (but I repeat myself) ).
The so called “skeptics” are also writing about the “green” scams which waste billions of dollars, damage the environment, and do not significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions which are not a problem anyway. There should be a number for those make decisions based on scientific analysis, economic reality, and observations as opposed to those who support government deficit funding of scams. The extreme AGW propaganda is the reason for the very, very, long list of green scams.
i.e. There are two scams: The extreme AGW mania scam and the green energy scam.
Observations, logic, and analysis in peer reviewed journals are on the side of the so called “skeptics”. There is no extreme AGW problem to solve. Satellite analysis of top of the atmosphere radiation vs ocean surface temperature indicates planetary cloud cover in the tropics increases or decreases reflecting more or less radiation off into space thereby resisting warming (negative feedback). The IPCC general circulation models assume the planet amplifies CO2 warming (positive feedback) to create their high warming predicts. Data and analysis (for example the amount of warming current observed, plateau of warming, the lack of warming in the ocean, the increase in short wave radiation reflected off into space, and so on) in peer reviewed journals indicates that assumption is incorrect. As the planet resist warming (negative feedback) as opposed to amplifies warming a doubling atmospheric CO2 will result in less than 1C warming with most of the warming occurring at high latitudes which will expand the biosphere. I would recommend a read through Joanne Nova’s summary of some of the observations and technical paper that supports the so called “skeptics” position.
http://joannenova.com.au/2012/10/man-made-global-warming-disproved/
Observations show major flaws
1. The missing heat is not in the ocean 8 – 14
2. Satellites show a warmer Earth is releasing extra energy to space 15 -17
3. The models get core assumptions wrong – the hot spot is missing 22 – 26, 28 – 31
4. Clouds cool the planet as it warms 38 – 56
5. The models are wrong on a local, regional, or continental scale. 63- 64
6. Eight different methods suggest a climate sensitivity of 0.4°C 66
7. Has CO2 warmed the planet at all in the last 50 years? It’s harder to tell than you think. 70
8. Even if we assume it’s warmed since 1979, and assume that it was all CO2, if so, feedbacks are zero — disaster averted. 71
9. It was as warm or warmer 1000 years ago. Models can’t explain that. It wasn’t CO2. (See also failures of hockey sticks) The models can’t predict past episodes of warming, so why would they predict future ones?
The extreme AGW issue is a mania with no basis in fact.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_Aug_2012.png
http://www.forbes.com/sites/warrenmeyer/2012/02/09/understanding-the-global-warming-debate/
“The problem for global warming supporters is they actually need for past warming from CO2 to be higher than 0.7C. If the IPCC is correct that based on their high-feedback models we should expect to see 3C of warming per doubling of CO2, looking backwards this means we should already have seen about 1.5C of CO2-driven warming based on past CO2 increases. But no matter how uncertain our measurements, it’s clear we have seen nothing like this kind of temperature rise. Past warming has in fact been more consistent with low or even negative feedback assumptions.”
The Clean Energy Scam
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1725975,00.html
Biofuel production ‘a crime against humanity’
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2008-04-14/biofuel-production-a-crime-against-humanity/2403402
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/8713093/The-BBC-steadfastly-avoids-the-facts-about-the-wind-farm-scam.html
Helm did not tell us that this £140 billion equates to £5,600 for every household in the country. But he did admit that the plan was “staggeringly expensive”, and that, given the current extent of “fuel poverty” and the state of our economy, he doubted “if it can in fact be afforded”.
Even shorter on hard facts, however, was Shukman’s report on a monster new wind farm off the coast of Cumbria, where a Swedish firm, Vattenfall, has spent £500 million on building 30 five megawatt turbines with a total “capacity” of 150MW. What Shukman did not tell us, because the BBC never does, is that, thanks to the vagaries of the wind, these machines will only produce a fraction of their capacity (30 per cent was the offshore average in the past two years). So their actual output is only likely to average 45MW, or £11 million per MW.
… Thus the wind farm is 22 times more expensive, and could only be built because its owners will receive a 200 per cent subsidy: £40 million a year, on top of the £20 million they will get for the electricity itself. This we will all have to pay for through our electricity bills, whereas the unsubsidised cost of power from the gas plant, even including the price of the gas, will be a third as much.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/wind-farm-scam-a-huge-cover-up/story-e6frgd0x-1226345185075
Note that wind turbines produce very little power. Because wind is intermittent, they operate at between one-fifth and one-third of their capacity, meaning they are erratic, unreliable and have to be fully backed up by conventional “black” (mostly coal-fuelled) power. Where the money is to be made is through the REC subsidy. A 3MW wind turbine that generates (at most) $150,000 worth of electricity a year is eligible for guaranteed subsidies of $500,000 a year. A ridgeline hosting 20 or 30 turbines generates very little power — but an awful lot of free cash for those lucky enough to get their snouts in the trough.
http://gigaom.com/cleantech/chart-the-death-spiral-of-solar-bankruptcies-counting/
The solar death spiral has been long and ugly. Over the past year, there have been over a dozen stalwarts and startups that have headed to bankruptcy court. Two companies even filed for bankruptcies in this week alone: manufacturer Q-Cells, which was the worlds largest solar cell maker in 2008 and power plant developer Solar Trust of America, which just a year ago was on its way to build a few gigawatts of solar projects in the American Southwest…. …Solar Millennium tried to sell Solar Trust to a fellow German company, Solarhybrid, only to see Solarhybird, too, file for bankruptcy last month.
Must be really boring in these ivory towers.
Fortunately it’s not a waste of resources, because peope who do “research” like this, can’t do anything useful anyway. So it’s only a waste of money, borrowed from the Chinese.
omnologos –
your link to “poles apart” on your website is not working, however these links are active:
Poles Apart: the international reporting of climate scepticism
http://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/?id=687
Poles Apart
http://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/fileadmin/documents/Publications/Other_publications/Poles_Apart_Executive_Summary.pdf
james painter is Head of the Journalism Fellowship Programme at RISJ and it’s worth noting (all links at the following) their Steering Committee, Advisory Board, Institute Staff & Annual Report 2010-2011 in which – if u find “painter” – the first reference to him talks of the Poles Apart report, without naming it as such:
Oxford’s Centre for Research into News Media
The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism was established in autumn 2006, with core funding from the Thomson Reuters Foundation, and is part of the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford
http://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/
anthony’s report, is co-authored by teresa ashe, but no affiliations are included, so:
Teresa Ashe
The Open University
Associate Lecturer, Faculty of Social Sciences
Birkbeck College (University of London)
Thesis Title: The Politics of Climate Change: Power and Knowledge in Environmental Politics
Supervisor: Jason Edwards
http://open.academia.edu/TeresaAshe
4 mins plus, talks of another study, no mention of sceptics, more about copenhagen coverage, but a shocking indictment of the way the MSM operates when it comes to CAGW, with no hint of embarrassment!
Feb 2011: Youtube: In conversation with James Painter, on media and climate change in Latin America
James Painter, Director of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, discusses media coverage of climate change issues globally, with a particular focus on lessons for Latin America. He urges the media to embrace positive messages that encourage action on climate change.
One can see, once again, the spirit of time (Zeitgeist) is way ahead in the
US and UK…..as the advanced Zeitgeist in times of the “Enlightenment’ …John
Locke, Adam Smith, Thomas Hobbes, John Stuart Mill….and many more…
……in proud tradition…..keep up the good work….JS.
Typology of CAGW believers:
Type I: Those who deny “Climate Change” is a natural phenomenon and think only man can change Earth’s climate, and believe any change is catastrophic.
Type II: Those who deny that the current, “Climate Change”, is a natural phenomenon, and think only man could have caused this change, and that this change is catastrophic
Type III: Those who deny that the current, “Climate Change”, is a natural phenomenon, and think only man could have caused almost all of this change, and that this change is catastrophic.
Type IV: Those who believe that Mitt Romney will continue to waste money on failed “renewable” energy programs, when he’s elected.
John Brookes says:
“What about the people who deliberately cherry pick to support completely untenable positions”
I think You have must misunderstood the survey. It was about skeptics, not about mainstream climate scientists.
Upside-down proxies anyone?
A better label than “Type II” is easily doable. And “skeptic” is inaccurate & unacceptable. “Nonalarmist” is tolerable, but “appreciator of nature” &/or “explorer of nature” are superior.
I wonder when it will dawn on alarmists that if they set up healthy, harassment-free websites devoted solely to the publicly collaborative exploration of natural climate variations, much traffic could easily be diverted from so-called “septic” sites. Why afford the so-called “skeptics” an absolutely unchallenged monopoly on nature appreciation & exploration?? (Tip: This is by far the biggest alarmist strategy error.) There are a good number of sensible readers who couldn’t care less about the political noise that tries with severely creepy tabloid insistence to ruin the joy of exploring nature (something which is actually impossible).
Looking forward to a wider variety of healthy sites devoted to due appreciation of and thorough exploration of nature. Don’t care if they’re “left” or “right”. That’s totally irrelevant. That axis can be discarded with no loss of information about natural climate variations. Anything that increases efficiency in our efforts to understand natural climate variations is welcome.
You select different “types” when you want to treat them differently, like different diseases – see type 1 and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T1DM/T2DM) for reference.
So I expect this to be ground-work to design different message to reach the different types of climate skeptics (“How to improve the climate change communication”).
That the different types are badly delineated, and the that the main problem is not “how to improve the climate propaganda” but how to have an honest scientific process, will only lead to null results and a waste of everyones time.
Oh well.
Anthony, if “climate scepticism is much stronger in ‘Anglo-Saxon’ countries” I think you have an answer to your recent question about whether you should make any changes to your blog. Yes. A Google Translate button! (And I’m no fan of Google.)
I’m not a “type”, myself, I’m a Sceptic First Class! (Yep, it’s warmed since the LIA, or we’d still be in the LIA; it’s got virtually nothing to do with our CO2; all the stupid policies proposed to “deal with the problem” are simply sociopathic as there is no “problem”, just change.)
As everyone who frequents this forum knows by heart, the ability of a data set to represent reality is dependent on the sampling system and the measurement system. I am fairly confident that the sampling system is flawed, but I have no real basis for that conclusion. OTH, the measurement instrumentation is a joke, the lefty addled perceptions of the researchers. Their poor Marxist engineered world views can not possibly conceptualize, except in the most cartoonist way, skeptical views. If the measurement instrumentation is insensitive to the phenomena, it can not possibly measure it.
I think It’s a bit odd classifying a wide diverse group of individuals that’s millions of different opinions in to three brackets.
Hmmm lost count of all the skeptic types I think we are around type 8 or 9, I guess I must be a type 10, which is:
Believes the temperature record is so corrupted and untrustworthy it is highly questionable that we even know what the temperature trend is! The trend if it exists is immersed in so much noise from structural errors and procedural errors which cannot be removed from the record that its asserted accuracy and precision is highly suspect.
The authors of the climate model code and studies have repeatedly shown that they have a poor handle on advanced statistical analysis, therefor their results are highly suspect, until methods and data are properly audited and validated by professional mathematicians and statisticians who have no skin in the climate game. Independent audit is a proven concept in business, it needs to be applied to scientific analysis which is going to drive huge government programs and intervention into society.
In short we don’t frigging know what the temperature trend is, even if you accept the concept that a global average temperature can be:
a) determined
b) has any useful and accepted meaning
c) can tell you anything useful.
I also subscribe to fragments of the other types, yes it is not unlikely that we are still rebounding from ice age cooling and little ice age cooling, so a positive trend in temperatures is not surprising, unusual nor is it worrisome given our daily and annual temperature exceeds the apparent trend by an order of magnitude or two.
CO2 increase is more likely a result not a cause of temperature increase.
No prediction based on models of temperature changes from CO2 increasing has been validated by real world measurements.
Model outputs are not data and provide no useful predictive value beyond an understanding of “what if scenarios” about if the models are correct how sensitive would they be to various forcings.
There is no audit trail of the climate model code. Large computer programs always have undetected bugs and coding errors, hence we simply do not know what the model code is doing!
We know what the authors think it is doing, but we have no proof or reason to believe that is what the code actually does until it is thoroughly audited and passed through test runs to validate it.
Larry