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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Did they, even for a moment, happen to think that in a country with a tradition of independent thought; maybe, just maybe, we are less prone to being -managed- by organized media and we just are not going to salute Der Furer and fall in line? That maybe, just maybe, we still have a reasonably free press and an -upity- population that’s seen enough deception (i.e. advertizing) to smell a dodge a mile away and -not buy it- at all?
I think they are over thinking the issue…
And a big YES! the notion of not enough categories of skeptics. We each found different things that were giant red flags and are a very diverse population of individuals.
The point of “I’m not a number” is funny, You are a number, we’re cell mates.
I’m type O negative, …. everyone can utilize my skepticism.
This may explain why grave digging Connolley is so eager to deface dead scientists from Wikipedia…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Marcel_Leroux
More Lysenkoism from squealing grant chasers upset that sceptics are spoiling their party. This has nothing to do with studying CAGW scepticism and the (sound) reasons behind it, but everything to do with casting sceptics as ‘outsiders’ to rational thought by putting them under an imaginary microscope and treating them as some sort of curiosity.
Kind of reminds me of the scientific studies of non Caucasian races in the early 20th century, where the Xenophobic scientific elite of the day would reassure themselves through bogus medical studies that people of dark skin would always genetically lack the capacity to think and speak like whites. It helped them to maintain their sense of superiority in a scary and changing world.
Except in this case it’s more of a propaganda game with an express goal: to enhance the ‘us and them’ attitude amongst professional scientists towards CAGW sceptics, an attitude which has been carefully cultivated for a long time in order to keep the burgeoning and profitable climate bandwagon on the rails.
If this attitude can be maintained by relentlessly ramming a self sustaining argument from authority down our throat, no awkward questions can be asked of the ‘consensus’ and talentless rent seekers can go on trotting out the same old McScience in every arena so long as it has ‘climate change’ and some abuse of statistical method tacked onto it. Biologist? Just cherry pick some data, mangle it, claim parrots are shrinking, blame climate change, there’s your grant. Intellectually mediocre paleo climatologist? There’s a whole world of proxy reconstructed entrails to be read, tacked onto messages of doom and sold on for great profit to governments desperate for reasons to raise funds to pay for their bribes. Don’t worry, your ‘science’ can border on the fraudulent or ludicrous and no one will dare question it any more for fear of being branded ‘sceptic’ through a bunch of wankerous psycho-sociological studies. We all know our work’s crap but our secret is safe for now..
It is just predictable and depressing that stupidity, or at best self deception, has become so ubiquitous amongst many who would describe themselves as scientists that they might see scepticism of any claim, in any form, as something novel, strange or worth studying. It is so depressing that I’m tempted to just ignore the whole thing from now on, like the vast majority of the public.
You are playing their game.There should be no need to recognize anyone as a climate skeptic : just people who recognize hypothesis flogged as science to fulfill a political agenda.
– – – – – –
David Ball,
If so, then since I am AB negative that would mean I can use everone’s skepticism but only a rare number of skeptics can use mine.
Have a happy weekend.
John
@wayne on October 5, 2012 at 10:52 am
Made perfect sense- John Brooke’s copy/paste babble is a case in point. As with many warmist arguments it is not possible to know the direction and the point at the same time without it collapsing into incoherence. Any reality it pertains to is illusory and falls apart on a quantum level.
I wonder where I fit in – I think the data quality is so poor that it is impossible to draw any scientific conclusion beyond the climate has warmed since the last ice age.
From the Land Downunder. Here the the major ‘quality’ papers and the ABC (similar to the BBC) give very little space to any contrarian info. My guess is that most contrarian stuff is passed word-of-mouth from blogs like WUWT, Andrew Bolt and JoNova. Well we ARE a small nation in numbers, a bit over 20 million, but very large in size. i would guess the percentage of those who believe the science is settled is diminishing, largely thanks to those scientists who predicted that we were going to suffer endless droughts; instead we had two years of floods. Aussies are a pretty sceptical -that word again – lot anyway.
Lucy Skywalker says:
October 5, 2012 at 3:50 pm
“I’ve studied the formula for blackbody radiation and found the IPCC maths badly wrong – leading to a 33 degrees “GHG effect” that is visibly fatuous.”
The failure is down to not including the oceans as part of the GHG effect. The atmosphere is warmed greatly by the ocean with energy slowly released originally from the sun without taking even water vapour into account. This slow energy loss keeps the atmosphere temperature significantly higher than compared without an ocean with the same GHG’s in the atmosphere. This issue needs to be looked into and resolved if possible.
The Physic Institute should change its motto- For Physics, For Physicist For Media Analysis For Everyone.
Its so far off the deep end publishing this lump of junk. Its unlike anything they do as far I checked they don’t have any of this anti-science stuff.
IOP somewhat affected by AGW theory at least its not at the crazy end.
http://www.iop.org/publications/iop/2012/file_44544.pdf
The digital economy, the effects of climate change and the
need for sustainable energy sources are just some of the
reasons why physicists will play an increasingly essential
role in years to come.
One or two random thoughts:
Many articles may have the odd line from a sceptic but then devote the the rest of the piece to warmists saying how wrong the sceptic is. That hardly makes for a balanced article.
It has become absolutely routine for throwaway lines about “global warming” or “climate change” to be included in pieces which have little or nothing to do with climate – and even more so in TV programmes where there have often been several a day that I’ve noticed. I can’t remember EVER hearing a similar throwaway sceptical remark. This creates an atmosphere in which alarmism is presented as the unquestioned default position.
Not sure about the other countries newspapers but the ones chosen for the UK are the two atypical extremes in this field. Even there, in the Telegraph there are very alarmist and very sceptical pieces co-existing. You could look for all eternity for a very sceptical piece in the Guardian.
Artwest says:
“Many articles may have the odd line from a sceptic but then devote the the rest of the piece to warmists saying how wrong the sceptic is. That hardly makes for a balanced article.”
Quite right. Balance would mean not mentioning the “skeptical” misinformation in the first place, and instead getting the opinion of more than one climate scientist. But that is surely too much to ask.
Many agw believers are puzzled enough at US rates of skepticism and laughably attribute it to the proven hillbilly-ness of right wingers. This is often augmented with scorn of the right winger opposition of governmental progress. What non-US folks fail to grasp is that the antagonistic view of government is not only NOT a failing but indeed a feature. The 2nd amendment’s purpose for example is to protect the citizen from the government meaning that anti-government feelings are desired. AGW “solutions” require increases in gov power so it ought not be surprising that US skeptical rates will be higher. By definition they will be higher. What sort of analysts are these jokers?
OMG, I’ve been pigeon-holed. Surely, any self-respecting practitioner of the social sciences wouldn’t be foolish enough to stereotype people?
BTW, where are the physics in this?
Considering that outside climate scientists only one in two believe in them or their competence that shows a huge bias towards them that is utterly unacceptable.
It might be a good idea for WUWT to run a poll of skeptics. Some very simple questions.
1. Is it warmer now than it was in the 50 year period from 1650-1700?
A) Yes,
B) no,
C don’t know,
D cant know
2. How much warmer is it now than it was in the 1650 to 1700 time period?
A) More than 2C,
B) between 1C and 2C?,
C) between 0C and 1C?
D) dont know
E) cant know
3. Does UHI effect the instrument record?
A) yes I am certain
B) no I am certain
C) yes but I might be wrong
D) no but I might be wrong
E) Dont know
F) Cannot know
4) What is the magnitude of the UHI bias in the record from 1850 to today
A) Greater than 1C
B) GT .5C and LT 1C
C) GT .25C and LT .5C
D) GT 0C and LT .25C
E) dont know
F) Cant know
5) What is the magnitide of the UHI bias in the record from 1979 to today
A-F see above
6. What percentage of cities in the GHCN dataset have populations over 1 million
A) 75-100%
B) 50-75%
C) 25-50%
D) 5-25%
E) less than 5%
7. What percentage of cities in the GHCN database have populations less than 10000
A – E see question 6.
8. What’s the average UHI in a city over 1 million?
A) greater than 2C
B) 1C to 2C
C) 0 to 1C
D) cant know
F) dont know
9. What the average UHI in a city with a population less than 10000
A-F see question 8
10. What is the average UHI in a town with a population of less than 1000
A-F
11. Does Microsite Bias exists in the record
A) yes, I am certain. Its settled science
B) No, I am certain. Its settled science
C) yes, but I could be wrong
D) No, but I could be wrong
E) dont know
F) cant know
12. How big on average is microsite Bias?
A) greater than 1 C
B) between .5C and 1C
C) between .25C and .5C
D) between .1C and .25C
E) less than .1C
F0 dont know
g) cant know
13. Are CRN measurements reliable and accurate?
A) yes, I am certain
B) no I am certain
C) yes, but I could be wrong
D) no but I could be wrong
E) dont know
F) cant know
14. Can we compare the temperature record to the solar sunspot record to learn anything
A) yes
B) no the temperature record is too corrupt
15. How much of the warming is due to adjustments in the land record
A) greater than 1C
B) between .5C and 1C
C) between .25C and .5C
D) less than .25C
E) dont know
F) cant know
16. Assume temperatures warm by 4C in 2100.
A) more harm than good will be done
B) benefits and harms will be about equal
C) benefits will outweigh harms
D) I cant say anything about harms and benefits
I would bet that such a survey would be interesting and perhaps helpful in figuring out how many type 1 skeptics there are and in helping people understand the differences in opinion.
I also wager that most people would not want to answer the questions. That is what makes skeptics like the believers on the other side. Avoiding questions.
Steven, I could not disagree more to you poll as it stands. It is not that I would not like to answer the questions, I have spent some 8000+ hours (no kidding) in the last four years trying to get those same answers, but it is the way you are asking the questions and especially the way you are organizing the answers. You are asking someone to be honest and as if they have all of the tools and all of the data and all of the time to come to some accurate value that they can check in one of your preselected ranges. See the fallacy. This poll would be no better than all of the one most here are objecting to. Many of the questions depend on the accuracy of values and trends, usually from graphics and texts on the internet that in themselves may be in error.
For instance, the UHI over the range of years depends on the assumption of some one correct temperature time series for it is part of the rise that even helps define the amount that UHI affect the trends. That is a circular situation and you are asking for a range on both that you (the poll author) have selected!
Now if you were to ask someone to list their best representation of a range that they themselves pick, or allow them to leave blank — now that would be a big step forward. More might tippy-toe into taking such a poll answering only the questions they feel knowledgeable enough to answer. Or let them pick two answers if their best-understanding straddles two of the answer ranges. Better.
See, that poll reads a bit as a trap, the way it is provided, and you are right, I would not take that exact poll, no — not the way it stands.
I still think my first comment above is a better approach. Make the answers so clear and concise that every person taking the survey could usually answer yes or no, 1 or 0, both, or even none. Then you might get some groupings that mean something real. If your questions are ambiguous you should get a lot of answers back blank. That is the poll writer’s, not the poll takers fault.
Ace says:
October 5, 2012 at 5:52 am
But in the bigger picture, this is the kind of report that is going to make the warmist fanatics go absolutely nuts. Expect to soon hear about efforts to control and squelch such types of communications through strong-arm tactics and legislative methods.
We see articles here about that fairly regularly, though it’s usually on the level of meeting notes, leaked e-mails or forum posts of CAGW advocates making such statements. So far this movement has only shown much success in academia, journals and other media outlets.
Of course you guys are afraid to answer the questions.
even though you could answer I dont know to every question.
the other reason you are afraid is that you havent thought the problem thru.
You all just basically react to what you read rather than trying to put together a coherent position.
you are afraid of answering questions because you realize that some of your views are inconsistent.
For example. you want to believe in an LIA that was about 2C cooler than today.. But you
also want to believe that 1C of the warming we see is UHI and 1C is adjustments and 1C is microsite bias. you want to use the temperature record to understand the effect of the sun and prove your theories but you trashed the evidence you want to use.
So take the survey in private. see if your ideas hang together into a coherent story.
or. say you dont know.
here you go wayne.
lets keep this simple. Nothing for you to fear. Just a simple question. You are not afraid of debate.. then lets start with your answer to number 1
1. Is it warmer now than it was in the 50 year period from 1650-1700?
A) Yes,
B) no,
C don’t know,
D cant know
And to show you I am not afraid of questions, I will answer first.
A) Yes it warmer now than it was in the period of 1650 to 1700.
What say you to this terrifying question wayne? watch out.. its a trap!
Steven Mosher, well, I was not necessarily speaking of your first question, but it will do. I agree. It’s warmer now that during the LIA period. Why? Even historic writings make that clear, at least where writings have been preserved. But you question says nothing of where it’s warmer. I chose. Where I chose it’s definitely warmer.
See, is that question hiding the word ‘global’? I have a little catch in my mind that says I really could not concretely say warmer equally weighted everywhere and be able to back it up, I’ve read the answer being yes, many believe that, I have read it even questioning that aspect. I generally also think it was global with that nuance. You do want me to be honest, right? How do I include that nuance in the answer?
I still think your questions are too ambiguous.
Wayne
Its easy
1. Is it warmer now at any randomly choosen spot than it was in the 50 year period from 1650-1700?
A) Yes,
B) no,
C don’t know,
D cant know
##############
If your concern is with the “global” implication, then the honest answer would be
“I dont know.’ and if you dont know.. then think about the following?
So, given any randomly choosen spot on the land is it warmer now than it was then?
or do you have reasons to disbelieve in the LIA? Do you have reason to believe that the documentary records are somehow skewed to only being taken in the cooler places?
Or, do you have evidence that you believe that shows it was cooler in a some places and no data in other places? Does that absence of data give you any reason to believe that it might have been warmer where no one was there to record it? That is, do you think it only got colder where people were living and recording their impressions? Why?