UPDATE: – Users have reported (and I’ve now experienced myself but it was not present in the test runs I made) some sort of web posting error at the end of the survey, so I’ve disabled it and notified the author. Don’t waste your time for now. Apologies – Anthony
I have examined this proposal for survey, and finding it far superior to the tabloid like polling efforts of Stephan Lewandowsky and John Cook, and at the request of the researcher, decided to run it here. This survey has been through test runs and has been adjusted based on those runs to weed out typical polling bugs, and it is being administered on a professional polling platform. As far as I know, there has been no last minute bait and switch ethics approvals because the poll I see today is nearly identical to the one I first viewed weeks ago, except for some minor tweaks due to the beta test results.
From the primary researcher, Ajay Singh at the Ohio State University:
Researchers from the College of Food, Agriculture, and Environmental Sciences at The Ohio State University are conducting a study to better understand the relationship between the level of support for climate mitigation and adaptation policy alternatives, how individuals view the role of government in society, and the role of science in policy making. Researchers are looking for people to participate in an online survey who search for and read climate change information via blogs and websites. The survey asks a series of questions regarding roles and responsibilities of policy makers and scientists, perception of the risks of climate change, belief in climate change, accuracy and validity of climate science, trust in government and other institutions, and a series of climate mitigation and adaptation policy alternatives. If you would like to participate please click on the link below:
[SURVEY LINK REMOVED – Users are reporting an error at the end, and I’ve experienced that error myself today. I’ve told the author of the problem that seems to be preventing users from sending the results. When I first tested the survey, this problem did not exist – sorry for the inconvenience. ]
The survey should take approximately 20 minutes to complete however you may take as much time as you wish. The survey is anonymous however, the survey software tracks IP addresses to protect against people taking the survey more than once. This information will not be used in the analysis of the survey results.
Results will be used to develop two doctoral dissertations and journal publications. Results will be provided to Watts Up With That? and participants who ask for results at the end of the survey.
Funding for the survey is provided by internal funds of The College of Food, Agriculture, and Environmental Sciences at The Ohio State University. For more information or questions please contact Ajay Singh at singh.353@osu.edu.
The questions are “leading questions” from which they will be able to make conclusions that are highly unwarranted.
For example:
Impacts resulting from climate change are:
1) Highly unlikely
2) Highly likely
Throughout all time changes in the climate have always had impacts, BY DEFINITION. Anyone with a brain with register “likely”, because it is impossible for a climate impact to have no impact. The question is a complete tautology, from which they will likely conclude that belief in alarming climate change is well supported by the public even though that’s what no reasonable skeptic actually meant.
Maybe the questions will get better, but so far this is shaping up to be a complete fraud of a survey.
REPLY: It would help to not think like a “sky dragon slayer” when answering these questions – Anthony
Started but don’t know if I will complete it, the questions are terrible.
Two doctoral dissertations? From one survey? Doesn’t fit with my understanding of a doctoral dissertation, which should show not only mastery of the subject matter but the ability to conceive and carry out original research (by one person).
Sorry Anthony, I got a third of the way through and it looks like the same sort of survey as the rest w
here any answer points to CAGW. Without proper choices my answers do not reflect my understanding of Earth’s Climate and how or why it changes and Man’s role.
They just seem to want to know what makes Winston tick.
Joe Postma says:
October 16, 2012 at 10:17 am
The questions are “leading questions” from which they will be able to make conclusions that are highly unwarranted.
————
Bang on!
I gave up when the questions were obviously assuming the participants are US citizens. Is it meant for a world audience?
REPLY: if you had bothered to stick with it, you’d get to that section that deals with that.
Hmm…I did the whole thing and then got an error at the end as my responses were submitted.
As the previous posters have pointed out, the survey is extremely biased, the questions assume Climate Change is happenning (and all our fault)
Very badly worded, if this is the level of expertise required for doctorates nowadays I’ll enter my cat for one, even though he’s probably overqualified
Sorry, I have to disagree. This survey is almost as stupid as the Lewandowsky one. I started and soon gave up. In one question, we are asked on a sliding scale
Impacts of climate change will primarily be felt by
… myself and others like me
… others unlike myself
with no option to say ‘neither’. Some of the questions are also US-centric.
My major issue is all of the questions ask about “climate change” if like me you belive climate is changing and always will be it makes it very hard to answer many of these questions regardless of what percent you attribute to human activity unless you attribute 100% of change to GHG emissions.
Gave up part way thru – too many unanswerable questions.
E.g. “If the United States, along with other countries, adopts policies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions the severity of climate change impacts will be lessened.”
So agree means imapcts will be lessened, and disagree means impacts wont be lessened.
Where’s the option to say there are no severe impacts?
I sent the following email:
“I have just looked at your survey.
Unfortunately, as you use the ‘newspeak’ shorthand ‘climate change’ when what you really mean is anthropogenic climate change your survey is meaningless. If a new ice age were to start, that would be a climate change, and it would be catastrophic. But it would not be anthropogenic. So your questions on the impact of ‘climate change’ can be answered truthfully that it can be catastrophic – and you will immediately take that as meaning the responder believes anthropogenic climate change is catastrophic; which is NOT the case.
I think you should define your questions a lot more tightly. If you mean climate change caused by antrhopogenic emissions, then say so. If you mean natural climate change then say so. “
I wonder if Lonnie Thompson drafted the questions.
I started it but got fed up with so many questions about how climate change WILL affect me. Also, it’s designed for US citizens and I have no idea whether democrats or republicans are best able to reduce the effects of climate change.
The following question:
Which of the following do you think will be most effective at reducing greenhouse gas emissions?
has a logical disconnect from the following answer choice:
There is no effective way of addressing climate change
Logically the last option should be: “Reducing greenhouse gas emissions has no proven benefit” or at least an option for “none of the above.”
As it stands it makes the logical leap from “reducing greenhouse gas emissions” to “addressing climate change.”
So I’m somewhat stuck! I guess if one really wanted to reduce emissions then Federal Government would be the answer. That is, a dictatorial, draconian Federal Government, so I’ll pick that one.
I have now looked at all the questions and conclude that this is not worth one Ph.D., let alone two.
Me too, re the error message about an incorrect link
Climate change from short and long term weather pattern variations kill and make to prosper, depending on which way they swing. Climate change based on the anthropogenic portion of CO2 makes for late night jokes. Not taking the survey because I refuse to pin a target on my own rear end.
Same thing… I got an error at the end:
“Unfortunately the link you received is not valid. We apologise for the inconvenience.”
A wasted 20 minutes…
[snip – you were free to decline, but don’t take it then complain about “rights” sheesh – Anthony]
The questions were loaded.
“The effects of climate change will be felt locally or remotely ?”
What if there are only minor changes ?
@Matthew Hoy
So did I!
After answering the question “is climate change happening/man made”, the rest of the surveys asks me about all the effects of climate change + what I think we should do about it.
Surely a better survey would ask us why we don’t think AGW will happen?
I received the same error message
I also completed the entire survey (with all the leading questions) but received an error at the end when I submitted my answers. Up to that point I thought everything was fine. arggg…..
Finished it. Many of the questions were actually completely unanswerable because they implied things that were not realistic. Everyone knows what I mean..maybe other people can post examples here for others to see.
For example, the questions on science informing politics… Yes, ideally we would all like that. Ideally if we applied science to politics we would have “Star Trek” and flying cars within a few months. But as we have seen (read “The Delinquent Teenager, for example), when humans try to mesh science with politics what happens is that the ideologies of those doing so infect the science with politics, instead of the other way around. Science is produced to support the politics which means it was never science in the first place. The only way science and politics can go together is if we have a bona-fide and completely 100% independent judicial body which puts the intended policies and claims through prosecution and judgement by appropriate jury.
Just another survey put together by an intellectual amateur with an agenda he’s not even aware he has.