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.
I don’t like this survey. For example, if, in earlier questions I assert that I believe that there will be few if any impacts of climate change, then why pester me with questions about the impacts of climate change? I already said I don’t think there will be much of any.
I gave up at the question asking me to rank all of the disasters (Hurricanes, wind storms, wild fires, heat waves, etc.) If I put everything at the bottom of the list, I’m still ranking things I believe are fantasies in a scale from 1 to 9. Just because I ended up with Heat Waves at #2 doesn’t mean I think there will be heat waves.
The entire premise of most of the questions seems to take human-caused climate change as a given, and there will be negative consequences of a changing climate for everyone. I don’t believe either of those things. All changes will benefit some, and disadvantage others, as has always been the case throughout the entire history of the planet. And what about the questions asking me about what Republican or Democrat politicians believe? I know what they SAY, but I have zero idea of what they BELIEVE.
Whoever came up with this needs to rethink the strategy.
I had an error at the end as well.
It clearly assumes CAGW as a fact — those assumptions are built into the questions.
The most bizarre question was to rate my stance on “Moral Issue” from liberal to conservative. How can their be a liberal or conservative stance on a moral issue?
I don’t know why there is resistance to the survey questions, I found them pretty well balanced. The further you go in the better the questions get, and it gives you significant opportunity to register significant opinions on climate science and policy, as well as mitigation efforts.
The nervous nellies that posted dissing comments above simply don’t seem to have the tolerance for the first few generalized questions.
Compared to the dreck put out by Lewandowsky, this is far and away better.
Another question makes no sense:
The following are natural disasters that are predicted to increase if the climate changes. Please rank the following disasters according to what you think you are MOST VULNERABLE TO if the climate changes. 1 represents most vulnerable, 8 represents least vulnerable. You can click and drag each label.
One option is “I’m not vulnerable.” But “I’m not vulnerable” is not a natural disaster, so how does that fit in? If I believe I am indeed not vulnerable, do I drag the option “I’m not vulnerable” to number 1 or number 8? Sorry, but how the hell did this survey pass quality control?
Like so many other climate surveys, this one looks like it is going to be more revealing about the state of mind of the designers than of those of whoever can stomach completing it.
Unexpected error at the end.
The questions leave something to be desired, but better than the others I’ve recently seen. I agree that numerous questions did not have a place for what I believe, but maybe that will be clear from the analysis.
Gerry Parker
I just assumed climate change meant man made global warming and answered accordingly.I refused to state my income.I got an error message too at the end,so I don’t know if mine was received.
Anthony, I think Lewandosky’s survey has significantly increased your tolerance of flaws in survey’s. I completed the survey but increasingly felt that AGW/climate change were considered one and the same by the authors. Also got the error message at the end.
survey’s should be surveys.
I did the whole survey, and while it is better than the Lewandowsky one, there were still numerous questions that were worded such that I could have answered truthfully at either extreme depending on interpretation or various assumptions. Some of my answers would on the surface appear to conflict. I expect it will be very easy to draw false interpretations from the responses.
I wish they had asked more questions to do with CAGW and AGW versus natural climate change. I got the error at the end as well. I also believe this survey made it tough to relay my view of climate change as opposed to global warming and the anthropenic factor in that.
Anthony seriously you go through and dig on your guest commentators? That’s a little silly and ridiculous.
You don’t need to defend your posting of the survey.
The survey didn’t have sufficient room for skepticism and the questions usually came pregnant with a lot of assumptions.
REPLY: You stated “a complete fraud of a survey”. I think you’ve overstated the case based on an emotional response. Be as upset as you wish. – Anthony
Many of the questions are leading they assume you believe in AGW.
Completed. Hyperbolic questions got equivocal responses.
I persisted because they gave options for strongly disagreeing when it came to government policies.That’s the only value I saw in it.I
Yes, error on confirmation and of request for results.
Error at the end. Wonder if it was a browser thing? (Mozilla here). I won’t take it again…didn’t hate it, but I commented about the presupposition of CAGW.
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Dan B says:
October 16, 2012 at 10:59 am
Anthony, I think Lewandosky’s survey has significantly increased your tolerance of flaws in survey’s.
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Might be what’s happened!! 🙂
And Anthony, I am very polite here. Please remove your “dig” in my first post. My opinion obviously has a lot of support here and is not unique or original. If you’re not going to dig on every other skeptical commentator, then don’t do so on mine. It isn’t kind.
I agree with all the comments it is a badly written survey and does little to explore and discover what people truly think and believe. I think only a sceptic could draft those questions in an honest fashion.
Too many of the questions presuppose that man made climate change is happening – it would be better if there was an option to tick a box which states that you do not believe it is.
Equally questions presuppose that future climate change will be the increase of temperature when it may very well not be.
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Clavius says:
October 16, 2012 at 10:49 am
The most bizarre question was to rate my stance on “Moral Issue” from liberal to conservative. How can their be a liberal or conservative stance on a moral issue?
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Because liberals believe that terminating a fetus because you find it inconvenient is a moral action, whereas conservatives believe that terminating a fetus for convenience is immoral.
Yes, humans and politics are that idiotic.
http://dkr1.ssisurveys.com/projects/&subpanelid=
Got the error message at that link if it the link still works. Also, the question toward the end about where you live already had “rural town” selected. Leads me to believe the results might be biased toward “rural town”.
After reading comments above, some of you have been brainwashed to associate “climate change” with “man-made”. If you remove that link from your brain, then the questions seem more reasonable.
Well, I got through the survey. The questions are not perfect, but are a lot better than some I have seen, and they eventually allowed me to get my point of view across, more or less. Except that the Democrat/Republican stuff was not very helpful for this Brit. So I answered those down the middle.
Give the thing a whirl, chaps – be patient with the questions, and answer even when you think there is a logical flaw. Your way of thinking will find its way into the survey if you persist.
Pity about the error message right at the end …
I’ve just finished the survey and I find it to be another ‘when did you stop beating your wife?’ set of questions. The assumptions underlying this survey about global warming (AGW) seem supportive of the alarmist world and leave little way for me to answer without appearing to support those assumptions. I attached the following paragraph to the comment section, but with the error at the end about bad links I have no idea if it was recorded. Oh well – another lost 20 minutes adventuring in to the realm of academia.
Sent in comments section of survey:
I had difficulty in choosing some answers as the questions exhibit bias. The evidence does not support CO2 or greenhouse gases as the cause of climate change, nor does the evidence support natural disasters are the result of or increased by global warming. Indeed, the temperatures and occurance of natural disasters both appear to be falling. The evidence does not even support the idea that global warming even exists as other than a cyclical normality in the life of the planet. The assumption that these things are true seem to be built in to the questions and lead to a ‘Hobb’s choice’ of answers that do not accurately reflect my opinion in this poll.
Ajay Singh (@The Ohio State University),
I could only get <10% through your survey before I declined to continue. Although I do not doubt your sincerity in trying to formulate objective questions which would allow a sufficient range of plausible answer choices that would fully allow for them (the answers) to represent fully a survey taker's positions, I find your survey does not allow for capturing fully my positions. I will not participate in a situation where there can be only an approximate capture of my positions. Sorry.
I sincerely wish you success in your academic pursuits.
John
I second the comments above. I finished the questionaire, but mostly out of curiousity.