But, we all know that 97% consensus talking point is simply based on a handful of actual climate responding to a broad questionnaire combined with some statistical spin to give the desired result. Apparently, that’s good enough for low information folks, even the researcher in this story, MSU’s Aaron M. McCright is taken in by the spin.
From Michigan State University:
US residents who believe in the scientific consensus on global warming are more likely to support government action to curb emissions, regardless of whether they are Republican or Democrat, according to a study led by a Michigan State University sociologist.
However, a political divide remains on the existence of climate change despite the fact that the vast majority of scientists believe it is real, said Aaron M. McCright, associate professor in Lyman Briggs College and the Department of Sociology.
The study, in the journal Climatic Change, is one of the first to examine the influence of political orientation on perceived scientific agreement and support for government action to reduce emissions.
“The more people believe scientists agree about climate change, the more willing they are to support government action, even when their party affiliation is taken into account,” McCright said. “But there is still a political split on levels of perceived scientific agreement, in that fewer Republicans and conservatives than Democrats and liberals believe there is a scientific consensus.”
McCright and colleagues analyzed a Gallup survey of 1,024 adults who were asked about their views on climate change.
The results reaffirm the success of what McCright calls the “denial machine” – an organized movement to undercut the scientific reality of climate change during the past two decades.
McCright said the first step in dealing with climate change is getting both sides of the political spectrum to accept the scientific consensus. At that point, he said, policymakers can go about the task of coming up with an approach to combat it.
He said both government and industry should be involved in that effort.
“Certainly we can’t solve all our problems with global warming through government regulations – in fact, for some problems, government regulations might make it worse,” McCright said. “And so we need a combination of market-based solutions and government regulations.”
McCright’s co-authors are Riley Dunlap of Oklahoma State University and Chenyang Xiao of American University.
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send to him, please http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf.
So sociologists are now jockeying to get in on the action, eh? Since it appears the politically driven climate scientists, politicians, and Eco-warriors have not been fully successful in getting the public to wholeheartedly embrace economic suicide it seems the sociological community is now hoping to show the way with a ‘scientific’ based manipulation of the public into this suicidal venture. Since a scientific analysis of human behavior will likely be found wanting in the sought manipulation I wonder if psychiatric hospitals in Siberia are next on the agenda.
dbstealey, apologies, when you cited China I thought you were referring to anthropomorphically generated CO2.
I am surprised to see from the map that RSA appears to generate more CO2 than China, though.
Chuck Wozniak: Good evening! For tonight’s “Truth in Science” show, we join Aaron McCright at McDonald’s. Thanks for joining us, this evening, Mr. McCright. This is your favorite table, I take it?
McC: Uh, no, where I sit just depends on how I feel about it.
[cutting out all the chit chat about McC’s hobbies and personal life]
CW: In the article you wrote recently on the effects of perceived agreement among perceived authorities you take as a given that 97% of “scientists” believe that humans can meaningfully affect the earth’s overall climate. I did a little research. I found that:
“31,000+ scientists signed the Oregon Petition stating that there is no discernible [human impact] on climate. The best estimate of the [number of committed, AGW believing,] “scientists” is about 70. [Thus,] about a 450:1 majority of scientists … [are not part of the “consensus”]. [That is, only] [POINT]22 percent of scientists [are part of the “consensus”] NOT 97 percent. How can you believe .22 percent is a “consensus”? [chuckwozniak @1300 on 4/29/13]
McC: [aside: because my government handler and grant rep. told me that] Well, er, THAT’ s because there is a mediable standardizable means tested modeling formula that shows that those 70 scientists are the only scientists that count.
CW: Oh. So it’s not who votes (or signs petitions), “it’s who counts the votes,” hm?
McC: [glaring] No. All those other scientists are PAID BY BIG OIL. So, they don’t count.
CW: Proof?
McC: NO!!! You can just tell by what they say!!!!
CW: A real scientist wouldn’t make a statement like that.
McC: [standing up, shoving table away from him] Oookay, end of interview. [stomps out]
CW: [smiling wryly] And that, folks, is what you top 3%-ers are getting for your tax dollars at MSU. Odd, isn’t it? A good estimate of how much of the CO2 in the atmosphere THAT is NOT due to humans is 97%… . Well, whatever the absolute number of “scientists” is in the 97%, it’s clear that only the top 3% got a passing grade in Truth in Science. Until next time, I’m Chuck Wozniak, good night from McDonald’s!
Announcer: Watch next week as we show you archival film footage of THE GREAT ICE AGE SCARE.
It’s not supposed to be about belief, or submitting to expert opinion or groupthink or following the herd. It’s about evaluating the evidence. The 97% concensus claim isn’t evidence. First of all, it’s not true. Second, it’s just appeal to authority.
This is the mindset that infects American academia and liberalism. They don’t believe in democracy, they believe in a dictatorship of the technocrats. Nicely dovetailing into this is their belief that they are smarter than you, so they should be in charge. Just let the scientists, lawyers, activists, bureaucrats, technicrats and policitians run things and the world would be a better place.
Oh, baloney. I have linked here before on all the aspects of education reform tied to creating influential false beliefs tied to Climate Change. What I have not explained is the related Cronyism and Regional Equity tied to restructuring the inner city urban economies based on the so-called presumption of a Climate Change crisis. And just to make sure we get this whether we want it or not federal revenue sharing to states and cities is being restructured to entice local officials to go along. http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/well-no-wonder-no-one-listens-to-common-core-complaints-if-it-is-tied-to-federal-revenue-sharing/
All of this is about power. Preserving political power. Keeping public sector jobs even in parts of the country where few want to live and industry has been driven away. By parasitical public sector behavior that need not reform. No we’ll just ship taxes from the Southeast and Texas to the so-called Blue Hells. OECD, UN agencies, the World Bank-everyone wants this excuse to manage all aspects of our lives with THEIR tax free salaries and lucrative benefits intact.
It is worth repeating what these 97% of climate scientists (77 of 79) agreed with in the Doran and Zimmerman survey. The questions were
There is nothing about the future forecast of catastrophic global warming.
Another who used this survey was Stephan Lewandowsky in his “NASA faked the moon landings..” paper.
Gallup survey of 1,024 adults who were asked about their views on climate change.
======
Even sociologists can be weasels…..
http://www.gallup.com/poll/153608/global-warming-views-steady-despite-warm-winter.aspx
Confusing terminology, if the planet warms is that climate change? If the climate changes then are the scientists talking about the same thing? Yes the climate has changed, sometimes it got hotter and sometimes it got cooler, if anyone denies that then can they rightly continue employment under the title of scientist? You have to admit that the climate does change, sometimes a lot but that does not mean it is because of Co2, lumping all of the climate gibberish together and conflating the terminology just confuses the argument. Yesterday in Death Valley it was 111f and no one died, yet, they were riding bikes in leathers and driving Corvettes I was taking photographs at the bottom of Zabriskie Point and had to climb out and at the bottom it was hotter than 111f and surprise I am still here but had I not kept a bottle of water with me then it might have been different.
True, Robin. Sad, but, true. There are in the Cult of Climatology:
1) true believers in fantasy science;
2) those who believe in themselves and are making a lot of money off fantasy science; and
3) the Cult Leaders — who are in it for, as you stated so well, POWER.
Truth, will, however, stand the test of time and will, in the end prevail. While the war between the Liars and the Truthtellers is perennial, the AGW battle is lost. It’s just a matter of time. The public funds based on AGW to the Blue Hells, such as the one I live in (like, wow, man, thanks for the new wetlands swamp and the solar panels for my medical marijuana grow-op, Texas) (aaack!) will end. Good will come from that battle being won, despite the overall war continuing.
The war for truth will go on, but on a different battleground. “Public safety” is always a good standby — Bawney Fwank already told us we need to spend lots of money on Homeland Security if we want to keep Boston Massacres from happening (no, that’s not logical, but, it does prove the point, [sigh]).
The war for truth is noble and worth fighting. The battles won DO result in much good for humanity. That we will never win them all is not a reason to throw up our hands and just quit.
Your comment is good and true, BUT, it does more to demoralize the troops than to rally them to fight on for victory. Defeatism is powerful. We must NEVER GIVE IN.
My guess is that McCright is either too lazy to find out where the 97% lie came from, or investigated and does not understand that it is bogus, or has such a strong commitment to the Climate Change myths that the facts are unimportant.
His area is the sociology of science (how does science make us feel, and how can we manipulate it to make us feel warm and fuzzy while gaining power over the people), so he has no interest in determining if anything he says or writes is actually true.
He is an embarrassment to his employer. However, he is apparently very good at getting grants, so they will likely continue to excuse his incompetence. http://lymanbriggs.msu.edu/faculty/bios/user.cfm?UserID=25
After looking over the list of his publications, I am left wondering how he tricked anyone into paying him to produce them. Strikes me as a complete waste of time and effort.
Agreed, David Wells. Glad you took that water! Did you check out D. Nuccitelli’s little bike? THAT would be a death trap for sure — it could never carry all the water he would need for the 12 hours it would take him to cross Death Valley on the little thing.
Why does the first step have to be acceptance of the “crisis” by both sides of politics?
Why can’t the greens embrace building nuclear reactors to decarbonise the economy, and stop antagonising us with carbon pricing?
As Watts posted recently, most skeptics love nuclear power. Creating a decarbonisation policy we want should be a no brainer.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/12/im-on-al-gores-radar-for-showing-a-path-forward/
The only explanation which makes sense for this bizarre “blind spot” is that lefties and greens don’t really care about decarbonisation – they simply see it as a convenient excuse for forcing their political agenda on us.
When was the last time 97% agreed with this fraud ?? What’s the number now, April, 2013 ??
Even dimwits, including credentialed dimwits, must be seeing the light ?? Surely it’s down below 96% by now ?
I’m guessing that less than 9.7% would put their names to IT now, whatever IT is.
Could a warmista troll please re-identify what IT is that we’re supposed to be skeptical about?
While we in the West have “Professors” in Sociology” and other non subjects, Asia is doubling up on proper scientists, engineers and mathematicians.
And we wonder why we are falling further and further behind economically.
We’ve been having a lot of numbers, especially percentages, thrown at us lately: 99%, 97%, 47%, 1%, etc. After centuries there is still something magical about numbers for us. Beware! Just bestowing a number on something doesn’t make it any more valid.
I reckon we should do a count of all the published climate science papers and see how many disprove AGW. Could be a worthy crowd-sourcing project from this site, like the surface stations project. If Anthony or some others have the time of course. It’s probably a big ask.
Chad Wozniak says:
April 29, 2013 at 1:45 pm
Thats well said Chad. Sociology and pychology both have basicly the same effects in them. You have a very bias non-science group that tries to forcable explain everything through what end run is marxist/collectivist bigotry vs a very very small group that does real science. They prey on the stupid and foolish and push an anti-science agenda.
Or maybe he is aware that it’s just spin and is part of the new Lysenkoism of
global warmingooops, climate change.Consensus has nothing to do with being right or wrong. It has no place in science. It’s a con job and an appeal to authority………..the last refuge of the rogue. History is going to judge these people as a bunch of sheep following the money. Sad.
Is that a typo in the first sentence? Did you mean “climate scientists”?
Folks, it sure seems to me that the most sensible way to deal with this “97%” thing is to point out that what those 97% of climate change specialists were saying – that human activity is a significant contributing factor in global temperature change – is perfectly consistent with skeptic’s position. “Significant contributing factor” could mean as little as 5% or so!
Ian Weiss is correct. For laymen, “significant” means “important”, “major”, “overwhelming”, or other such synonym for big.
Those who analyse data, though, use “significant” as meaning “enough to be detectable above the noise”, as in “statistically significant”.
I would also agree with those 75 or 77 scientists polled, in that yes, it is no warmer than during the Little Ice Age, and yes there ought to be a discernible human contribution (if we could somehow differentiate between it and the other factors).
But I still don’t see CO2 as being the Great Climate Boogeyman, nor do I see evidence of the climate’s sensitivity to the stuff being much greater than the calculable and experimentally established value of a mere 1.2 degrees per doubling.
Hmmm… I meant to say that “it is now warmer”, not that it is “no warmer”.
It’s not just the 97% factor that irks me, it’s the ‘97% of scientists from 100% of science academies‘ banter that they have shooting around of late.
BruceC,
97% is a preposterous number. You couldn’t get 97% of Italians to agree that the Pope is Catholic.