From Forbes writer James Taylor:
Don’t look now, but maybe a scientific consensus exists concerning global warming after all. Only 36 percent of geoscientists and engineers believe that humans are creating a global warming crisis, according to a survey reported in the peer-reviewed Organization Studies. By contrast, a strong majority of the 1,077 respondents believe that nature is the primary cause of recent global warming and/or that future global warming will not be a very serious problem.
The survey results show geoscientists and engineers hold similar views as meteorologists. Two recent surveys of meteorologists (summarized here and here) revealed similar skepticism of alarmist global warming claims.
According to the newly published survey of geoscientists and engineers, merely 36 percent of respondents fit the “Comply with Kyoto” model. The scientists in this group “express the strong belief that climate change is happening, that it is not a normal cycle of nature, and humans are the main or central cause.”
…
The survey finds that 24 percent of the scientist respondents fit the “Nature Is Overwhelming” model. “In their diagnostic framing, they believe that changes to the climate are natural, normal cycles of the Earth.” Moreover, “they strongly disagree that climate change poses any significant public risk and see no impact on their personal lives.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2013/02/13/peer-reviewed-survey-finds-majority-of-scientists-skeptical-of-global-warming-crisis/
…
The paper:
Science or Science Fiction? Professionals’ Discursive Construction of Climate Change
Abstract
This paper examines the framings and identity work associated with professionals’ discursive construction of climate change science, their legitimation of themselves as experts on ‘the truth’, and their attitudes towards regulatory measures. Drawing from survey responses of 1077 professional engineers and geoscientists, we reconstruct their framings of the issue and knowledge claims to position themselves within their organizational and their professional institutions. In understanding the struggle over what constitutes and legitimizes expertise, we make apparent the heterogeneity of claims, legitimation strategies, and use of emotionality and metaphor. By linking notions of the science or science fiction of climate change to the assessment of the adequacy of global and local policies and of potential organizational responses, we contribute to the understanding of ‘defensive institutional work’ by professionals within petroleum companies, related industries, government regulators, and their professional association.
Full open paper here: http://oss.sagepub.com/content/33/11/1477.full
PDF: http://oss.sagepub.com/content/33/11/1477.full.pdf+html
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Organization Studies (OS) publishes peer-reviewed, top quality theoretical and empirical research with the aim of promoting the understanding of organizations, organizing and the organized in and between societies. http://oss.sagepub.com/
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numerobis, Professors are highly biased. If climate change is a scary problem, the billions in grant money will keep moving within their grasp. Besides, professors live in the world of words, where strong rhetoric and consensus is truth.
numerobis says:
August 13, 2013 at 8:48 am
Mike SG says:
August 13, 2013 at 8:54 am
I notice that – just yesterday! – the United States GOVERNMENT – at both the presidential and department level positions (DOE, DOD, DOI, DOE, EPA, NOAA, NASA, NSA, etc, etc, etc, etc) officially and specifically forbade ANY discussion of alternatives or review of the evidence or presentation of papers about global warming or funding of ANY study of ANY kind that did not both explicitly and implicitly support HER catastrophic global warming prejudices and theology.
Now, would that little bit of prejudged bias and narrow-minded thinking perhaps maybe just perhaps in a little way influence a little bit any maybe “academic” so-called “scientists” who NEED THE GOVERNMENT’S MONEY FOR THEIR LIVES?
The paper is pretty interesting. It would be nice to see the same methodology used in the study of some technological experts who are not oil company employees. Of course the groupings that they arrive at are not as secure as blood types, but they are well-described and documented, I think a finding that 36% of oil company employees endorse AGW is significant. Would it be higher in academic geology departments? Would it be lower among Chinese, Russian, Brazilian or Indonesian oil company technical experts?
numerobis demonstrates the post-modern belief that ideas have no value in and of themselves, they only gain value from the social, political, or class-based affiliation of the person espousing the idea.
That way every idea from people he doesn’t like can be comfortably ignored.
It’s interesting that no mention is made in this post, nor in the Forbes article, of the fact that the survey was done in Alberta, the oil sands capital of the world. So would a survey of, say, solar and wind turbine engineers that came to the opposite conclusion be regarded as valid and accepted here on WUWT? I think not, I’m sure there would be cries of survey bias and “cherry picking” respondents.
Allencic: As a geologist and geology professor for nearly 40 years I’ve never thought AGW was anything but total BS. Every geoscientist that I know who is good at his profession feels the same. We all view AGW as a scam to fool the gullible (virtually all politicians) to keep the money rolling in for pointless grants, computer models, and publications
That puts you in either the 24% group or the 10% group, depending on how you answer the other questions.
The alarmist reaction is completely predictable. They ignore the data and jump in with ad hominems. The funny thing is the Doran-Zimmerman study was biased by limiting the study to published climate scientists whose jobs depend on keeping the scare alive. However, we have not seen a single alarmist bring up this issue. If anything proves this is all about propaganda it is the distinctly different and illogical reaction by alarmists.
Trouble is, whilst I “strongly disagree that climate change poses any significant public risk”, I see considerable impact on my personal life. Mostly in the vaulting increases in my energy bills caused by all the brain-dead politicians who believe in this rubbish and act accordingly.
Geoscientists? To hardcore activists this will only strengthen their belief in a Big Oil conspiracy.
This survey still doesn’t do a good job separating CO2 induced climate change from other human-related causes. So if I believe deforestation affects climate, then I might answer that humans are significantly changing climate. And my answer would then be misconstrued as saying that CO2 is significantly affecting climate. This conflation by the surveyors is intentional, I’m certain.
1077 professional engineers and geoscientists…
Engineers and geoscientists are not known for being hysterical bedwetters
Only 12 men walked on the Moon. Those 12 men are the only people qualified to speak with authority about going to the surface of the Moon. What do a bunch of engineers know about space travel and moon walking anyway?
Rud Istvan: The amazing result was that 36% of them still thought CAGW was a problem!
!, indeed. I don’t agree with you that their language was dreck, but I am glad that at least one other person besides myself actually read the paper. The bias of the authors was clearly stated at the outset: a study of organizational defensiveness. And still they found 36% of the respondents support AGW. That’s larger than the “nature is overwhelming” group.
John Cook, Dana Nuccitelli, SkepticalScience hardest hit.
Q: What do the following have in common?
2+2 = 4
F = MA
Planck’s constant
Ohm’s Law
Germ transmission of disease
E = MC squared
A: They all care not one whit how many people believe them.
Not only has the US Government forbade alternate discussion of their Pet Meme for taxation and control, they obviously havent’ told their favorite news outlets to broadcast the fact to the masses.
That would explain why some commenters here are clueless and still agree with CAGW propaganda; they really should think for a change and get out of the government “information” trough.
I just wonder how much longer WUWT will be allowed to voice an independent opinion on the subject. SInce the “powers-that-be” now consider us to be “subjects” instead of “citizens”, it won’t be long.
Cupcakes, anyone?
“From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!” is also appropriate for IPCC railroad engineers who have special skills and experience at working the system.
FerdinandAkin says:
August 13, 2013 at 9:32 am
Ummmm…engineers put them there?
(Yes, I realize your post was sarcasm, but I had to give kudos to the real (anonymous) heroes.)
Astrophysicists, strangely unconsulted about the issue, generally agree that AGW is entirely unproven and likely is nonexistent at this time, for the attributed cause, CO2.
They appear to have surveyed a bunch of people employed in the oil sands industry. You were expecting something different?
Numerobis, a failed Egyptian architect from the 1965 French comic Asterix and Cleopatra… Do read it, is fun and you may understand the distorted logic.
Rud Istvan says:
August 13, 2013 at 9:11 am
“Sage (a for profit house) publishes OS and many other inferior journals. They are notorious for low quality publish or perish stuff. You can visit their sites to get a personal sense of this.
Both authors are business school professors of organization. As painful as it was to read through all their high fallutin dreck, their purpose was to research “institutional defense mechanisms”. To this end, the study specifically and only sampled geologists and engineers in the petroleum industry in Alberta, Canada (home of the tar sands that would feed the Keystone pipeline).
The amazing result was that 36% of them still thought CAGW was a problem! It shows the opposite of what Taylor intended to convey. A third of “evil” oil experts ‘admitted’ CAGW is real and a problem.”
Amazing! You, too, buy into the egregious fallacy that reasoning by engineers and geologists is determined by their biases. In addition, you suggest that their economic bias over-rides all their other biases.
Take your reasoning to a first rate engineering or geology faculty at a first rate university that trains petroleum engineers. According to your reasoning, all the first rate training in geology and engineering is less important than the economic biases of the professors. Preposterous, Sir, preposterous!
It is possible, in principle, that your condemnation of the study is correct. However, you have not provided one shred of legitimate evidence to that effect.
Rattus Norvegicus says:
Well, Dana Nuticelli works for Big Oil and you don’t see him minimizing AGW like that.
:p
numerobis says: “Oil workers don’t believe their work is going to harm civilization. Quelle surprise. Next study will show that only a tiny minority of coal executives believe that coal is dirty.”
These people are in a better position than you are to render such an opinion. Just because you don’t belong to these groups does not establish that you are unbiased, merely ignorant.
Numerobis
What an itiotic statement. As a geologist I have dedicated 40+ years of my life being a professional geologist and an educator at university level. You can’t dedicate your life to something and NOT care deeply about it. But your innane statement seems to imply that a bunch of neo-socialist, ex-hippie eco-terrorists care more about the Earth than geologists and engineers. (We are related disciplines by the way: geologists provide the understanding of Earth systems and engineers figure out how we can best have a modern society within the confines of those systems).