One in Four in U.S. Are Solidly Skeptical of Global Warming
Nearly 40% are “Concerned Believers” in global warming, others are mixed
PRINCETON, NJ — Over the past decade, Americans have clustered into three broad groups on global warming. The largest, currently describing 39% of U.S. adults, are what can be termed “Concerned Believers” — those who attribute global warming to human actions and are worried about it. This is followed by the “Mixed Middle,” at 36%. And one in four Americans — the “Cool Skeptics” — are not worried about global warming much or at all. (see graph)
The rate of Concerned Believers has varied some over the past decade and half, but is currently identical to the earliest estimate, from 2001. Over the same period of time, the ranks of Cool Skeptics have swelled, while the Mixed Middle — once the largest group — has declined modestly.
These groupings stem from a special “cluster” analysis of four questions that measure Americans’ belief and concerns about human-induced global warming, all of which have been asked together on Gallup’s annual Environment survey seven times since 2001. The latest results are from the March 6-9, 2014, Environment poll. However, the groupings derive from analysis of seven years of combined data.
Gallup has recently reported on a number of the individual trends included in the cluster analysis as part of its Climate Change series. This analysis provides a unique way of summarizing Americans’ overall stance on global warming.
Complete report here: http://www.gallup.com/poll/168620/one-four-solidly-skeptical-global-warming.aspx
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Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted March 6-9, 2014, on with a random sample of 1,048 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.
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Conservatives and libertarians do not poll…
…they hang up
Notice how believers have risen from 33 to 39 in the last two years, a result presumably of the intense second-wind warmist propaganda effort.
Climategate and, probably most of all, particularly cold winter experiences around then caused an uptick in skepticism as in the 2010 peak.
However, unfortunately this is a case where the wrong side has on the whole more devoted followers. Why is it, for instance, there will be mass protests against something of real human advancement (i.e. nuclear power — and, no, manmade nuclear waste isn’t that problematical when only short half-lives allow its quantity to be even significant next to trillions of tons of natural uranium, thorium, K-40, etc. isotopes in Earth’s crust) but not in favor of it? Probably the answer involves multiple reasons, including producers being less likely to focus on meme wars and being more probable to have real jobs rather than be inclined towards standing around in protests or other activism. For climatology, that is on top of the funding disparity.
There are results like skeptics using HADCRUT4 from CRU of Climategate, BEST from a known environmentalist, or the latest most fudged temperature history version from activist Hansen’s GISS, just because doing otherwise would be more trouble.
For climatology, matters have gotten worse in ways, like there was relatively a lot more honesty and unfudged data in publications of even the 1990s than in the 2000s. Mann’s hockey stick and the like was an instruction guide to many, of how to succeed and get rewarded. Both sides are more experienced now, with skeptics less likely to seek employment in climatology, while supporters realize how well tactics like the Big Lie work for them (or how some data fudging gets naive audiences disbelieving the solar link in favor of weak vagueness or semi-circular logic like blaming variation in the global temperature index just on the AMO temperature index).
And indoctrination is getting targeted extra towards young children.
Cooling beyond what the most creative data adjustments can cover up, repeated winters worse than 2009/2010 in a way too blatant to the public, are what might most likely really change matters later this decade and beyond. Else they could actually win, for pointing out data fudging becomes necessary (as someone auto-trusting what data the CAGW movement publishes just becomes their puppet, able to be made to believe anything) but takes too long to convey to the average person.
The way a naive but particularly common segment of the believer population thinks of global warming is little more than “CO2 causes warming,” “Earth has been warming,” “trust the [perceived] scientists,” … end of story — with a rarity of mathematical literacy or depth, as if any of that meant CAGW predictions of X degrees warming follow.
Bruce Cobb says:
April 22, 2014 at 11:00 am
Uh… you just said, at rather more length, exactly what I meant. If you like, I’ll rephrase:
Facts aren’t determined by how many or how few people believe them.
@Latitude 11:11.
Yep.
The media has demonstrated their willingness to lie to us, so why bother answering their asinine questions.
Plus the pollsters always call at supper time.
This is the reason polls are so often slanted to the progressive point of view.
Only the parasites have surplus time on their hands and the overwhelming egoism necessary to sit through those “surveys”.
Good news. It doesn’t matter exactly what the groupings mean. (There is no sensible way of wording the questions that will bring out the opinions of both the <1% of the population that reads WUWT and the rest). As with temperature series, the important thing is the movement over time. And it's going our way.
the mixed middle contains those who believe warming is caused by man and those who think its natural, I didn’t see anything breaking ti down further than that.
so there could be a high percentage of them thinking its natural which is what all this is about.
john robertson says:
April 22, 2014 at 11:51 am
====
John exactly…
If they could poll the people that don’t pick up the phone for a number they don’t know…
…hang up and will not poll
I mean who in their right mind would poll some liberal agenda….when you read in the news every day about the IRS, etc
again…conservatives and libertarians do not poll..and they are the ones that say no
Don’t believe a thing about this poll….
In the IAI TV debate Bob Carter had a great comment. something to the effect:
“Reporters are always asking me if I ‘believe in global warming’. I don’t believe in anything – it’s not a matter of belief. I believe in Science.”
Great video: http://iai.tv/video/what-we-dont-know-about-co2
I place very little attention to polls, such as this!!! I would be far more interested to know how many people hold the opinions on both sides of the issue, but with much more investigative background put into the census, meaning just how what the values, ideals etc. are of the people taking sides in this issue are. For instance, there are so many naysayers out there that do not wish to change their extremely wasteful ways. And I would not have much regard for those on both sides of the issue who have grant money or who are involved in the petrochemical industry for example. I would not pay nearly as much attention to those people as relatively unbiased informed people. Rod Chilton, Climatologist, http//www.bcclimate.com.
John Boles says:
April 22, 2014 at 9:16 am
I wonder what percentage of “Concerned Believers” drive cars, use electricity, heat/cool their homes, have kids, etc…probably more than half.
—
I’d say at least 97%. Finding 3% of Americans (about 10 million) who don’t do those things would be extremely difficult.
I look at this as mostly good news. Seems the true believers (which seems to closely match the number of progressives and Democrats) is staying pretty constant. Over time, the Middle is steadily moving into the the skeptic camp.
Jim Clarke says:
The number of believers in man-made global warming hasn’t changed precisely because they are believers. They are immune to additional evidence and factual information…
True dat. People rarely change their religions.
+++++++++++++++++++++++
dmacleo says:
the mixed middle contains those who believe warming is caused by man and those who think its natural… there could be a high percentage of them thinking its natural which is what all this is about.
Exactly right. The entire ‘climate’ debate, whether people admit it [or even understand this], is about whether global warming is natural. If they think it is man made, then they have to blame “carbon”.
The average person has never even heard of the climate Null Hypothesis. Current global climate parameters [temperature, extreme weather events, etc.] have all been exceeded in the past, when CO2 and human industrial activity were very low.
If that hypothesis can be falsified, then there would be a good argument that human activity plays a part in global temperature changes. But as Dr. Roy Spencer says, “The Null Hypothesis has never been falsified.” That fact is so bothersome to Kevin Trenberth that he now demands that the Null Hypothesis must be changed to presume that humman activity is the null, forcing skeptics to have to prove a negative.
Those who think that the immense expenditure of advertising and propaganda dollars has made a difference are right. But as this poll makes clear, the public is becoming aware that the predictions of runaway global warming are never mentioned any more because none of those predictions have happened. And of course, the Orwellian language meddling to “climate change” has replaced the endless predictions of “runaway global warming”.
To change the ‘believers’ numbers the True Believers in CAGW will have to die off, because they will never willingly accept the fact that they have been proven wrong. So those numbers will probably remain static. But it is heartening that even after hundreds of $millions in propaganda, and the President’s constant use of the bully pulpit, the alarmist side still isn’t getting any traction.
I have trouble believing the results of this survey. What I would need to see are the actual raw numbers including the numbers of contacts before agreement to answer the questions. I would also need to see the results of some basic knowledge or awareness items before considering the results of the survey. For example, if the respondent does not know their Congressman or the US VP to what extent should we be using this index as an indicator of anything? What if they do
Sorry either I or my computer pressed the wrong button: The last sentence should read, what if they do not know how much the earth’s temperature has increased in the last 50 years?
From Canada’s Weather Network, which continually pumps the propaganda on their site, a vast majority don’t ‘celebrate earth day’. One wonders how they’d answer the questions put in the Gallup survey above.
http://www.theweathernetwork.com/poll/result/do-you-celebrate-earth-day/25784/
Useful: “I don’t believe in anything – it’s not a matter of belief. I believe in Science.”
I understand the point he was attempting to make, however extreme the oxymoron ….
So, since 2006, the hardcore believers have remained at the same level, while some of the Middles have migrated to the Cools.
Unfortunately, in the USA and almost everywhere else in the world, political power is in the hands of the hardcore believers.
Interesting that 100% of cool skeptics believe that all the warming is from natural causes. Seems hard to believe that 25% of those polled and every skeptic, actually believe that all the warming is coming from natural causes.
Not even 1 thought CO2 causes some of the warming?????
Are they trying to make out skeptics as being closed minded and unable to see that CO2 is a greenhouse gas which probably contributed to some of the beneficial warming?
Not surprised that 80% of skeptics associate with one party and those with the opposite view, associate with the opposite party. Just more powerful evidence that this is a political issue, not scientific.
The generational effect is interesting here: Older people have seen more temperature changes, may remember the 1970’s cooling scare, and were told in school abnout even worse hurricanes before they were born. Young ones have been lied to in school.
But guess what? Today’s young people adore their elders and would “follow the boomers over a cliff” as William Strauss and Neil Howe put in their books “Generations,” “RThe Fourth Turning” “The Millennials and other books. We can rescue these young people from those lies. They love us and they want to learn from us.
We need to realize that this is a serious matter, not from nature, but because the True Believers have crashed the economy with energy restrictions. That threatens the actual “environment” (well-being of the biosphere” and also threatens world peace. It threatens boomer retirement and young people’s early job experience.
Mike Maguire says:
April 22, 2014 at 3:37 pm
Interesting that . Seems hard to believe that 25% of those polled and every skeptic, actually believe that all the warming is coming from natural causes.
Not even 1 thought CO2 causes some of the warming?????
The summary didn’t say that “100% of cool skeptics believe that all the warming is from natural causes”. “All” wasn’t mentioned; what the article said was that, “100% of Cool Skeptics say it (warming) is due to natural changes in the environment”. The extent of “natural” isn’t quantified, only the percent (100) of Cool Skeptics who attribute some, maybe in some cases, all, of the warming to “natural changes”.
If I were to try to quantify my own guess, I’d say that perhaps 10% of whatever warming may actually have occurred since c. AD 1850 could be attributable to manmade CO2, but I’m not sure that the net sign of temperature change from human activities is even positive. In any case, the anthropogenic component is negligible.
Latitude says:
April 22, 2014 at 12:19 pm
john robertson says:
April 22, 2014 at 11:51 am
====
John exactly…
If they could poll the people that don’t pick up the phone for a number they don’t know…
…hang up and will not poll
I mean who in their right mind would poll some liberal agenda….when you read in the news every day about the IRS, etc
again…conservatives and libertarians do not poll..and they are the ones that say no
Don’t believe a thing about this poll….
====================================
Or we are not home, rather outside doing something productive.
James the Elder says:
April 22, 2014 at 4:13 pm
Don’t know how well Gallup compensates for differential response rates, but it’s not as if they’re unaware of the problem. Different pollsters handle such issues in various ways.
“Samples are weighted to correct for unequal selection probability, nonresponse, and double coverage of landline and cell users in the two sampling frames. They are also weighted to match the national demographics of gender, age, race, Hispanic ethnicity, education, region, population density, and phone status (cellphone only/landline only/both, and cellphone mostly). Demographic weighting targets are based on the most recent Current Population Survey figures for the aged 18 and older U.S. population. Phone status targets are based on the most recent National Health Interview Survey. Population density targets are based on the most recent U.S. census. All reported margins of sampling error include the computed design effects for weighting.”
This is just one of the problems with this infernal debate. I am a ‘believer’ in man-made global warming. I am also a ‘believer’ in natural global warming. I am not convinced by the IPCC’s exaggerated garbage about projected global surface warming for 2100. They have failed in their previous reports time and again. That alone should be enough for doubt as to their skill – as a result they use consensus.
We have a consensus!
Close down the IPCC. The ‘best’ brains in the land cannot agree and resort to guessing for our future. After decades of grinding of teeth this is what they have produced. After billions spent this is it?
I know that the people who work for the IPCC work for ‘free’ but the pal reviewed papers they use cost public money. As well as some of their gray literature.