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
Gallup says:
“One in Four in U.S. Are Solidly Skeptical of Global Warming”
Heck, I am not sceptical of global warming!!!! This is crazy, does anyone know what the main question was?
We have the future possibilities of mild and beneficial warming, moderate warming and hot, hot, hot warming. This is what the debate is about and not about whether the global surface temps have warmed since 1850, 1950 or 1975 – they have. Man has also played a part. How much???? PDO, AMO, ENSO, UHI, sparse thermometer data, MWP gone and NH affair, LIA NH affair, data tampering at GISS NOAA et al and all because of 0.8C ‘rise’.
I would like to see ‘concerned believers’ split into two groups:
Those who SAY they are concerned and those who BEHAVE as though they are concerned.
That would be interesting.
Sorry, I read this graph a bit differently.
Since 2010 the “Concerned Believers” have risen from 33% to 39%. Over that same interval “Cool Skeptics” dropped from 28% to 25%. “Mixed Believers” dropped from 39% to 36%.
That would be ~3% transfer or so from “Cool Skeptics” and “Mixed Believers” each to “Concerned Believers”.
Or did I do my maths wrong?
I believe that 2012 was the year of the “Super Storm Sandy” hype late in the year, thus an uptick in hysteria, albeit small in 2013. I am a relative newcomer to skepticism, so there are converts all the time. And of course the K-12 propaganda machine doesn’t help, but once the kids get a little dose of reality, they are likely to come around. I tell my daughter that she will have to undergo deprogramming after high school. My son is more skeptical to begin with, so he probably won’t need deprogramming. He may outdo me.
I wish there were statistics, but my take on the group that hangs out here is that they are fairly technical, both hard sciences and technology types, with engineers as well as scientists and a mixture if others. I think that engineering might be more of a skeptical group than hard science, as engineers live in the real world where you can’t make simplifying assumptions to make your equations work. You have to take the world as it is, with all of the complicating factors and still make the doggone thing work. This may play into the gender gap. While the ranks of women in science are increasing all of the time, they are still under represented in engineering. And women are culturally more accepting–I can say that since I am one. That doesn’t mean there aren’t also many women who are not push overs–the bell curve skews more to the trusting side. It would be interesting to have a demographic survey taken of WUWT.
And 46% of Americans don’t believe in evolution. (http://www.gallup.com/poll/155003/hold-creationist-view-human-origins.aspx)
So yeah, If there’s one thing we excel in, it’s allowing our ideologies to trump our rationality. This site being a prime example.
Cold in Wisconsin says:
April 22, 2014 at 7:49 pm
Your comment elicited much thought on many subjects. Thank you for that. I often find that is why I am here…………..
William
This site is comprise of believers in the religion. The owner does his best to silence or drive off unbelievers in it.
The atmosphere’s thermal profile is established in accordance with the Ideal Gas Law PV = nRT where R comprises any of the standard gas mixes found in the atmosphere anywhere around the globe, being able to hold heat.
James Hansen’s believers even here, are rocked daily with people mocking their inability to sort out the actual laws of physics vs the Hansen Infrared Warming Fairy Physics.
So yeah you’re right: belivers are going to believe, no matter how many time the actual laws of physics are used to bludgeon them into sullen temporary silence in spreading their “message of the great light in the sky” that was “growing ever brighter with the addition of CO2.”
Of course it obviously hasn’t been growing for the past 17 years.
And actually it wasn’t growing as far back as 1996 when NOAH set out longwave earth frequency infrared detectors and discovered after fourteen years of monitoring what’s effectively ground zero for Green House Gas Law version of atmospheric thermal profile assignment: the Great Plains of the United States.
After more than three quarters of a million readings it was discovered there was less Backerdistical Glow than when the true believers started checking for it in ’96,
when they terminated their fruitless grope for the magical light they swore was associated with CO2 in the air.
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2011JCLI4210.1?journalCode=clim
Worldwide these ignorant wannabes who followed government scammers down the drain hole of their own credibility have bunkered themselves behind every possible advantage having firm control over media on the matter can give.
To this day, one in four people is prepared to tell them none of it’s real.
Those are the one in four who understand gas mechanics well enough to remember the Ideal Gas Law is what determines the atmospheric thermal profile.
There is no such thing as a Green House Gas Warming Effect.
That’s why people come before these befuddled wannabes slack faces, and mock them to show us their results of having quantified that magical entity.
DTruber says:
April 22, 2014 at 9:14 pm
And 46% of Americans don’t believe in evolution. (http://www.gallup.com/poll/155003/hold-creationist-view-human-origins.aspx)
So yeah, If there’s one thing we excel in, it’s allowing our ideologies to trump our rationality. This site being a prime example.
One in four people still telling the believers who followed the pied pipers of systematic computer programming and fantasy physics to turn back, –
– and they’re still all over the internet shouting how the fact they wouldn’t listen to sense,
means they could have been right if they hadn’t been humiliatingly wrong.
A lot of these believers wasted entire careers telling everybody that if we just believed too, maybe it would turn out not to have been such a crushing blow to their – thats the believers – reputations.
“Useful Idiot says:
April 22, 2014 at 12:31 pm
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.””
With the advantage of hindsight, Bob Carter SHOULD have said,
“I believe in the Scientific method”, NOT “I believe in Science.”
The latter confuses Science as a compilation of dry facts and measurements rather than a
program for discovering natural laws.
According to the experts, 81% of all statistics are simply made up