From Michigan State University, and the Department of Junior Lewandowskys, where this angry looking guy obviously thinks global warming manifests itself in every weather event, we have the same old ad hominem argument, except published.
Global warming cynics unmoved by extreme weather
EAST LANSING, Mich. — What will it take to convince skeptics of global warming that the phenomenon is real? Surely, many scientists believe, enough droughts, floods and heat waves will begin to change minds.
But a new study led by a Michigan State University scholar throws cold water on that theory.
Only 35 percent of U.S. citizens believe global warming was the main cause of the abnormally high temperatures during the winter of 2012, Aaron M. McCright and colleagues report in a paper published online today in the journal Nature Climate Change.
“Many people already had their minds made up about global warming and this extreme weather was not going to change that,” said McCright, associate professor in MSU’s Lyman Briggs College and Department of Sociology.
Winter 2012 was the fourth warmest winter in the United States dating back to at least 1895, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Some 80 percent of U.S. citizens reported winter temperatures in their local area were warmer than usual.
The researchers analyzed March 2012 Gallup Poll data of more than 1,000 people and examined how individuals’ responses related to actual temperatures in their home states. Perceptions of warmer winter temperatures seemed to track with observed temperatures.
“Those results are promising because we do hope that people accurately perceive the reality that’s around them so they can adapt accordingly to the weather,” McCright said.
But when it came to attributing the abnormally warm weather to global warming, respondents largely held fast to their existing beliefs and were not influenced by actual temperatures.
As this study and McCright’s past research shows, political party identification plays a significant role in determining global warming beliefs. People who identify as Republican tend to doubt the existence of global warming, while Democrats generally believe in it.
The abnormally warm winter was just one in an ongoing series of severe weather events – including the 2010 Russian heat wave, Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and the 2013 typhoon in the Philippines – that many believed would help start convincing global warming cynics.
“There’s been a lot of talk among climate scientists, politicians and journalists that warmer winters like this would change people’s minds,” McCright said. “That the more people are exposed to climate change, the more they’ll be convinced. This study suggests this is not the case.”
###
McCright’s co-authors are Riley E. Dunlap of Oklahoma State University and Chenyang Xiao of American University.
Nature Climate Change is part of the Nature Publishing Group, which publishes the flagship journal Nature.
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Droughts in the desert? That’s about all I can come up with. It’s been cold this November, but I can remember it being just as cold in November back in the 70s. It’s snowing in Buffalo? Seriously? You kidding me? In Buffalo? Who would have guessed. Golly gee. Snow in Buffalo. Cold and snowy in Wisconsin? Who would have thunk it? Hot and dry in Australia? Fer reals? I never thought it was hot and dry in Aussieland. Forest fires? We’ve never had forest fires before! Something must be up. (sarcasm off) I’m 45 years old. I just don’t see any crazy deviation from the norm. What I do see is a return back to weather patterns I was accustomed to when I was a kid. What luck that some of us are older and haven’t completely lost our memories. Or our minds.
WUWT has posted plenty of evidence that most extreme events are on the decline. Its even better than the norm. I’m fine with that – I only had to hide from one Tornado this year – was a welcome change.
I’d “believe’ in global warming if there was any — at least any outside normal natural variation within my lifetime. I don’t however, believe in sociology or AGW caused by a trace atmospheric gas.
Gee if there are only 3% of us and we aren’t even chasing a buck to advance our research, what’s the urgency in converting us? This is probably the percentage of dissidents that there were in the Soviet Union and guess what? They were correct. The 97% were wrong.
More ink from the irreparably broken social sciences – how does a scientific illiterate know the main stream scientists are right? It’s because he identifies with their politics. Also, it’s typical of the broken social sciences to conflate progressives with being correct and conservatives with being wrong.
You see, here it the problem with these types of analyses. Yes, there is a dynamic in which scientifically illiterate liberals are unquestioningly and unthinkingly supportive of the line put out by progressives, and their counterpart conservatives opposed to it. But the real serious sceptic is not political at all in his thinking. He/she isn’t a yea-nayer. The real sceptic, the one that strikes terror into the hearts of the warming clique, analyzes the data and refutes the chaff from the politco-physicists. These count-on-one-hand folks are the ones that give employment to such as McCright and Lewandowski and harpoon shoddy science by such as Gergis/Karoly, Marcotte, “Polar Bear Monnett” and a host of others that, without the intrepid few on the file had been filling journals with bumpf for a couple of decades.
It is telling that the majority of scientifically literate sceptics would appear to be conservative. I dearly hoped this not to be true. This would be a sad statement indeed if it is the case and it is one made by progressives all the time. How to understand it? One would be tempted to say that progressives, because of their overweight Kumbaya collectivism and political goals, are largely unsuited to the practice of objective inquiry. Acceptance of such principles unabashedly as “ends justify the means” is antithetical to the scientific search for truth. Maybe I’ve just been listening to progressives too much on this dichotomy. I’d be happy to be dissuaded from it.
I remember the story of Chicken Little from grade school.
I guess these global warming Kool-Aid drinkers either did not hear the story or just refuse to believe they are acting just like Chicken Little.
I also thought they loved trees.
Please remember the climate change nuts are 99 percent useful idiots.
1 percent who want wealth redistribution well not really.
Unless the wealth goes to them.
The last thing left to tax is the air, we have to stop them.
I wish more carbon dioxide apples would fall it feeds the world and the trees love them.
For the most part the people in this blogosphere are the most informed of any site I have ever been.
And I have to say some of the comments have me ROFL.
Anthony and the guests are the best.
Keep up the good work.
Quote – “What will it take to convince skeptics of global warming that the phenomenon is real?”
That is a good question.
I would become convinced if the actual temperatures were increasing at the rate that the theory says they should be. I would become more convinced if they stopped adjusting the historical temperatures every week so that they can just get up to 50% of the temperature increase predicted (let alone 100% of the temperature increase that is predicted). I would become more convinced if they hadn’t changed the climatology of northern oceans so that they could claim once per year, records are being set. I would become more convinced if it didn’t seem like every single rain-storm or morning sunrise or just plain normal temperatures were not exaggerated into proof of eminent global warming disaster.
I don’t buy a used car just because some salesperson says it is worth twice market value. I don’t buy 20 pounds of steak when I see the butcher has a thumb on the scale.
I don’t believe something without having some good logical reason to believe it. But the actual base logic and human instinct and human base emotional reaction here says that something funny is going on. Logic, and math and “spidey sense” says I am being sold a crap used car for twice the price of a good one.
What will take to convince me? How about something simple like just convincing me with facts that don’t sound like a used care salesperson is providing the facts.
It’s a real phenomenon and as a sociologist he should know it: it’s just group think by arrogant academics who think they are too clever to be concerned by petty details like the evidence that it hasn’t warmed in 18 years or that none of the climate models work.
“Q” changing the laws of physics?
Why in heaven’s name do the sociologists get such serious attention? When you have to drag them out, they do nothing but confirm that few are buying the message. Somehow this failure is the fault of the audience as opposed to the fault of those crafting / delivering the message people aren’t buying. Academics fail to realize that people have legitimate reasons to be suspicious of government funded research that always come to the conclusion that more government regulation will save us all, even if only 3% of worlds population is covered by such a regulation to solve a global problem that may or may not be as bad as advertised but the money out of peoples pockets to pay for poor solutions is very real
Sean
Rather than calling it “serious attention”, I’d consider what’s happening to poor Mr. McCright to be rather well deserved ridicule.
“I AM smiling.”
So even though the respondents said the winter of 2012 seemed warmer than normal it didn’t scare them. A winter that seems warmer than normal certainly doesn’t scare me either. I’m grateful for it and want to see more of them! In other words these people saw the warmer winter as a benefit and not something the government should use to raise taxes or regulate something or other.
Makes sense that GOPers don’t believe in GWing. From this article, not worth reading really:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/08/opinion/blow-dinosaurs-and-denial.html?_r=0
“Last month, Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, the chairman of the Republican Governors Association, said on CNN: “We need to stop being the dumb party. We need to offer smart, conservative, intelligent ideas and policies.”
This is exactly the kind of turn the Republicans need to take, but Jindal’s rhetoric doesn’t completely line up with his record. As The Scotsman of Edinburgh reported in June, “Pupils attending privately run Christian schools in the southern state of Louisiana will learn from textbooks next year, which claim Scotland’s most famous mythological beast is a living creature.” That mythological beast would be the Loch Ness monster.
The Scotsman continued: “Thousands of children are to receive publicly funded vouchers enabling them to attend the schools — which follow a strict fundamentalist curriculum. The Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) programme teaches controversial religious beliefs, aimed at disproving evolution and proving creationism. Youngsters will be told that if it can be proved that dinosaurs walked the Earth at the same time as man, then Darwinism is fatally flawed.”
Actually Scotland’s most famous mythological beast is the Haggis. This curious creature has shorter legs on its right side than on its left side so it can run around mountains clockwise. Occasionally one is caught and brought to table, usually accompanied by a man wearing a skirt and blowing a windbag – not to be confused with the windbag who spouts poetry at the time. It is classified “Mythological” on the basis that no one has seen one running around mountains in living memory. They are usually caught hiding in special machines in butchers’ shops.
Said to be tasty when boiled and eaten – though there is a theory that they are really of Italian origin – a version of Spaghetti Bolognese with porridge instead of spaghetti – escaped from Italy during the Middle Ages, driven there by the end of the Medieval Warming..
“Youngsters will be told that if it can be proved that dinosaurs walked the Earth at the same time as man, then Darwinism is fatally flawed.”
“The Scotsman” got this right, at least. However, the converse, that “if it CANNOT be proved that dinosaurs walked the earth at the same time as man, then Darwinism MUST be true” does not follow – see simple logic 101!
I had haggis once. It was at a Celtic Festival locally. so I hope it was true to the recipe. A little too much spice. But otherwise, tasty and surprisingly good (after I had heard the horror stories). That little fellow may be mythical, but if he did not hide, I could see where he would be extinct! 😉
Mr McCright is in a curious position.
He is qualified to comment on people’s behaviour and beliefs but totally unqualified to judge whether the behaviour or beliefs are valid.
The finding that Democrats tend to believe in “climate change” while Republicans are a bit more sceptical is hardly surprising and may even be of interest to managers of political campaigns.
It is utterly inconsequential when trying to determine if “climate change ” is affected by human activities, and if so to what degree.
Sociology is not science. Science is hard and sociologists don’t do hard.
It’s interesting how many sociologists are coming out of the woodwork to hold forth on AGW when they’re so patently unqualified to comment. Perhaps someone should study what is wrong with these individuals that they don’t see this.
Biologists, too.
They have:
Kruger, Justin; Dunning, David (1999). “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments”. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 77 (6): 1121–34. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.77.6.1121. PMID 10626367. CiteSeerX: 10.1.1.64.2655
jorgekafkazar
Well, call me a skeptic, but I think they’re doing it for the funding.
When will people get it? On 22 September, the winter maximum ice sheet extent across the Antarctic reached its greatest area since satellite measurement of the ice extent began in 1979. This is corroborated by the Satellite lower tropospheric temperature for the South Polar region, 60deg S to 85 deg S, decreasing. Meanwhile the CO2 concentration measured by NOAA at the South Pole went up by 17.7% in the 36 year time frame.
This is clear and unambiguous proof that increasing atmospheric CO2 does not cause warming of the Earth’s surface.
On 16 September 2012, the Arctic sea ice extent set a record minimum since satellite recording began. This is corroborated by the Satellite lower tropospheric temperature for the North Polar region increasing at the rate of 4.4 degrees C per century. Meanwhile the CO2 measured at Alert, NW Canada, (the station closest to the North Pole) rose by the same amount as at the South Pole.
This is clear and unambiguous proof that temperature changes irrespective of the change in atmospheric CO2 concentration.
http://www.mlive.com/weather/index.ssf/2014/11/great_lakes_ice_cover_developi.html
great Lakes ice cover is max as well.
All that ice in the Antarctic is causing summertime in Australia … just applying warmista logic.
“Scholar?”—wow, what a joke.
Are professors in US as in Sweden the only ones in Academic Circles not having to have an Academic work in their CV?
IF so
many things explained.
So his research suggests Democrats are more gullible and naive than Republicans.
We already knew that based on the last two Presidential elections.
Guber is right, of course!
Nice to see religion making a comeback in the hallowed halls of academia. Too bad he’s worshiping at the alter of ignorance, but it’s a start. As an aside, a guy that looks like the Stay Puft Marshmallow man should probably not get into slinging ad homs at people who practice the scientific method and are properly skeptical of consensus pseudo science or anyone else for that matter.
Most, if not all, university employees must toe the AGW line or risk losing their jobs. The AGW movement is the biggest hoax ever floated out of the swamp. A scientific claim that is too brittle to standup to criticism must seriously have its’ validity questioned.
I respectfully disagree on hoax size:
It’s only a subset, albeit a large subset, of “Phony-socialism is really, really good for poor people’
OT but I just noticed this on Jo Nova’s site:
http://joannenova.com.au/2014/11/nine-poll-shows-69-of-australians-dont-believe-in-man-made-global-warming/
We’re getting through!
From wikipedia: “For the Cynics, the purpose of life was to live in virtue, in agreement with nature. As reasoning creatures, people could gain happiness by rigorous training and by living in a way which was natural for humans, rejecting all conventional desires for wealth, power, sex, and fame. Instead, they were to lead a simple life free from all possessions.”
I don’t see any mention of the winter of 2013 or the polar vortex.
Reading through Aaron’s CV gives me pause. He appears to have drank the kool-aid before his 15 year academic career ever started- http://sociology.msu.edu/uploads/documents/vita/faculty/mccright-cv.pdf
His age is working against him- he’s barely 40 and I doubt he has experienced anything but CAGW propaganda throughout his entire education and professional life.
By the way, higher solar activity was the reason the winter of 2012 was warm. For the record, between Sept 2011 and Feb 2012 the average daily F10.7cm flux was a relatively high 140 sfu/day. Compare that to the average daily flux of 113 for all of 2011, and to only 88 sfu/day during the preceding nearly nine years going back to 2002, the end year of the Modern Maximum in solar activity.
The years 2000, 2001, 2002 had average daily F10.7cm fluxes of 180, 181, and 180, respectively.
Sources:
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/stp/space-weather/solar-data/solar-features/solar-radio/noontime-flux/penticton/penticton_observed/listings/listing_drao_noontime-flux-observed_daily.txt
and http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpdir/indices/quar_DSD.txt
The daily average solar flux for 2014 is 144 sfu/day, as of yesterday. So is it any wonder that at least some warm records will be broken this year!?
If he had experienced the harsh Michigan winters in late 60s through late 70s he would know that weather cycles.
I am from Michigan, on the 45th parallel, and experienced first hand the weather of the 1960’s and 70’s. There’s a common saying here in Michigan: “if you want to see the weather change, wait five minutes”.
The difficulty people are having across the planet is so far a reasonable science-based alternative to CAGW has not YET been sufficiently advanced into the public square such that there isn’t something to rally around in opposition to this failed CAGW paradigm.
That will change permanently for the better in the very near future.
Do you think all of us under 40 are doomed to be closed-minded with respect to AGW?
I respectfully disagree and consider that too pessimistic anyway.
“Do you think all of us under 40 are doomed to be closed-minded with respect to AGW?”
No sir I don’t, only the indoctrinated believers.
There isn’t enough money in my purse to fix every little thing watermelons get all constipated over. Fixing weather is WAAAAAYYYYY down my list of things I think my tax money should be used for. That’s why I am a card carrying cynic. It has much less to do with how hot or cold or wet or dry anything is. It has to do with priorities and spending efficacy. Fixing weather just isn’t a good solid return on my investment. But hey, don’t let me stop you. If you are a card carrying watermelon, spend all your hard earned money on fixing weather. But leave my pocket book alone.
Yes, 2012 was the warmest winter I’ve ever seen but last year was the longest, coldest winter I ever lived through hitting -24 in Chicago. I was sick of shoveling snow before January. It all evens out. Yes, snow on the ground and January cold here even before Thanksgiving.
I have developed this habit of checking out authors, researchers and organizations mentioned in posts here to the extent Google lets me. So, I see Dr. McCright has a nice webpage. http://www.aaronmmccright.com/
But, when I checked out some items on it I see this:
http://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2013/attracting-more-students-to-stem-by-teaching-climate-change/
and learn the Hockey Stick is a valuable teaching tool on campuses these days. Really?
If Gruber was a sociologist he would look like Aaron McCright.
If Aaron McCright had a son he’d look like Gruber 😉
Cheap shots aside, there is something badly wrong here.
There is an incorrect assumption that most skeptics think there is no AGW warming. Even modest lukewarming will break many records.
There is no trend in extreme weather, other than a slight uptick in heat waves. But warmer winters save several times as many lives as the increase in heatwaves costs (as Lomborg pointed out). He ignores net effects. Even the IPCC, with their own highballed projections, says expected warming will produce “net benefit” to man and beast until ~2060.
He is trying (intentionally or not) to produce a false dichotomy. And he is talking past the element that is defeating him, apparently unaware it even exists.