Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Thanks to the blog of the irrepressible Hilary Ostrov, a long-time WUWT commenter, I found out about a poll gone either horribly wrong or totally predictably depending on your point of view. It’s a global poll done by the United Nations, with over six million responses from all over the planet, and guess what?
The revealed truth is that of the sixteen choices given to people regarding what they think are the important issues in their lives, climate change is dead last. Not only that, but in every sub-category, by age, by sex, by education, by country grouping, it’s right down at the bottom of the list. NOBODY thinks it’s important.
Now, people are always saying how the US is some kind of outlier in this regard, because polls in the US always put climate change down at the bottom, whereas polls in Europe generally rate it somewhat higher. But this is a global poll, with people chiming in from all over the planet. The top fifteen countries, in order of the number of people voting, were Mexico, Nigeria, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Yemen, Philippines, Thailand, Cameroon, United States, Ghana, Rwanda, Brazil, Jordan, and Morocco … so this appears to be truly representative of the world, which is mostly non-industrialized nations.
So the next time someone tries to claim that climate change is “the most important challenge facing the world” … point them to the website of the study, and gently inform them that the rest of the world doesn’t buy that kind of alarmist hogwash for one minute. People are not as stupid as their leaders think, folks know what’s important and what’s trivial in their lives, and trying to control the climate is definitely in the latter group.
The poll will be open until 2015, so you can register your own priorities …
My regards to everyone, I’m off for a staff Christmas dinner with the workmates of the gorgeous ex-fiancee, life is good.
w.
De Costumbre: Please have the courtesy to QUOTE THE EXACT WORDS of whatever you might disagree with. This lets us all understand the exact nature of your objection.
Well, it’s good to know that even the UN can manage to list 15 fairly important things in people’s lives, even if the 16th is less important.
You’d have thought that there must be a political opportunity in there somewhere, if only the media weren’t controlled by a small number of anti-democratic oligarchs (oligarchs can be American as well as Russian you know, not to mention Italian, French or tax-avoiding British).
“whereas polls in Europe generally rate it somewhat higher”
Willis,
it is absolutely no more than “somewhat higher” … have a look at “Eurobarometer” ( http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/eb_arch_en.htm ), organised by the European Commission itself …
in the section “the main concerns of the Europeans”, “climate change” ALWAYS comes out bottom, or near the bottom … in some countries of the Union, it is of NO concern …
so, all over the heartland of Climate Alarmism, it is of little concern to its citizens … but that fact hasn’t, and will not have, any influence on our Governments’ actions …
What I find really funny is the demographic information of the respondents.
A quick look shows that it’s:
-basically 50/50 male/female
-79% of respondents are young people (basically millennial generation or close to it)
-The respondents are more educated then basically any single countries population (save Israel and Canada) https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/the-10-most-educated-countries-in-the-world.html
-68% of respondents are in the low or medium development category
This survey is basically representative of the demographic that is supposed to care about Climate Change above all other issues. Over and over I hear that young, educated people, especially women from developing nations are passionate about AGW.
Of course that isn’t my experience. Climate Change is generally not talked about by my fellow University classmates. When it is (and I’ve been present) most are unsure or actively doubt the so-called consensus. Maybe because we don’t tend to be politically active it’s easy for politicians and NGOs to pretend to be acting on our behalf, since we aren’t present to disagree. That would explain why NGOs like to use the developing world as another example of those who really care. When was the last time you could actually verify that? I don’t often get to have a conversation with someone from West Africa.
Nice to see the UN confirming my suspicions regarding my demographic cohort.
Cute point- except you are completely WRONG in your reading of the survey. You say “in every sub-category, by age, by sex, by education, by country grouping, it’s right down at the bottom of the list”- but it is not the bottom of the list at all in Europe, the Americas, Australia, Central America, beyond secondary education, 46 and over year olds. i could go on. It took me all of 5 minutes checking the online data http://data.myworld2015.org/
I realise that reality is irritating when it gets in the way of what you want to see…
Thanks, George. You are correct that it doesn’t take long to show that there are isolated pockets of environmental stupidity and green idiocy around the planet. If you subdivide anything enough, you’ll find places that differ from even an overwhelming trend such as is shown by this analysis.
My point remains. The people in whose name this is theoretically being done, the poorer countries of the world, put it down at the bottom of the list.
And I find nowhere that the subgroups put “action on climate change” in the top half of the list, which is what I meant by “down near the bottom”. And although by diligent searching you may find that left-handed Danish women high school graduates from 16 to 30 think it’s number seven … so what?
In fact, what the survey shows is that the climate alarmism is a hobby of the wealthiest people, those who don’t worry about fuel and food and the like, and who are willing to screw the poor by jacking energy prices to assuage their bogus concerns.
Nowhere that I’ve found is it among the top five priorities, and certainly there is no subgroup that thinks it’s the “most important issue facing mankind” like we hear daily from the alarmists and folks such as yourself.
Best regards,
w.
A few wise words from Rex Murphy, a Canadian treasure!
“Environmentalism can be defined as a movement that can only exist in a world that has defied its imperatives. There are no flashmobs, no Twitter campaigns, no networking of activists or oil sands tours, no media coverage — except in those countries where the economies have provided the technology, and the leisure, for what is essentially a parasitic endeavour. The environmental movement is as technologically enabled as the industries it opposes. It depends far more deeply than it will ever admit on precisely what it deplores.
To bring 50,000 green activists to a Copenhagen or a Rio for one of those gigantic environmental summits requires the exertion of manifold technologies and the primary sources of energy that make them possible. To have the luxury of protest you must have an economy that blankets it. The world’s poor don’t do sit-ins; poverty is their padlock, and it is not — as on Burnaby Mountain, or an XL site — a theatrical toy for idle green moralists.
To protest energy requires energy — and a world without the fuels and engines environmentalists protest is one in which they could not function and they would not, iPhoneless, wish to live.”
Gaia bless Rex, eh?! While the duly brainwashed (perhaps even brainless?!) army of mantra-spouting CBC-niks do their level best to recycle the UN’s self-promoting press releases, thank goodness we can count on Rex for a healthy dose of reality!
This is a dose he’s been dutifully dishing out ever since Climategate 1.0 – when Rex fired off his eminently readable first foray (circa Dec. 3/2009).
And, for those who might want to read the latest and greatest from Rex Murphy, cited in part by Political Junkie, above, Murphy’s words of wisdom (along with many elegant and eloquent turns of phrase that are his hallmark) can be found at Has the environmental movement ever seen a collapse it didn’t want to be on the brink of?
As John Oliver said: “You don’t need people opinion on a fact. You might well have a pool asking: Which number is bigger 5 or 15?”
Climate change is real, 97.1 of all scientist studying it agree.
You can act on climate change AND act for better health care, more work, less crime and all the list up there because it will affect health, work, food and crime.
It is big enough that the UN, the US army, NASA and many other consider it a threat.
From what I remember of my sociology class, people from lower socioeconomic class with difficulty to tend their everyday needs usually do not think of the future, they think in term of their everyday needs. From what I’ve seen of the majority of the people voting, the come from countries with difficulties with their everyday needs.
Maxime C December 7, 2014 at 4:33 pm
Oh, this is hilarious. You say you don’t need people’s opinions on a fact … and then you immediately try to prove your point by quoting people’s opinions.
Yes, climate change is real. The climate has been changing since … well, since there has been a climate. So what?
As to whether humans are driving the climate to a catastrophe, my friend, you really, really need to stop believing the propaganda from the UN IPCC and others. They do NOT have either your interests or the interests of the truth at heart. If the climate alarmism goes away, the UN folks will lose their funding and their jobs … what on earth do you expect them to say about the climate?
I’m sorry to say it, but you’ve been suckered. You’ve believed what the mainstream media and the government told you without questioning it … and that’s always a mistake.
My best to you,
w.
Bingo.
>>It is big enough that the UN, the US army, NASA and many other consider it a threat.<<
And uncountable quadrillions of flies consider cow dung a nice place to sit on and to eat from. So everyone should sit on and eat cow dung???
Future books on human psychology will use Global Warming as the biggest example in history of “The Big Lie.”
I happen to live in one of those poor countries. 99% of us did not partake in the poll for rather basic reasons – bulk of action goes against lack of basic services. internet, what is that, I can’t even have a warm meal.
the crime is real?
First, it depends very much on how you place the question – if you put ‘Action taken on climate change’ as the first question, I am sure the results would be different. Quite naturally, for people in the countries you listed, some where people are living on $2 per day, have different priorities.
Also THEIR carbon footprint is so much smaller than the one of people in the developed countries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita
‘Mexico, Nigeria, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Yemen, Philippines, Thailand, Cameroon, Ghana, Rwanda, Brazil, Jordan, and Morocco’
Let’s take Rwanda – their per capita footprint is 0.055 tons per year compared to 17.6 for the US and 7.4 in the EURO area. So why should THEY care about global warming. WE in the developing world are the ones who have the responsibility to reduce our footprint and help the developing world, NOT to raise to our output.
Why? There is NO HARM from the CO2 increases, but only good for all men – including, or most especially the most poor of the world. Why should ANY ONE in ANY COUNTRY be responsible for increasing the great harm and tremendous dangers that happen by deliberately restricting energy availability and energy costs?
Hans December 9, 2014 at 6:30 pm
Hans, you really should do your homework before uncapping your electronic pen … they DID (and still do) put “Action taken on climate change” as the very first question, and it still came in last. Now, perhaps you could come back and explain how that has changed your opinion … or perhaps your opinion is immune to facts.
Next, people in the developing world could freeze our CO2 output at present levels forever, and it wouldn’t make any difference.
So let me invite you to try posting your brilliant ideas on a Chinese or Indian or Brazilian blog. Go point out to them that they are the problem and see what kind of response you get … because as the graph above shows, the problem is assuredly not the industrialized nations.
w.