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.
Worrying about “climate change” is akin to worrying whether the paint will dry.
Hey, there are conditions under which paint will not dry properly, and that can be a real problem, unlike climate change.
You forgot the /sarc tag.
But, but…paint will take longer to dry due to climate change. (Sorry couldn’t resist).
+1 Verity
@ Just Thinkin’
No, I didn’t
It’s a PGA graph; low score wins.
White paint varies. Ask Anthony.
One need not ‘worry’ about climate change… it will happen… I find it ironic that the implementation of the most important issue, education, would likely provide the necessary insight to elevate the (currently) least important issue to a higher priority… it might be added that methane, rarely mentioned, is 21 times more potent than CO-2 as a greenhouse gas and is being released in large amounts by waste treatment plants, landfills and cattle feed lots… not to mention leaks from mining and microbes that are being released from permafrost within the arctic circle… http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/10/28/methane-hot-spot-seen-space-hovers-over-four-corners-157560 … this link has a satellite shot of methane concentrations… note the feedlot (yellow dot) in southern California…
Thats hilarious – the time is not far off when they’ll either stop doing these polls from sheer embarrassment, or just rig them to show the “right” answer.
Will it be like the hockey stick theorem ?
Actually , if you rotate the graph 90 degrees it does look like a hockey stick. With climate change being the “knob” of said stick (as in the most useless part unless you need it to hang on the the stick).
That was a Big Bang Theory episode, wasn’t it?
Climate change worries and advocacy are mostly expressed by comfortable Westerners who have enough electricity, food, and comforts as well as a relatively comfortable standard of living.
Look at the graph carefully. The top concerns of the WORLD are a good education, better healthcare, job opportunities, good governance, good food, anti-crime, clean water, sanitation and unemployment support. Now someone in the UK’s well off Surrey may well have all of these concerns. So they find something to worry about.
Obesity in southern Sudanese children is not a widespread problem.
CORRECTION:
“…Now someone in the UK’s well off Surrey may well NOT have all of these concerns….”
There goes the “willing suspension of disbelief”. And about time too.
The only reason “climate change” didn’t come in 17th is that there was only 16 choices.
Point me to another poll generating 6 million (!) responses. That’s seriously hard to credit. But, in this case, I’m willing to suspend disbelief, because the upshot is so damning for the beleaguered heat-huggers. Keep those cards and letters coming, folks.
mnzxnb12’s comment reflects an unusually open admission of how “skepticism” works in the WUWT comments!
Nigel’s comment below is the usual open tactic of the troll.
Now, now boys; let’s give Nigel a fair hearing…
Nigel, referring to WUWT as a “skeptical” site is generally correct (def: having or expressing doubt about something). The process most on this site use to conduct an effective argument is to use logic and citing examples or research supporting a claim. Snark is not our weapon of first choice simply because it’s emotional, not educational.
Now, as noted by mnzxnb12, please give us a documented example of another poll generating 6 million responses…or put your little troll hat back on and return to the dark side.
It is interesting to note those issues high on the list. Education, healthcare, jobs, honest Government (I assume this means not corrupt) & affordable food. Where are the grants for these important issues. Scarce resources that could be put to use to improve these issues will no doubt still be diverted to climate change studies.
Is that honest Government?
Sorry, doesn’t anyone note that ‘political freedom’ is fourth from last with ‘freedom from discrimination” above that? And that ‘protection from crime and violence’ is only sixth from the top? Our education systems are producing people who cannot see that these are the priorities, for without them (they’re really the same thing) most of the rest would not be possible, including sanitation and food.
I find this alarming.
Sanitation is not possible without political freedom? That’s a bit far fetched.
@DirkH
“Sanitation is not possible without political freedom? That’s a bit far fetched.”
Yeah; a bit farfetched. Some guy named Mussolini managed to get the trains to run on time and I think there was pasta aplenty. I’m not sure how much he upgraded the sanitation installed by the Romans, but then those guys knew how to build for the long term.
http://www.vroma.org/images/mcmanus_images/paula_chabot/engineering/pcengin.17.jpg
http://img.xcitefun.net/users/2009/08/109389,xcitefun-pont-du-gard-5.jpg
I am not sure why this would be alarming? This survey appears to include a reasonably wide sample. If so, you might also be one “who cannot see” that citizens of the world have different priorities than you appear to. From you comment, you seem to believe human beings should behave “logically.” Considering how many people smoke, don’t exercise regularly (even though they know better), eat poorly, etc. it is difficult to assert logical behavior as the norm. I would assert that emotions/feelings, not logic, dominate behavior.
Tell that to the people in the United Arab Emirates with little democracy but good food and sanitation. Not that I’m saying good governance is bad, but your statement is wrong.
H.R., according to snopes.com, Mussolini may not have made the trains run on time:
http://www.snopes.com/history/govern/trains.asp
Doesn’t anyone note that the top six are constantly being screeched by politicians to get the votes?
Gary.
I always assumed as much :o)
.
.
.
Hey! It’s sorta’ like climate data. If Mussolini was reporting the data, then by golly! those trains were on time.
Firey,
There are lots of examples of dictators delivering food and sanitation to their people. A. Hilter was an evil dictator but delivered much of what you quote. Sometimes delivering allows you to be more dictatorial – people are prepared to overlook you cruelty – and they sure did with those camps.
The fact is that you can’t praise Nazis for their farming reforms.
But that’s besides the point. The voting folks ranked as important what they consider important. This does not mean they love dictatorships. It means that they prefer a bunch of tangible things before being part of a TV commercial about “the founding fathers” (some of which were slavers and serial rapists, btw).
Jimbo
Good point.
Also, given “…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…”, a lot of these countries are places where it might not exactly be safe to advocate for “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”.
Pollsters never ask how important is acting on climate if it will raise your energy bill 25-100%
And Warmists never answer Andrew Bolt’s favorite question of “how many degrees of warming will all this prevent?”
Or what’s the correct temperature for the Earth?
Being Canadian, my preferred question is:
So, it’s too hot is it? How cold do you want it?
Olaf, that’s my favorite question too and if they answer I follow up with “and how do you know that? Do you have a copy of the planet’s manual with the specifications table?”
Actually MojoMojo, they have. And the vast majority of responents say NO.
When the electricity goes off, phone and internet access becomes number 1, or close to it…
They (Net and phone lines) fail as well.
For the people of the rest of the world or you? Many developing countries suffer regular blackouts, they learn to get by – turn on the generator, use solar powered phone chargers, car batteries etc. If I had only 2 choices then I would rather eat than send an email.
How is Domino’s going to know where to deliver your pizza? 😉
Robin over at http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/ found this World Development Report from the World Bank: http://www.worldbank.org/content/dam/Worldbank/Publications/WDR/WDR%202015/WDR-2015-Full-Report.pdf
Really big pdf, so download may take a bit. Check out Chapter 9: Climate Change! Here’s a fun quote “An important role for psychological and social insights is to identify ways to convince populations to support, and governments to adopt, effective economic tools, such as carbon pricing, to curb greenhouse gas emissions.” A whole chapter on how to get people to buy into Climate Change better. What fun!
The Early Bird finds the Worm.
===========
Personally I was hoping for a better breakfast than that 😉
But the second mouse gets the cheese.
So, it’s a good idea for the worm to sleep in.
effective economic tools, such as carbon pricing, to curb greenhouse gas emissions
===================
how about putting a price on poverty? tax poor people more than rich people, so they will no longer want to be poor. this will end poverty.
that is the exact same economic policy as being suggested for CO2.
a pricing mechanism ONLY works if there is a viable alternative. if you can make a fuel substitution for gasoline at the pumps, to something that emits less CO2.
however, if there is no alternative, economic policies such as taxing the poor to end poverty simply makes matters worse. the same is true for CO2.
you cannot solve CO2 emissions by economic policy unless there is a viable substitute at an affordable price. otherwise the policy will simply do more harm than good. CO2 reduction in that case come from a reduction in economic wealth, not from fuel substitution.
In fact carbon taxes and higher energy costs make the poorer relatively poorer than any other groups. Forcing people to use inferior energy sources creates poverty worldwide.
Putting a `price on CO2`without any requirement for governments to use the money to actually replace fossil fuels with viable alternatives, becomes a simple tax grab. Note from earth to the watermelons – making people pay more to drive their vehicles and heat their homes will not prevent them from driving or turning up the heat when it`s cold; except the poor that is.
The World Bank are barking up the wrong tree as far as the Warmist Guardian is concerned.
I responded to this a long time ago.
Climate change is NOT at the absolute bottom if you select Canada, or the US… or age groups over 50. But definitely nowhere near as important as education and employment.
Well, some people over 50 have been guilted into thinking that they are “Destroying the Planet for Future Generations” by the climateers, so there’s bound to be some misplaced sympathy there. And it never hurts to target the largest and wealthiest (easiest to blame, most able to pay up extortion money) demographic.
If ‘Global Warming’ was much of concern to the over 50 crowd why do they all want to become ‘Snow Birds’ and move/retire to Florida. You would think they would be moving North to escape the coming heat.
Heh – where I am nobody wants to go to Florida… it’s all about Arizona.
We always get a laugh about it too… so instead of winter lows of -41C we might see winter lows of -39C… really really difficult to get upset about it, or move because of it. Again, people in winter climates should never be worried about warming.
Yea, I had a shot at moving to Tucson back in the 70’s but Mt. Lemmon just didn’t appeal to me after Aspen, Copper, Buttermilk, etc..
Eric Worrall
December 5, 2014 at 4:47 pm
Thats hilarious – the time is not far off when they’ll either stop doing these polls from sheer embarrassment, or just rig them to show the “right” answer.
“Rig” is the wrong word. The correct word is “adjustment”.
Nope.
Homogenize.
SkepticalSam
I feel the two cheats are distinct. Adjustment is placing a finite value in place of a measured value, changing it.
Homogenising is a way of hiding information entirely. A good example is AR5 in the section that covers the fabled “hot spot”. It is a given that there is no such hot spot because if it was there it would have been trumpeted loud and long from the rooftops validating the back-radiation theory of the greenhouse effect. So the question facing the Authors of AR5. was: how to hide the fact that years of looking for it and millions of readings of temperature show it is not there?
The hot spot is a core teaching of the Greenhouse Gas theory. I am not saying there are no GHG’s, just that the way they work is not as claimed. The hot spot at 8-16km altitude should warm three times faster than the surface beneath it. So, again what to do? Homogenise!
Here is how to do it: Mix the levels in the troposphere – the temperatures – so the signal, if it was there, becomes lost in the haze of mixed values rendering it undetectable. This smudges the precision of the original measurements. They then have the homogenised data independently reviewed, with all the necessary truthiness, and have the reviewer proclaim that the ‘data’ is not of high enough quality and the signal is therefore undetectable.
And that is exactly what is in AR5, followed by an assertive statement of belief that the hot spot “is probably there”. They write how confidently this can be said.
So homogenisation has a very specific purpose when it comes to delaying the inevitable crushing of the most fundamental claim of the greenhouse hypothesis: that CO2 will capture heat above the ground thermalising the atmosphere and sending the IR back down to cook our behinds.
Because the claim is so fundamental and the measurements so clear, only homogenisation has the power to hide the truth and create an opportunity to instead state a belief that “it is probably there”.
Homogenize.
Yeah. You know, that “education” result looks like an outlier to me!
Crispin makes a very valid point. The hot spot is at the core of GHG theory. It is one of the prime predictions of the climate models. And it is clear it does not exist.
A failed prediction is central to a falsified theory. I realize a lot of skeptics accept that increased GHG should cause warming, all else remaining equal. I would ask them to reconsider the “all else remaining equal”.
It is clear that increased CO2 is not leading to an atmospheric hot spot. In any other branch of science this would be sufficient in and of itself to falsify the CO2 hypothesis of Global Warming.
Something caused 2 periods of global warming. From 1910-1940 and from 1970-2000. The theory was that CO2 was the cause, but this has been falsified by both the lack of hot spot and the plateau in global temperatures from 1940-1970 and from 2000-2030.
When you homogenize, the cream does not float to the top.
Looking at the top 3 I wonder if those who do worry about climate change are the ones fortunate enough to have good education, good healthcare and good paying jobs.
Kind of funny is that people list having an honest government 4th behind those 3. The old adage is tweaked from healthy, wealthy and wise in that order to wise, healthy and wealthy even at the cost of a dishonest government.
Where is the option for an honest SMALLER government?
I just bought Discover magazines issue of the top 100 science stories (I know, I know, Discover: sheesh).
Number1 Ebola; fair enough.
Number 2 “Climate in Crisis.” It was riddled with scary stories, muddled facts and just plain obfuscations. They have long been in the tank with the CAGW crowd, but this was really over the top.
BTW, found it hard to even finish the thing. What a waste of money. My bad.
the sixteen categories are interesting and obviously good.
but I do wonder if the range was extended whether climate change would slip even further
The actual question is what banality would have to be on the survey that could place further down the list than “concern about climate change”.
With only 6 million responses, is it significant?!
…and where are the error bars? ;->
Closed during Prohibition.
Won’t phase the true believers one little bit. Just shows that the average person has no idea what is important and is just one more example of why the ‘elite’ should be running the world for our own good as the average man is clearly too stupid to know what is good for them. Sarc if it wasn’t obvious.
No, it won’t deter them. They’ll just claim they haven’t “communicated” the danger well enough. The hoil pilloi just don’t get it.
Warning: Devil’s advocate statement follows: Maybe it just means those polled believe the world’s governments have the right people on the job and that the project is well funded and so there is nothing to be concerned about. Gruber’s postulate may not be ethical but I think it also may not be far off the mark as a fact of life.
I think too the poll comes of as “Here are 16 things we’re going to do for you using other people’s money. Prioritize the list.” Note the top half of the list provides tangibles vs the bottom of the list. One gets the idea that if offered a gift car and cell phone, they might just top the list.
the simple fact that one can group items into a priority list means that none of them are mandatory. nothing that is mandatory has a greater priority than any other mandatory item.
when trying to decide priorities, a simple trick is to ask people to put items into an order. those items that cannot be ordered are the mandatory ones. the rest you can skip until later,
those in a position of power have different priorities than the man and woman in the street. the obama’s, kerry’s and gore’s of the world don’t see or understand our priorities because they don’t affect them.
go down the list starting at the top. how many of those items are a problem for obama, kerry or gore? it isn’t until you get to “Climate Change” that you find an item for them to worry about.
Thus, to obama, kerry and gore, “Climate Change” is the greatest threat to the US.
Notice “Reliable energy at home” is two thirds down the list, reliable, like a coal, nuclear, or gas electrical power plants. Way above action on climate change. People want the basics first, then envrionmentalism is a byproduct of wealth.
if you live in the boondocks of a third world tropical country, the reliable energy source is a PV system.
pulsar
You say
Yes, it can be relied upon to not work at night.
Batteries? Which do you want in a tropical country; refrigeration or lighting?
if you live in the boondocks of a third world tropical country, the dependable energy source is diesel powered.
Richard
It CAN be more economic to have solar + batteries. Diesel can be expensive for instance if you’re on a remote island.
Only if you are wealthy. The reality for most people in the boondocks of a third world country the reliable energy source is dried animal dung. There is no way ordinary people can afford PV systems. At best they might be fitted in a local health center, more often they end up lighting the house of the local strong man.
Do “you live in the boondocks of a third world tropical country”? If yes, what “reliable energy source” do you use?
A PV system is beyond the reach of most rural people living in a third world tropical country. Electrical power lines powered by oil or coal is more reliable than something they can’t afford.
pulsar,
Please don’t get me wrong here. I am not against solar for the sake of it. Our host A. Wattts has solar. I live in a third world country and for the well off PV and a diesel / petrol generator is what is available when there are no power lines. It’s can be intermittent but to those people it’s better than nothing. Some also use gas / propane powered fridges. Some even have small domestic wind turbines where appropriate. It’s better than nothing for those who can afford it.
reliable energy source is a PV system
==========
which country specifically have you found this to be true? We lived for 20 years in the tropics, sailing from country to country and we never found any country that used PV to deliver reliable electricity. Not a single one.
Instead, what we found were concrete poles and overhead electrical wires. Concrete because termites and fungus eat wood. Wires because your average person in these nations are much too poor to afford a small generator let alone a PV system.
A small generator cost about a much as a solar panel, but delivers 10 times the power of a solar panel. This means you can buy a generator to power a village for 1/10 the capital cost of an equivalent PV system.
Yes the generator will consume fuel, which means there is an operating cost. But this is spread over time. It is the up front capital costs that are the killer.
it is telling that “Reliable energy at home” is given priority over “Action taken on Climate Change”
Clearly the man and woman in the street is smarter than the average politician.
Not to mention that they are also smarter than the ever-expanding virtual army of overpaid UN-ocrats!
Unfortunately, the intelligentsia will just say that that shows that people are stupid and need to be led by the elite (them of course) who will dictate the right course of action.
don’t worry – the poll’s results will somehow be “interpreted” as showing CAGW topped the list!
we just had the Mission Australia Youth Survey 2014 results – 13,600 young Aussies aged 15-19 surveyed, so it’s quite large – showing the environment is way down in this year’s survey.
yet i heard an ABC radio presenter and News Ltd. below trying to spin that youth’s new #1 is CAGW by another name:
2 Dec: News Ltd: Liz Burke: Mission Australia Youth Survey 2014 shows kids don’t care about the environment any more
JUST three years ago when climate change was high on the political agenda and kids could be more easily pried from their iPads, environment was a big concern among Australia’s youth.
The nation’s biggest annual survey of young people found the environment was the number one “most important issue in Australia today” for 15 to 19-year-olds in 2010 and 2011…
Fast forward to 2014 and environmental concern has all but fallen off the radar for Aussie teens.
The latest Mission Australia Youth survey released this week saw environment drop to number 10 on young people’s list of issues facing the nation, with only 12.3 per cent of 15 to 19-year-olds listing it among their top three concerns…
Around one quarter of young people identified politics and societal values (28 per cent), the economy and financial matters (27.1 per cent) and alcohol and drugs (23.2 per cent) as the most important issues in Australia today…
Media lecturer and youth expert Dr Jason Sternberg from QUT says that the politicising of environmental issues could mean that how young people think about the environment has changed.
***“Give the fact that climate change has moved so much into the political terrain, I actually think because the debate has become so politicised, environmentalism may have slipped into the political and societal values category,” he said…
http://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/mission-australia-youth-survey-2014-shows-kids-dont-care-about-the-environment-any-more/story-e6frflp0-1227142062025
***is Sternberg really suggesting CAGW has only become “politicised” in the past 12 months!
Sternberg thinks his readers are born yesterday. Sort of a Gruber.
Environmentalism is political since 1962 (Silent Spring)
So how do we get it up to 97 percent?
Some fellow in Australia will Cook that number up.
I noticed that they put “Action on Climate Change” first on the list. Not biased … much …
Yes, when I did the poll I noticed that “Action” put it first alphabetically. And that’s important as the moment you clicked 6 it locked your choices. If you had a higher priority that you found later on it was too late.
Or at least that was how it worked a few months ago when it was linked to at the Guardian.
You are correct on the placement of the answers of polling questions. I heard an interview by one of the national (USA) polling services founders (Zogby?) on how surveys are conducted To have accurate results, it CAN NOT just be a 1, 2 or 3 question survey (Dorn/Zimmermean comes to mind). It must contain multiple questions that should represent the same subject, but the questions need to be worded differently and the order of the selected responses must be change. He stated that was to ensure the respondents don’t just pick the first one (or few in multiple response) selection(s). If questions 1 and 6 are the ‘same’ question and the responses are selections B and D (the same response) then the pollster has high confidence that it is a valid response if the same person chooses 1B and 6D. BUT if another respondent answers B and B for questions 1 & 6, then they disregard that in the results because there is conflicting answers to the same question. Also, true polling agencies will divulge all of this info in their report. But usually it is to a private firm/organization that will only release their desired results/spin, generally keeping the details under lock and key.
How true MikeH. The methodology is very important as are the crosstabs in polling, at least according to what I’ve heard from reliable guys like Zogby, Rasmussen and Sabato. Those are almost always unavailable since that’s where the actual data is. Those who pay for the poll don’t give that part away in a press release. Far better to stick to the malleable single question data that may be properly massaged and manipulated to get the proper answer.
Just like the climate “scientists” you control the answer you get with the methodology you use.
On an online survey, the bozo-simple method is just present the questions in different order to each person polled … but they have a clear agenda.
w.
I noticed that the put “Action on Climate Change” at the top of the survey.
Not biased … much …
While I agree that “climate change” is really not what most people are concerned about, any number of “issues” could have been included/were left out in this poll.
17. More bombing of those lousy terrorists in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen and middle east countries in general because if we don’t they’re gonna come over here and murder your mother, your sister and your dog (resources of the middle east and western oil companies operating in those places should not be considered for our purposes here).
18. Government corruption.
19. Criminal charges for criminal bankers.
Alright already … let’s get these priorities straight …
tonight, it’s Arizona vs Oregon …
and then tomorrow, it’s a full load …
Iowa St vs TCU
Alabama vs Missouri (Roll Tide)
Wisconsin vs Ohio St (w/o their QB, it looks bad for OSU)
but the real biggie will be Dr. Curry’s own Yellow Jackets taking on the Seminoles, Georgia Tech vs Florida State.
By Sunday morning, the top rankings in the College Football Playoff Rankings could be all scrambled … a fact much more interesting than any fantasy listing from the cloistered halls of the UN.
If they can show that football could,might,may be harmed by climate change they might pull this out.
Go Ducks ! :))
Maybe not as bad as some think. For most of the preseason Jones was the choice as backup to Braxton Miller. Barrett only edged Jones out for the spot at the end of the preseason. Then a week before the season Miller injured his shoulder and Barrett became the starting QB. OSU will be going into this game as they started the season. Barrett didn’t disappoint. I don’t think Jones will either. We’ll know tomorrow.
It will be an interesting game.
Go Iowa State! (yeah, I’m an alum 🙂
That is why UN folk and “scientists” try to prove that Global Warming, will cause more wars, and strife, and less food, less woman’s equality, more crime, etc – because, really no-one cares about Global Warming, so they try to get folks thinking Global Warming will be detrimental to the things they really care about.
Willis, this “gorgeous ex-fiancee” is she your wife?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/02/14/even-scientists-need-love/
Thanks John, I missed that one.. Very nice..
I have answered this poll… twice. It appears when one leaves certain news websites. The worst thing for climate change is that this item appears on top of the choices, so people are incited to more readily click it.
It’s even more telling that climate change finishes last despite being listed at the top.
The idea of CAGW is important to me because these idiots want to spend our hard earned tax dollars on it. It would be interesting to see how important ending the scam of CAGW is to people.
Showing yet again that the people are smarter than their would be masters, except when they do the elite’s bidding, as in voting for Obama twice. Not that the alternatives were attractive.
I learned tonight that the State of Oregon has discontinued the long-running, well-sited reporting station at Seneca. It usually showed the lowest temps in the state & sometimes even the nation.
I expect that this is part of a concerted campaign to rid the “record” of good but cold sites. That would be the flip side of emplacing an unnecessary new site in Death Valley, opposite a south-facing cliff, in hopes of “recording” a new US high, although the current, long-standing Death Valley station is among the best sited & most long-lasting locations in the real instrumental record.
I also observe more & more that NOAA stations are recording temperatures systematically higher than those of private weather stations nearby. The corruption is leaking down to ever lower levels.
Only change at the top can stop the rot.
as in voting for Obama twice. Not that the alternatives were attractive.
==============
true democracy needs 1 more name to be added to every ballot.
NONE OF THE ABOVE.
If NONE OF THE ABOVE gets a majority, all the candidates on the ballot are disqualified from running again and a new slate of candidates must be presented.
people could actually do this by changing their names legally to:
None of The Above Zzzzz
They on the ballot they would appear alphabetically at the bottom as:
Zzzzz, None of The Above
I expect Zzzzz, None of The Above would have won the last presidential election hands down
My wife, who is out of town called me to let me know that CNN is running a crawl about 2014 being the warmest year ever and that Antarctica has lost the most ice ever this year.
I told her she must be mistaken about the Antarctic ice because it’s been growing but she insisted. I looked around and found this:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/12/141204-antarctic-ice-melt-sea-level-climate-environment-science/
I didn’t see/read the crawl but apparently somebody(s) at CNN decided to combine this study and the warmest year ever claim to broadcast a very misleading and alarming message about Antarctica ice melting.
It really ticks me off when the biased media intentionally uses opportunities to put an alarmist, one sided and distorted spin on facts.
If warming is accelerating and the Antarctic is seeing record ice lost/melting, then sea level increases would also be accelerating higher. I have no problem accepting that some of the surface based thermometers measured the warmest year ever……….by a very tiny amount.
That small amount of warming is beneficial, as is all of the increasing CO2 to life on this planet.
If you use the satellite measurements of temperature, which are more accurate and cover much more area, then we don’t even have that tiny bit of warming over the last 16 years or so.
“It really ticks me off when the biased media intentionally uses opportunities to put an alarmist, one sided and distorted spin on facts.”
The only annoying thing about the media is how slowly they die.
What’s ironic is that the #16th concern (Gloooobal Waaaarming), directly or indirectly has a negative impacts on ALL the other 15 concerns:
#1 Education: Depriving 3rd World countries from cheap fossil fuel energy prevents economic growth, keeping them impoverished and preventing development of primary/secondary school expansion.
#2 Better Healthcare: The $trillions wasted on CAGW policies, reduces funds available for healthcare, especially in developing countries.
#3 Better Job Opportunities: Depriving countries of cheap fossil fuels increases energy costs, which makes goods and services uncompetitive with devastating economic consequences. For every 1 “green job” created, 2 other jobs are destroyed. Depriving impoverished countries from fossil fuels will devastate their economies and job opportunities.
#4 Honest and Responsive Governments: LOL!!! enough said.. Governments created this CAGW scam and couldn’t care less that it’s already been effectively disconfirmed.
#5 Affordable Nutritious Food: Ironically, increasing CO2 to 560ppm will increase crop yields 50%. Depriving 3rd World countries of fossil fuels limits agricultural development. Higher fossil fuel costs increases food prices. Ethanol corn subsidies alone are projected to kill 2 million poor/year from increased food prices.
#6 Crime and Violence: Poverty is one of the major contributing factors to crime/violence. The more detrimental CAGW policies destroy world economies, the more crime and violence can be expected.
# 7 Access to clean water and sanitation: The weaker economies become from wasteful CAGW policies, the less funds available for infrastructure projects.
#8 Support for people that can’t work: The weaker economies become, the less funds available for the indigent.
#9 Equality between Men and Women– A lot of the inequality is caused by poverty. CAGW policies exacerbate poverty.
#10 Better Roads and transport: The goal of the CAGW scam is to deprived people of cheap fossil fuels for their cars. Impoverished countries don’t have funds available to build infrastructure and industrialized countries have less to maintain the infrastructure that exists.
#11 Reliable Energy– The CAGW scam wishes to deprive impoverished people access to cheap fossil fuels. Wind and solar energy are expensive and unreliable forms of energy in developed countries. Electrical grids are precariously close to failure due to CAGW policies.
#12 Freedom from discrimination/persecution: Much discrimination arises from the effects of poverty. The more CAGW policies destroy economies, the more discrimination will occur.
#13 Political Freedom: CAGW is based on command/control government tyranny. Governments want to deprive our freedom to choose our energy sources and steal $trillions from taxpayers to fund unneeded CAGW initiatives. The more economic instability, the more government instability there is, and the more tyrannical governments become.
#14 Protecting forest, rivers and oceans: Increasing CO2 to 560ppm will increase forest growth 50%, leading to less soil erosion, cleaner rivers and cleaner oceans. Also, blaming CO2 on coral damage hides the real causes of coral damage (loss of parrotfish; thanks for your education on this Willis!)
#15) Phone and Internet access- Devastating CAGW policies hurt economies and prevent available funds for all infrastructure development.
Historians will be appalled at how long the CAGW scam lasted and the social and economic consequences the CAGW policies had on people’s lives for absolutely no reason whatsoever.
How long will people allow this CAGW travesty to continue?
Welcome to WUWT Samurai. I don’t recall ever seeing your comment here before and I am a regular WUWT reader and occasional commenter. Again, welcome..
Hear hear!
Let’s not forget that warming would in itself be a good thing. We are naked apes, covered in sweat glands. For cold climates, we need animal skins or plant/fossil-fuel based fibres, and energy sources to warm our dwellings.
I don’t expect warming, but it would be great if it happened.
#10 Better Roads and transport:
===========
by pricing fuel higher via CO2 taxes, less people will be able to afford to drive, reducing road congestion.
the rich in will be able to get where they want without having to line up in traffic behind a bunch of “common” people.
the beauty of the plan is that if you are truly rich, your fuel costs are likely tax deductible through a business. the higher the carbon taxes, the more the common people end up paying for your fuel. while at the same time, less of them can afford to drive. truly a win-win. less congestion, more deductions.
Reblogged this on longbanchan and commented:
…what happened to a degree or two points of temperature degree increasing?
Seems about right. First three are about taking care of “me” and then number four says it all. Quite possibly the expressed need for an honest and responsive Government is a statement that that is precisely what most people are not getting. Hey United Nations! We’d like you to be honest and responsive! Hey Australian Governments we’d like you to be honest and responsive. I think we’ve got more chance of reducing carbon emissions than we do of actually getting honest and responsive Governments. Though quite possibly we might gain some real traction on climate change management if we did have honest and responsive politicians.
It is interesting that the lack of interest in “Action on Climate Change” is pronounced in the younger age group, those under 15 years and those 16-30, where you assume the opposite.
http://data.myworld2015.org/
It is certainly interesting, but what it is NOT is surprising.
Why should it be a concern for them? It hasn’t warmed during their entire lives.
It points to the abysmal failure of the 1968 wannabe revolutionaries – who all became teachers – to brainwash the next generations. It’s a wonderful sign.
This has to be one of 2014 biggest “Oh ThePain” climate science moments. There have been many. Perhaps worthy of a poll?
http://youtu.be/rKwwcCpa2Ag
You can vote here, http://vote.myworld2015.org/
Rotate the graph by -90 and then make a mirror image and voilà, CAGW!
Like this?
Xacly!
Very Interesting Willis, thanks!
I always get curious about vote/poll totals so out of whack with reality; statistics be da–ed, there is no accurate representation when polls are ‘targeted’. Considering how targeted this poll must’ve been, climate change must be a bottom choice for a very long list.
6.65 million votes out of, say a conservative world population of 7.2 billion for a whopping 0.0927% of total population voting.
Votes by country are also quite interesting.
Mexico cast 23% of the votes. Mexico has approximately 1.7% of the world’s population.
Nigeria cast 18.6% of the votes. Nigeria has approximately 2.5% of the world’s population.
India cast 13.4% of the votes. India does have a substantial 17.23% of the world’s population.
Pakistan cast 10.5% of the votes. Pakistan has approximately 2.7% of the world’s population.
Sri Lanka cast 10% of the votes. Sri Lanka has approximately 0.3% of the world’s population.
Yemen cast 3.3% of the votes. Yemen has approximately 0.36% of the world’s population.
Philippines cast 1.2% of the votes. Philippines has approximately 1.5% of the world’s population making their proportional votes oddly right.
United States of America cast a whopping 0.9% of the votes. USA has approximately 4.44% of the world’s population.
Canada is in for 0.2% of the votes. Canada has approximately 0.49% of the world’s population.
United Kingdom managed to vote for 0.5% of the votes. United Kingdom has approximately 0.89% of the world’s population.
Australia is in for 0.3% of the votes. Australia has approximately 0.31% of the world’s population.
As a quick comparison ‘Democratic Republic of the Congo’ also cast 0.3% and their population is roughly 0.06% of the world’s population.
China also cast approximately 0.3% of the votes. China’s share of the world’s population is approximately 18.9%.
Checking down further on the poll results page one comes across ‘Partners’ listing votes by partners.
The top five listed partners are:
‘Instituto de la Juventud del DF’ (Mexico) cast 1,467,937 votes for 22.06% of the total.
‘MDGs Nigeria’ cast 1,197,931 votes for 18%. Their website has a poll at the bottom where MDG’s help is rated; Yes at zero %, No at 100%.
‘Youth Revolution Clan’ (Pakistan) cast 658,647 votes for 9.9%.
‘Action for Pune Development’ (Pune City, India) cast 611,020 votes for 9%.
‘Sri Lanka Youth’ cast 299,671 votes for 4.5%.
It is a very long list of Partners, heavy on the youth organizations, but includes some surprises; Coca Cola, Microsoft, Girl Scouts of USA (27 votes) and so on.
Whatever, the poll is not random nor does it seek a broad diversity. As Willis points out so well, even with a targeted supposedly motivated poll participation ‘Action on climate change’ ranks darn low as a choice.
And still socialist left bent governments around the world funnel money into the UN.
On behalf of their peoples in a fraudulent exercise in saving the world.
From exactly what still eludes so many of us sane people.
I have also determined that you can vote as many times as you want. So people, vote early, vote often.
I just wish it would warm some more … and I live in the tropics.
Polls, schmoles.
They (the Progressive Left Elitists) really don’t give a damn about what the People think is important or their opinions. A UN poll of the unwashed masses is a meaningless exercise for the elitists.
As Dr. Gruber explained, the Progressive Elitists know what is best for everyone else and they will do it regardless. Such is why they must be marginalized to irrelevance. Real democracy from an informed electorate is an existential threat to Progressives.
This is another reason for Obama to take action. Since the people of the world won’t take action he must!
Well, of course, they’ll just think up a bunch of lies about how climate change will keep your education from sticking to your neurons, yatta-yatta, and so on.
I’m sure Cook et al could fix those poll results over a coffee-break.
It’s a pity they didn’t ask if anyone is concerned that the Arctic could be ice-free. In my book it is not a concern, and never has been.
Who gives a darn if the NorthPole has ice or not?
The ice for my gin and tonics comes from the freezer, not the arctic.
If polar bears have fewer seals to prey upon, due to ice conditions, they can always try to catch homo sapiens.
Good job the Inuit (and other indigenous) have guns.
Nature has ways of fixing things.
For the polar bears, or seals, or Arctic foxes, or even the Inuit people, if it is their time for extinction then so be it. It would indicate nothing more than ‘nature’ is quite brutal – evolutionary cycles especially so.
For some humans though this seems very ‘unfair’, and somehow we all must waste our time and money ‘protecting’ these things.
You probably guessed, I do not subscribe to this stasis philosophy of nature.
I’ve seen this UN list before. Where is affordable housing on the list?
Well, I’m back from the work Christmas party. It was great fun, there were about 400 people there. The gorgeous ex-fiancee is a Family Nurse Practitioner, she works for a local clinic that serves a generally poor clientele. They also hire from the same pool, and there were people of every color under the sun there, and of every age and ethnicity, all of whom work together. I do love it when people get together and they don’t worry about trivialities. These are medical people, and to tell the truth, they actually are concerned with color—if you bleed any color but red, they get very worried …
With that colorful exception, nobody cared about that unimportant kind of stuff, we ate dinner and talked and laughed and danced the evening away.
Now, I’m about as far from being a Christian as a man can get. But I stand four-square for all holidays. Fiji was the best in that regard. There, they celebrate the usual Christian holidays, plus the British holidays like the Queen’s birthday, plus Diwali and the like for all the Hindudes and Dudettes, and they round it out with Prophet Mohammed’s Birthday for the Muslims … there’s a holiday there every couple of weeks, what’s not to like?
So, my best Christmas wishes to all. Note that these are not your wimpy generic “Holiday Wishes”, they are the authentic high-octane Christmas wishes—I call all of the holidaze by their own name, it’s only respectful whether or not you are a follower of that particular faith.
Regards,
w.
Season’s Greetings is another generic one
Merry Christmas
Not sure if this has been discussed in WUWT before now.
Anyone following Aaron Sorkin’s newish TV series ‘The Newsroom’? I think it is alright but not great. He’s a super liberal type so I would guess he’s all into the CAGW meme. In episodes 2 and 3 of the latest series 3 there’s a story line about one of the journalists getting an embargoed report from a VP at the EPA who eventually is persuaded to go on air to be interviewed by the anchor Will McAvoy. His basic line is all hope is lost as we’ve passed 400ppm and there’s absolutely nothing we can do about it. Despite repeated questioning and prompting about things that could be done to save the planet he sticks resolutely to the line that we’re done for. It’s hard to read the reaction of the other characters – it’s either horror at the impending doom or horror at this fellow going off the rails. I find it hard to read it and know for sure – I need an American to translate it for me! Could this be a super liberal like Sorkin getting tired of the constant doom and gloom scenarios that never materialise and appear to be gross exaggerations?
That show is the best way to present to the world the preachy, arrogant, badly conceived, poorly acted, ignorantly hateful, perspective of hard core lefty hacks. I have sat through enough of it to know to never waste more time on its unoriginal pretense.
I know and it annoys me for those reasons too – however the anchor McAvoy is portrayed as a soft right republican who gives it between the eyes to the lefties on occasions.
I was very interested in the story line about the EPA report and 400ppm and expected it to be the usual preachy lib/left stuff and then all of a sudden it appeared to me that the program was dissing the EPA and all the doomsayer glooms that inhabit it. I was just wondering if I had got the right take on it and thought it was significant that a hard left script writer like Sorkin was mocking the doomsday predictions.
They forgot to adjust the data, putting it upside down than GC is first
Mr Oh Bummer’s head honchos believe the people in the USA are too dumb to understand Obamacare.
They probably also believe the people from the other countries listed are also dumb.
Apparently Mr Oh Bummer’s head honchos are still too dumb to understand Obamacare has never has above a 50% public approval rating…and that zero Republican congressional legislators voted for it.
It’s generally not too difficult to identify the demographic that actually believes in this cowpie (Gruber is one of them).
Australia has climate change at 7th. I feel ashamed. So many gullible fools. I guess the more warmist media there is, the higher climate gets voted. I wonder how many warmist sites linked to the poll?
Curious. The age ranges all put “Action on Climate Change” last.
Except for 46-60 (3rd from last)..
And 60+ (2nd from last).
Maybe watching TV inclines you to believe it’s a problem?
Or maybe kids just don’t believe their school curricula.
I am also surprised by this being a 60+, having lived through plenty of “Climate Change” I am not the slightest bit bothered.
A typical 1968 culturally Marxist student revoluzzer, being say 20 at the time, would now be 66.
I am not so sure our political leaders think we are stupid – they know we are more interested in education, healthcare, jobs, travel, food, safety, political stability than climate change. But they also know many of their voters are climate change hypocrites who say their leaders should cut fossil fuel usage then burn JetA1 fuel to fly overseas for a holiday.
That is why our politicians SAY they want action at climate change conferences to please the hypocrites then immediately forget what they said and turn to the serious problems people are really worried about,
Thanks, Willis … and glad that you had a great evening … and may you – and your gorgeous ex-fiancée – have many, many, more!
And may the voice of the overwhelming majority prevail and proclaim – as does this survey – that “Action taken on climate change” is the very least/last thing anyone needs to worry about.
Willlis, here is your exact quote “NOBODY thinks it’s important.”
Perhaps the survey would be more accurately represented by the amended statement “NOBODY thinks it’s as important.” 🙂
I am surprided by the 11th place for Reliable Energy at Home.
Maybe too many participants “Took it for granted”.
UK respondents put it 3rd ……… from last.
That is probably because most of them already have Reliable Energy at Home, you would see a change if it becomes unreliable in any modern country and all their GCMs, Petrol Pumps, phones, games, tvs and computers stop working.
A C
Take another look at the name of the most frequently responding countries (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) – most of these places do not have reliable anything except corruption and terror.
Watching Al Gore on some japanese news channel and hes trying to fit the war in Syria to a recent drought.
Need to pull the Data in on that claim.Say they lost 60 percent of the farmland.that caused the civil religious strife.
Nobody stopped to ask big Al how many millions hes made from trading Carbon Credits
For the UK, >80% of opinions were provided by those with education ‘Beyond Secondary School’.
I wonder how the participants were selected?
Poll schmolls. Religion only needs believers
‘Predictably’ in the heading should read ‘predictable’.
The poll is encouraging. People see through the climate obsessed arguments and are not impressed.
Politicians who have chosen to ride the climate fear wave have been warned.
Note that the poll shows that 1.3 million people (out of 6 million) still selected climate change as an important issue.
Yes, sadly there are still quite a few brainwashed individuals out there.
But that is misleading. Consider the type of poll. You are asked to choose 6 out of 16 things.
What this says is that OUT OF THE ITEMS YOU ARE ALLOWED TO CHOOSE, “Action on Climate Change” was the LEAST chosen thing by a rather wide margin.
Something had to be on the bottom. Remember that “multiple choice” actually restricts your choices. If there had been more choices in the list, it might not even have made the top 16, or it might have gotten even fewer votes.
With this poll they can better estimate the campaign budget for moving their pet topic upward on the public priority list, in the run-up to the climate circus in Paris. It will probably not be a small budget – which will not be spent on the real priorities.
President Obama at the September 23 UN Climate Summit:
“So the climate is changing faster than our efforts to address it. The alarm bells keep ringing. Our citizens keep marching. We cannot pretend we do not hear them. We have to answer the call.”
What call was that, again?
A problem I have with this poll is that is under the auspices of the United Nations, an outfit for which I have near zero respect.
Note that spending to achieve the results people really WANT is limited by spending on those that people don’t care about.
Nearly everything above the ‘Action taken on Climate Change’ could be radically improved if we would stop ‘Action taken on Climate Change’ .
Governments “care”.
NGOs “care”.
Greenies “care”.
Government-funded “scientists” “care”.
Al Gore “cares”.
Assorted authors, actors and various carpetbaggers “care”.
Etc etc.
Their “caring” is entirely self-interested, of course. They don’t give a hoot about the planet, and certainly not how the energy policies they push for damage people, especially those who can least afford it.
The scaliwags currently in Peru haggling and negotiating is yet more of the politically and financially-motivated circus, marching ahead of its own accord, and paying no heed to what people think.
“NOBODY thinks it’s important.” By my math, 20% do. In fact, we’re currently discussion it as are others. Is 20% statistically insignificant? Who gets to decide?
Many of these are longer term issues vs. pressing daily issues (“affordable and nutritious food” and “protection against crime and violence”.
Just another poll, with little actual contribution either way. The sample size is impressive, but other than that, meh.
This poll result giving a low priority to action on global warming is consistent with the PEW RESEARCH CENTER poll dated September 23,2014 where AMERICANS gave” dealing with global warming” the second lowest priority with only 29 %rating it as a top priority among 20 topics . It was rated19th out of 20 topics. There is a significant difference(28 points) between Democrats( 64)and Re publicans (14)in rating the importance of dealing with global warming. So it seems to be strongly a political issue. The new Republican dominated House and Senate will probably make a lot of changes in the future .
Many western governments are perceived to be an elitist group largely out of touch, but far better informed, than their electorate. Whether or not the climate change lobby is right or not, this survey reinforces that perception.
The only other conclusion to be drawn is that governments see climate change as a distraction or substitute for action on more important or controversial issues. It has the benefit of being largely non-partisan, and not disprovable on political timescales.
There is an inherent ambiguity in these types of question.
Should I list the things that are currently missing/deficient in my life (and which I would like provided/improved), or should I list the things which are currently OK but would hurt the most if they were to deteriorate.
This would explain why the poll results are very dependent upon the HDI of the country.
I checked the results for Kiribati, the place that’s practically “underwater” now if you believe the newspapers. Climate change is only the 8th most important topic there.
I’m sure the magical mewthods of Cook, Lew, et al could make this result more appropriate. And of course a certain Man could turn it upside down??
“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.”
Let’s get a little more nuancy. I would classify the first three as semi-industrialized, as well as most of the others. I think this actually makes your point stronger. We seem to have a consensus across the entire spectrum of industrialization. What everybody wants, regardless of degree of industrialization, is a future.
“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.”
Maybe, but it still dos not stop them allowing their tax money to fund AGW “initiatives and voting in “Green” leaning governments (and presidents)
Cheers
Roger
http://www.rogerfromnewzealand.wordpress.com
I disagree that this is a “failed poll”, because the UN (and most people) care about all of these things. How many choices did people get? It’s not surprising that climate change is not among many people’s top 3 or 5, because most people have other more pressing, immediate concerns.
Barry
As several other comments have indicated, people got up to 6 choices (not 3-5).
Good to know you consider the UN to be a credible pollster. I assume you’re also ok with Saudia Arabia, Cuba and Pakistan (also Russia & Ukraine, which I thought were, uhhh, merging) on the UN human rights commission.
Is anyone going to put up a post of record dealing with the “2014 hottest evah!” claim? I know these claims are refuted every day here, but it would help if we had a specific link addressing the specific claim.
Caesar asks “what would you have me give you; bread, circuses, or the head of Biggus Dickus?”
It doesn’t matter what you choose – every vote is a vote in favour of Caesar’s governance.
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.