New Survey: Nearly Half Of Young Americans Are Climate Skeptics
The Younger They Are, The More Skeptical
In fact, the age group that least agreed with the statement that global warming is a fact and caused by CO2 emissions was that of 18 to 20-year-olds. The assumption that younger US adults are more liberal when it comes to global warming does not hold up; if anything, they are even more skeptical. –Emma Kromm, Harvard Political Review, 29 April 2015
New Survey: Nearly Half Of Young Americans Are Climate Sceptics
From the Harvard Political Review, 29 April 2015 by Emma Kromm (h/t to The GWPF)
At the White House Correspondents Association Dinner last Saturday night, President Obama got angry. With the help of his anger translator, Luther (played by comedian Keegan-Michael Key), the president abandoned his usual reasonable tone to condemn those who deny climate change. “The science is clear,” he began. “Every serious scientist says we need to act. The Pentagon says it’s a national security risk.” As the president continued, it became clear that he no longer needed Luther to reveal his inner anger, and he drew laughs from the crowd after letting loose. “It is crazy! What about our kids? What kind of stupid, shortsighted, irresponsible… ”
While the president’s skit might have been the highlight of the night, do Americans really need this kind of angry reminder that climate change is a problem? Some seem to think we are living in a world where climate change is widely acknowledged as an irrefutable fact. Mary Robinson, the seventh president of Ireland and founder of the Mary Robinson Foundation for Climate Justice, has argued that the generation in power now is the first to fully know about climate change, and the last with the ability to prevent its projected effects. She and others are of the opinion that, at this point, all but a few outliers understand global warming, its causes, and its dire consequences.
New data from the Harvard Public Opinion Project tell a very different story. Only 55 percent of survey participants agreed with the statement,
“Global warming is a proven fact and is mostly caused by emissions from cars and industrial facilities such as power plants.” Twenty percent held the belief that “Global warming is a proven fact, and is mostly caused by natural changes that have nothing to do with emissions from cars,” and the remaining 23 percent who answered the question believe that “Global warming is a theory that has not been proven yet.”
Even more surprising, these numbers are the same across the board for participants between 18 and 29 years old, with 51-56 percent agreeing that global warming is a fact and is caused by fuel emissions across age groups. In fact, the age group that least agreed with the first statement was that of 18 to 20-year-olds. The assumption that younger adults are more liberal when it comes to global warming does not hold up; if anything, they are even more skeptical.
Consequently, young Americans are often unsupportive of government measures to prevent climate change that might harm the economy. Less than a third of those surveyed agreed with the statement, “Government should do more to curb climate change, even at the expense of economic growth,” and only 12 percent strongly agreed with it. Again, the youngest survey respondents were more conservative than any other age group, with only 28 percent of 18 to 20-year-olds in agreement and eight percent in strong agreement with that statement. In contrast, other age groups varied between 30 percent and 34 percent in agreement and 11 percent to 14 percent in strong agreement. Not only are the newest voters less convinced of climate change as a reality; they are also less likely to support government funding of climate change solutions.
Actually, the grand perversion of science committed by UN, governments, and government scientists, and the media, in the form of CO2AGW, told me SO much about how the world has been run for more than a century, as I dug deeper and deeper, thanks to all the hints offered by WUWT commenters. Maurice Strong, such a colorful character with such a telling biography, why don’t the state media cherish him every day? Because the system is eager to cover its tracks.
It has been a quite a ride, it is coming to an end now. The giant has feet of clay. Maybe someday we even get science that one can speak of back. Has been turned into a giant EBT card system lately.
I assume you are describing the Everybody But Taxpayers card system. You have that in Germany too ??
g
We have a system called Hartz IV. It has a requirement to look for work though.
And they don’t even know what an electric bill is or what it looks like.
Eighteen-plus years of AGW climate change hysterical propaganda and the majority are skeptics? Wow.
Not quite a majority but why would that be a surprise if it was?
“AGW climate change hysterical propaganda ” is an accurate term. It is so over the top and so one-sided that it isn’t persuasive.
Think of it like the Doctor analogy so beloved of the doom-mongers.
-This Doctor demands that you prioritise his diagnosis as the most important issue in your life.
-This Doctor points to symptoms that are imperceptible.
-This Doctor predicts further symptoms that resolutely fail to appear.
-And this Doctor refuses to allow any consideration of a second opinion; rants about how their all paid to disagree with him just sound a little paranoid.
Would you not want a better Doctor too?
It’s been around a lot longer than eighteen years now, I can assure you. I started to hear this stuff while I was in high school, my father warned me it was likely to be a crock used to jack up energy prices, before websites even existed. I started getting into arguments at school about it, 26 years or so later, I’m still at it. Ten years ago I nearly lost the faith and crumpled just to get along but then climategate got some stiffness in my spine. Some would say it’s been a lifetimes work, but I’m not done yet. There is another generation coming along that has to be taught to think for themselves.
As for the 55% of believers, I note there was no ‘undecided’ category. That’s telling enough – I would say the survey is skewed based on it being an unfashionable position.
I always prefer to look at actions rather than words – like takeoff of voluntary carbon permits. Surely if you believed the world was coming to an end if you didn’t take action, and action only cost a few bucks, like upsizing your McDonald’s meal, if you really believed, you’d buy the permits.
What is the take up on carbon offsets for flights and other voluntary schemes? About 1 or 2% – 1/5th the rate of green voters round my parts.
They don’t believe at all. They just want a tool to control behaviour of others.
Guess who gets to shovel the snow in many households. The teens are much closer to nature than mom and dad. In addition, they’ve probably been told no to many requests because it will “harm the planet”. Yet, they’ve only seen cooling in most places.
Of course they are skeptical, most of them were not born the last time the world warmed.
Give them free iPhones and offers of waived student debt and then let’s see the survey results.
Young Americans
by David Bowie
Is he the inventor of the Bowie Knife. Didn’t he get killed at The Alamo ??
I see from his picture that he carries his brains in his hands.
Speaking of which, today is my birthday!
I’m 35 … oh wait … 53.
Don’t be afraid to give up the love, people. You’re family!
happy birthday
forgot the card
That awesome 🙂
… Too old to even get the first word right …
░H░A░P░P░Y░░B░I░R░T░H░D░A░Y░░M░A░X░!░!░
٩(͡๏̮͡๏)۶ ღ♪☺*•.¸¸¸.•*¨¨*•.¸¸¸.•*•♪ღ♪¸.•*¨¨*•.¸¸¸.•*•♪ღ♪•*♪ღ♪
♪ღ♪*•♪ღ♪*•.¸¸¸.•*¨¨*•.¸¸¸.•*•♪¸.•*¨¨*•.¸¸¸.•*•♪ღ☺♪•*٩(͡๏̮͡๏)۶
Count my eighteen year old on the skeptical side. Not a hint of warming in his lifetime.
Take him to the Canadian north and have him talk to some fellow 18-year-olds up there, and they’ll soon correct him on that notion. http://www.skepticalscience.com/Inuit-Climate-Change.html
SHFlashman,
A teenage ‘Inuit geography student’? Being a friend of the author?
You really needed to search to find an “authority”, didn’t you? And using a local change in climate — which always happens naturally, and just about everywhere — may convince the religiously inclined. But for skeptics, it just provides amusement.
No need to go that far North. Most of Canada has been freezing it’s a** off the last several winters, with this last one being the worst.
Try collecting cash to “help fight man-man global warming” on a street corner in Toronto or Montreal.
What percentage of Global would that be?
Oh, that’s a good one Harry. Would Finland do?
As it happens, traffic surveillance cameras are recording some odd, plentiful, white and cold stuff falling from the sky. http://yle.fi/uutiset/lumi_peitti_maan_jyvaskylan_etelapuolellakin/7963489?origin=rss
And no need to travel as far as Jyväskylä. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jyv%C3%A4skyl%C3%A4.sijainti.suomi.2009.svg
skeptical science? That’s even less reliable than Wikipedia.
There hasn’t been any warming in Canada either, and most of them would love for there to be some warming.
It’s clear that a plurality numbers of people parrot the MSM line on ACGW… BUT… when it comes to jacking up electric power rates support drops to 25%; and higher gasoline prices/ taxes (36%)
As for the young cohort, I suspect they are more impervious to MSM and are willing to check out blogs such as WUWT; Climate Audit (though often technical); Judith Curry etc
Anyone who thinks kids can be indoctrinated must not be thinking very hard about how kids really behave. If they are told they must do something, or must think something, or something is for sure so and so…they will do, think, and believe the opposite. Many if not most. But not all. Some are soft minded and believe what they are told to believe, but even some of them will notice when things do not seem to be as they are being told is the case.
I should have added the source link
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/01/29/us/global-warming-poll.html
The climate is always, by some degree, warming or cooling and has always, by some degree, warmed or cooled. Can anyone give a period of say 50 years when the climate was just right for everyone on our planet?
double d says:
Can anyone give a period of say 50 years when the climate was just right for everyone on our planet?
Yes:
When the amount of warming (or cooling) that the planet has experienced over the last 130 years is around 1C, why did you choose to plot a graph showing 120 degrees on your Y axis? In other words, you chose a Y axis with roughly 100X the change that has occurred. Why?
It’s not a graph, it’s snark.
This is a science site:
Please use kelvin Temperature for scientific accuracy, not that extrapolated centigrade rubbish !
g
Probably to make a point.
OTOH, there is a way to make sure change is always dramatical. Do a square box and scale the graph so it goes from bottom to top. Cherry-pick start and end to make sure the first value is the smallest and the last is the largest. If the line is not straight, use some smoothing. Press the point with a linear fit, or an exponential fit with extrapolation. Don’t mark error bars.
Chris April 29, 2015 at 8:44 pm
The diagram is intended to show what global warming looks like on a standard alcohol thermometer. Hence the scale.
@chris and Leland:
Please note that it isn’t my chart. It comes from NASA/GISS — James Hansen’s crowd.
Go argue with them if you don’t like it.
@dbstealey said:
“Please note that it isn’t my chart. It comes from NASA/GISS — James Hansen’s crowd.
Go argue with them if you don’t like it.”
There are many plots of NASA/GISS data using different axis formats on the NASA web site, I didn’t realize that NASA forced you to choose this particular one. I went into NASA/GISS and was unable to find your chart anywhere. On the main page, they use this format:
My first attempt at inserting a graph is a fail! The link is here: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.A2.gif
@chris:
It is GISS data. The chart makes it easy to visualize.
You don’t like it, I get that. The reason is clear: it debunks the man-made global warming scare.
So does the chart you linked, even though you don’t understand why.
@dbstealey,
No, it doesn’t debunk AGW. Your attempt to hide the .8C rise is completely transparent, and the specific chart format is NOT from NASA.
Chris says:
No, it doesn’t debunk AGW.
Nice strawman there, Chris. But I have never, ever said that AGW has been debunked. I wrote that the chart debunks the MMGW scare. You could even look it up. Go on, look at the chart I posted again.
As true scientific skeptics, we look at the alarmist conjecture which claims that dangerous man-made global warming is happening, and say: show us. Produce measurable evidence quantifying AGW.
But the alarmist crowd is unable to produce any such measurements. Very embarrassing for your alarming prediction, no? You can’t even quantify what we’re supposed to be alarmed about.
Next, I’ve never tried to hide the *very* tiny ≈0.8ºC global temperature fluctuation over the past century as you claimed. In fact, I LOL at the desperate attempts to make that seem like an emergency. It isn’t, as the chart I posted shows. There is no problem at all.
As long as the carbon scare crowd continues its giant head fake by pretending that a tiny ≈0.8º jiggle in global T over a century is something to be worried about, we will have fun pointing out that your ‘dangerous MMGW’ scare is absurd.
You’re trying to justify a conjecture that has descended into parody. The parable of Chicken Little is a perfect fit. You are trying to tell us the sky is falling, when in fact it’s just a tiny acorn that bopped you on the head. Not even that, really.
The fact is that we have been blessed with a true ‘Goldilocks’ climate over the past century. But rather than being grateful for that beneficial state of affairs, self-serving climate charlatans are trying to convince the public that the sky is falling.
They should be ashamed. And you should stop being one of their enablers.
@dbstealey,
Considering we were in an ice age when the temperature was 3-4C cooler than today’s, saying .8C is a trivial increase beggars belief. And of course temperatures will continue to increase, so the real figure we are marching towards is between a 2 and 4C increase. Your approach is like someone who sees a big rock just starting to roll down a hill and saying “it’s barely moving!” without any regard for what will be the speed (and damage potential) in the future.
Chris says:
… saying .8C is a trivial increase beggars belief.
A ≈0.8º fluctuation is trivial. Running around in circles, flapping your wings and clucking that ‘the end is nigh’ doesn’t make it any more than trivial.
Just prior to the current Holocene, temperatures fluctuated by TENS of degrees — within a decade or two. Compare that with the chart I posted upthread.
Feel free to get all alarmed over a non-problem. The rest of us know better: there is nothing either unusual or unprecedented happening.
Finally, you assert:
And of course temperatures will continue to increase
How could you possibly know that?
@dbtealey,
“The rest of us know better: there is nothing either unusual or unprecedented happening.”
Who is “the rest of us?” Readers of this site, some US Senators, and a few foreign leaders like Harper and Abbott?
Gee, on my side we have the world’s scientific organizations, nearly all governments, virtually all large companies, the oil companies, the insurance companies (who need to know what is coming).
So your “rest of us” is a very small group indeed. But continue to pretend that you are in the majority.
dbstealey nails it again. And in response to Hugh’s, “In other words, you chose a Y axis with roughly 100X the change that has occurred. Why?”, the answer is, he didn’t. The change in temperature on a daily basis is greater than the GISS chart shows. And that should always be the comparison. To track the average change against the daily swings in temperature so that the tiny rise over time has a proper background against which we can compare it. When the y axis has only a degree or two represented, climate charlatans can easily misrepresent the seriousness of the change.
pbh
I wish they had drawn lines at the minimum and maximum average global temperatures in Earth’s history. We would be close to the middle of about a thirty degree range, which of course represents the range of natural variability. Temperatures have been remarkably stable.
@McComberBoy,
In that case, you should inform Bob Tisdale, Christopher Monkcton and others who frequently write posts with extensive temperature charts. Virtually all of their posts use the same method I am suggesting. For an example see Tisdale’s post here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/04/29/new-uah-lower-troposphere-temperature-data-show-no-global-warming-for-more-than-18-years/
You know a propagandized education system fortunately does work over the long haul. 3-4 generations of intense mental bludgeoning in the Soviet Union still graduated a fair number of dissidents – these are only the most brave skeptics who lay it on the line against impossible odds, the others were probably fairly numerous – making jokes in the lineup for bread – Gee this queue is almost as long as the one for people wanting to kill Brezhnev. Socialism has a few major flaws and they are all time related. 1) promising utopia for generations and it is hard to get people to work for the glory of the state and the rewards to flow in the future. The inefficient system loses its patriots and becomes even more inefficient and finally your iron curtain falls down. 2) After every single family has lost a couple of its extended members to the machinery of ‘justice’ utopia looks even farther away. 3) After you have confiscated all the capital and spread it around, the capital engine dies of starvation as does the system. They start out with the most attractive advertising, though.
When you’re constantly told by government that something is a problem, it eventually gets to the point where you check things out for yourself. When the facts don’t match the hype , rejection of the narrative occurs. Young people have had this shoved down their throats for their entire lives and teenagers are naturally of an age that thrives on challenging authority
Nearly half?
What is the other nearly half thinking? That AGW is real, that it’s already happening and has transformed into Climate Change? Which seems to be like natural climate change, but much faster?
We just have to be witnesses of the data to answer those questions.
18 years of no change while CO2 keeps increasing must mean CO2 is not in control.
And also to investigate how adjustment and homogenization are performed on the thermometers temperature records, to cool the past and warm the present.
You don’t understand. The last 18 years is cherry-picking, the previous 18 years are the trend. /sarc
People forget that millenials are more than clued up on using the internet, way more so than previous generations who are playing catch-up. A place where they are able to find science supported by observational evidence and which adheres to the scientific method, and are far less likely to watch the politically motivated agenda pushed by the TV networks on nightly news shows.
Anyone with a braincell and working fingers can use their phone to check on the bullshit claims the POTUS spews on a near daily basis. He can make all the alarmist claims he wants of rises in hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, more powerful storms, increased droughts, rapid sea level rise, etc etc, but they are easily destroyed with actual facts from even his own government departments, let alone the multitude of independent sources fortunately outside the grasp of government manipulation. Nearly two terms of repeated claims of rises have actually been years of decline.
Kids don’t like being lied to. Kids grow up, and they vote for the other guy.
I will be 86 in June I Have never believed in humans caused.globel warming. There are a great many people in the world who think that man really matters, but you cannot see a tribe of them five miles away.
Much of the analytic work that I do gets put into action by people who are basically “youngsters.” They lack formal math skills, but are incredibly good with graphs, pictograms, and other assorted visual forms of communication. They also know how to ask questions that are conceptually sophisticated, even with the lack of formal math skill. I think many of them are fully capable of grasping the failed predictions inherent in the models that are giving guidance to the IPCC, and their response to a few tenths of a degree of actual warming is “duh!” They’re also relatively unimpressed by politicians, both left and right. They think that much of what comes out of Washington is just a giveaway for votes, and that many of the doom and gloom narratives that come out of the media are “just for the ratings.” I’m not all terribly concerned about the future, I think many of these kids are smarter than many politicos give them credit for.
“He alone who controls the youth controls the future”-.Adolph Hitler. We need to work on waking up the youth that they have been brainwashed with the cAGW propaganda. Still, good to see that not all have been brainwashed, but still a worry that well over 50% have been, which for election purposes is sufficient.
Those who target children with propaganda usually reap the whirlwind.
One of the reasons such odious behaviour is to be avoided.
Same as the fools who attempt to incite a mob, for their own ends.
No surprise to me that the teenagers are cynical, once the lies of CAGW are fully exposed another generation will see the “helpers” of our bureaucratic fiefdoms for what they be.
Of course when you future is already mortgaged, to buy a welfare state which you will never benefit from, it may be that cynicism is easy.
For all my fans above, some data – nine of the ten hottest years in the 143 year record have been since the year 2000 (the other was 1998). 2014 was the hottest year ever. The idea that warming has stopped is simply nonsense. It has slowed from its earlier pace, but that’s quite a different thing, and one that may already be changing. To be honest, the “science” on this site is a joke, but promoted with enough conviction to fool quite a few people. Kudos for that, anyway.
http://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature/
SHF:
Correction:
For
allboth of my fans…There. Fixed it for you. We’re sticklers for accuracy here. ☺
IPCC AR5 (2013): “All global combined LSAT and SST data sets exhibit a statistically non-significant warming trend over 1998–2012 (0.042°C ± 0.093°C per decade (HadCRUT4); 0.037°C ± 0.085°C per decade (NCDC MLOST); 0.069°C ± 0.082°C per decade (GISS))…..”
Saying “statistically non-significant warming trend” is a coy way of saying “no warming trend”.
http://ipcc.wikia.com/wiki/152.4.3_Global_Combined_Land_and_Sea_Surface_Temperature
This is what we call non sequitur.
SHF,
Sir, your adoring throng would like to remind you that the correct spelling is “evah”.
Not “ever”.
And can you tell us more about your “Young Earth Hypothesis”, in which the earth is only 143 years old?
If you go to the BoM website for Australia, 2014 was not the warmest evah for Australia by a long shot!
Here is a quote from the page you linked: “This graph illustrates the change in global surface temperature relative to 1951-1980 average temperatures.” Hover the mouse over the ominously red blinking data point for 2014, and you will see that 2014 was 0.68°C above the 1951-1980 average.
Here is a quote from another NASA webpage: “For the global mean, the most trusted models produce a value of roughly 14°C, i.e. 57.2°F, but it may easily be anywhere between 56 and 58°F….” 56°F is 13.33°C and 58°F is 14.44°C.
So, we can deduce from NASA’s own publications that the anomaly for 2014 is well within the range of uncertainty for the baseline (1.11°C) average. In other words, we don’t actually know whether, let alone how much, 2014 was hotter than the baseline average.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/abs_temp.html
The temperature calculations for 143 years ago have error bars of over 5C.
Even using highly massaged data, there is only a 30% chance that 2014 was the warmest year.
Is there any lie that you aren’t dumb enough to tell?
SH Flashman says:
2014 was the hottest year ever. The idea that warming has stopped is simply nonsense.
Dream on. According to NOAA, these are the average global temperatures per year (h/t to Dirk):
1988: 15.4°C
1990: 15.5°C
1999: 14.6°C
2004: 14.5°C
2007: 14.5°C
2010: 14.5°C
2012 14.0 °C
2013: 14.0°C
Sorry, 2014 isn’t in the table. But to believe the globaloney you’re shoveling, we would have to accept your story that the 2014 average global temperature jumped up by at least 1.5ºC in one year.
Whatever you’re selling, we’re not buying. Try not to be so preposterous in your assertions. ‘K? Thx bye.
Dirk’s data appears to be false, but it’s Max’s birthday, you guys are family and I’m not, so au revior.
Hey, you are insulting James Hansen, GISS; NOAA, the almighty PIK and all the other demiurges of warmunism, from which the “data” stems. Repent and give yourself 100 lashes on the back and all is forgiven. And stop burning fossil fuel.
Yes, there is a credibility gap here and. as a sceptic, I hate to see made up figures like this. Sorry that some do this, reflects badly on all of us.
Well I provided links, sorry if it hurts your feelings.
Youth don’t trust government, and cAGW fear mongering is a government/msm political product.
H. L. Mencken
Civilization, in fact, grows more and more maudlin and hysterical; especially under democracy it tends to degenerate into a mere combat of crazes; the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.
Charles Mackay 1841 Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.
“Every age has its peculiar folly; some scheme, project, or phantasy into which it plunges, spurred on either by the love of gain, the necessity of excitement, or the mere force of imitation. Failing in these, it has some madness, to which it is goaded by political or religious causes, or both combined.”
By the time they graduate from public schools, most students realize some of their teachers aren’t very bright, especially those that offer opinions about current events or promote their politics.
These surveys never have proper answers. They should start by asserting the earth has warmed for 150 years. Then two questions: are humans the main cause and will warming continue to a dangerous degree.