I have three thoughts on this. 1. Like Lewandowsky, they didn’t bother to get opinions from the most central collection of climate skeptics in the world, WUWT. But reading the article, I think they really mean ‘people are more ambivalent than we thought’, which is what many public surveys have shown us about climate change opinion. 2. As our detractors are fond of pointing out with paleo and surface temperature studies, one country (Norway) is not representative of the world. 3. The picture provided of the researchers, oozes ambivalence. At least it’s not these clowns.
Using a brand new survey method, researchers in Bergen have asked a broad spectrum of people in Norway about their thoughts on climate change. The answers are quite surprising.
Some 2,000 Norwegians have been asked about what they think when they hear or read the words “climate change”. There were no pre-set answers or “choose the statement that best describes your view” options. Instead the respondents had to formulate their views on climate change in their own words. The answers have provided striking new insight into what the average person on the street in Norway thinks about climate change.
“The way we formulate the questions ensures that the respondents give more nuanced answers. We see, for example, that many of the people who might otherwise have stated they doubt that climate change is due to human activity make provisos and say that some changes probably are caused by human activity when they are given the opportunity to respond in their own words. Climate-change sceptics are thus more ambivalent than has been suggested in previous surveys,” says Endre Tvinnereim, a researcher at Uni Research Rokkan Centre.
Language analysis
The respondents were drawn from the Norwegian Citizen Panel, and the survey is part of the LINGCLIM project at the University of Bergen. This project is looking at the language used and the interpretations that prevail in the climate-change debate.
The survey was carried out in 2013 as an online questionnaire. This kept the costs down, making it possible to collect data from a sample pool of respondents.
Published in Nature
The researchers analysed the results, and the study has now been published in the highly respected journal Nature Climate Change. Very few researchers in the social sciences and humanities manage to get their research published there. However, the study by researcher Tvinnereim and Professor Kjersti Fløttum at the University of Bergen is arousing interest.
The researchers divided the answers they received into four categories using the text analysis method Structural Topic Modelling (STM). These are the four main topics that Norwegians associate with climate change:
- Weather and ice
Focus on the physical consequences of climate change such as unstable weather and melting ice
- The future and consequences for man
For example, risks and challenges that will affect their children and grandchildren
- Money and consumption
References to negative effects of the consumer society, the need to help poor countries, statements related to politics, issues related to economic motives behind climate policy
- Causes
What is causing climate change? The impact of human activity.
Views are often balanced in that the participants believe that both nature and human activities affect the climate
A single respondent could give answers that belong to several categories. The researchers got the most responses in the category “weather and ice”. In second place came the “the future and consequences”, followed by “money and consumption” and finally “causes”.
Gender differences
Slightly more women responded that they thought about things related to “weather and ice” than men. Otherwise, there were no differences between the sexes.
Nor were there significant differences in the responses between people with different educational backgrounds.
“Previous studies have shown that people with lower education are more sceptical about climate change than people with higher education. We did not observe any such correlation in our survey. Education had little impact on what people chose to attach importance to,” says Tvinnereim.
Major differences related to age
One aspect where we did find major differences was the respondents’ age. The older the respondent was, the less concerned he/she was about the “future and consequences”; the younger respondents tended to have a large proportion of their answers in the category “future and consequences”.
“We see that the older respondents write more about weather and ice and are less focused on the future in their responses,” says Tvinnereim. This may be because climatology focused more on physical aspects in the past, whereas now there is more talk about solutions and consequences for society. It may also be because older people do not have so much time left and are therefore less worried about the future, apart from when they think about their children and grandchildren.
“From the perspective of the LINGCLIM project, this study draws a representative picture of the diversity of opinions and attitudes that exist among people regarding climate change. The study clearly shows how the language used in the climate debate affects public opinion and how language is interpreted and reproduced by the general public in Norway. Our results thus provide important contributions to the knowledge base needed to make relevant decisions on actions,” says Professor Kjersti Fløttum at the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Bergen.
New questions
The researchers now want to use this same method in other projects in order to obtain more in-depth knowledge about what people really think and believe.
“It will be interesting and important to use this method to investigate new issues and in more countries. For me as a linguist, it will also be important to analyse the material we have in greater depth and investigate variations in the freely formulated answers provided by the respondents. Climate change appears to be associated with everything from physical realities to people’s subjective attitudes, values and interests,” says Fløttum.
###
There’s nothing new about this survey method and responses subject to interpretation that is influenced by the researcher’s biases. Use the results with caution.
Gary: I agree. I spent most of my professional life analyzing survey and interview data. I have not read their paper yet, but their method based on the above description is very problematic in that they provide such a broad-based stimulus that you really need to control for the situation within which individuals respond to the question. It is very likely that situational factors influenced responses. For example, are people likely to respond differently during a snowstorm or on an unseasonably hot day? Prior research on this type of technique shows that modest levels of stimulation/arousal from alcohol or a movie or a relevant article can change the way people respond to these types of questions. In addition, while I am all for individuals providing open ended responses, I would rather not have the researcher be the primary interpreter of the responses. For example, it is quite easy in an online survey to combine open and closed ended questions. One final point, asking random people who vary enormously on what Yale’s Daniel Kahan calls “Ordinary Science Intelligence” is primarily useful if you want to manipulate public perceptions. It is like asking somebody’s opinion of a movie that they have not seen.
My thoughts exactly.
Spot on, Gary. It works like this : In a multiple choice survey where people have a wide range of opinions, options A and B get 50% each. But these surveyors detect the nuances and can claim that 97% of respondents agreed with B to some extent. Now, with 97% support for B, what is the support for A?
“Some 2,000 Norwegians have been asked about what they think when they hear or read the words “climate change”. ”
I’m ambivalent, sometimes i think it’s a scam and sometimes i think it’s mass delusion.
Given that Norway is the Kuwait of Europe, and that its wealth rests upon the very substances that the purveyors of Calamity are most alarmed about, it seems odd to be addressing this survey to Norwegians in the first place ?
If it reveals anything at all, that which is revealed may be more indicative of cognitive dissonance, than ambivalence 🙂
Younger people being ‘more concerned’ is likely an artifact of the propaganda they are / were getting in school.
Young People…….may not even know how to spell climate? I seriously doubt with what I’ve seen and heard coming out of our indoctrinated University systems – they couldn’t define climate…”in their own words”.
Young people have also lived through less changes in climate. I remember sitting on the floor watching Hansen give his testimony. My dad was calling bull**** because he lived through the dust bowl.
In my experience many young people know or think climate change is bs however as you guys may remember young people, well young men in particular are interested in gaining romantic interest from the other server by almost any means necessary. That and such diaolouge is simply not allowed in American Universities.
“they couldn’t define climate…”in their own words”.”
Please… nobody can define “climate” as a sound universal scientific concept. Climate is at some scale (temporal and geographic) but then if some findings are bad for the Cause, the scale is wrong.
You have a sound scientific definition when the scope doesn’t depends on arbitrary choices.
A scientific result is robust against small changes in the arbitrary parameters. Biomed “findings” with many “significant” results, where most results are significant at p<.05 but not at <.04 are probably fraudulent or implicitly fraudulent (ie the researchers didn't tried to fool YOU, they only tried and fooled THEMSELVES).
Worship of a particular totally arbitrary value like an "acceptable" (for who? in which situation?) risk of false positive by chance alone of 1/20 is the sure sign of lack of science.
Since when is a climate defined by 30 years?
I can define tide, you can define tide, our definition may not match exactly on criterias used but I am pretty sure we will agree on what tide is, and if we draw the tide over time graph our pictures will almost perfectly match. Nobody thinks a wave counts as tide because tide is well defined experimentally.
When reasonable people argue on what climate is, it shows climate is not a useful concept at all.
As Winston Churchill said, if you aren’t a liberal at twenty you have no heart. If you aren’t a conservative at forty you have no head.
I’m not sure what I think about this article. I suppose I’m just ambivalent about the conclusions drawn by the authors of the study.
I thought the guy in the photo was Roger Federer, but now I’m not so sure.
This is the best response by far!! hahaha
Well it has nothing to do with Climate change and everything to do with politics. It is all about opinion that is probably the most important aspect for the Alarmists right now because all indications are that despite a massive effort and backing of most of the media, they’re losing the PR war. Because they are losing in the public domain, and they can’t get action in the legislature, and so they have been limited trying to advance their agenda unilaterally through the executive branch and trying to move what they can in civil court proceedings. And now the call for the prosecution of “Deniers” using the Rico statute increasing.
There is a distinctive impression of real desperation on the part of the Alarmists as the summit in Paris approaches.
rah:
‘There is a distinctive impression of real desperation on the part of the Alarmists as the summit in Paris approaches.’
d’accord. Hans
I thought I was interested in this article, but then became ambivalent after the first sentence.
Yawn. Academe at its worst.
“Academe at its worst.”
Are you sure? Seems to be their best BS yet, no?
You may be right. The Norwegians have the largest Sovereign Wealth Fund in the world (from good old fossil fuels) and they have to spend it somewhere. Hence this stuff I suppose.
But it was published in the highly respected journal Nature Climate Change.
Although I confess I do not know this journal.
I know the laughable comic Nature Climate Change but this must be something new.
So some 2,000 Norwegians can describe the general attitudes of those affected by the global climate. Obviously.
I’ve heard of some trees in Yamal that had similar abilities concerning global climate, itself.
Amazing, huh?
Anthony, This is actually not a bad thing (can’t say how it will be spun though). They are saying what we knew all along:
1. That it is not just an argument between those who say humans have no effect and those who believe the “science”.
2. That skeptics have a much more nuanced view and know that humans and natural climate change occur.
3. Even the part about older people makes sense if they are wiser than the youngsters.
Along with the sacred truth that capitalism is the greatest evil in all of history, it is held as equally true that no older person is ever wiser than a younger person. To think otherwise is to risk angering the great Gaia.
For those who deny climate change is real, all you have to do is consider that the settlement of the cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde became abandoned when a pervasive drought destroyed farming in that area about 1300 AD, long before Al Gore sounded the alarm.
I am awaiting sound research showing the optimum climate for our present biosphere. But most “research” is really an attempt to secure the optimum level of government intrusion in our lives.
It is no surprise that almost every demand made by advocates of global warming converges on bigger government, higher taxes, less freedom and more restrictions on how we choose to live our lives. That tells me all I need to know about this massive fraud.
Buck, thanks. Yes, when someone wants to control someone else and do bad things to them by big government, less freedom, less wealth, less energy, and ultimately less people, you can be sure that they 1) do not include themselves in those that will be eliminated, 2) They are radical leftists who want communism, or crony socialism. I will believe their “save the planet” nonsense when they lead by example in subjecting themselves to these things before asking others to do them
Do they ever do polls like this for any other area of science?
I think maybe with food science (i.e., GMO, etc.) but few other sciences are as politicized.
Maybe I don’t get the problem here. Skeptics are skeptical of CAGW. I dont know many who think humans make 0 impact on our world. Most ‘skeptics’ just don’t believe the overblown hype and panic that tags along (at least in my experience).
Recent UK paper summarizes surveys:
and shows the public are much more nuanced.
Q6. Which, if any, of the following best describes your opinion about the causes of climate
change?
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
It is entirely caused by natural processes 6% 8% 4% 5% 4%
It is mainly caused by natural processes 12% 12% 12% 12% 9%
It is partly natural causes & partly human activity 47% 46% 48% 46% 48%
It is mainly caused by human activity 24% 22% 28% 22% 29%
It is entirely caused by human activity 7% 6% 4% 6% 7%
There is no such thing as climate change 2% 2% 2% 2% 1%
Don’t know 3% 3% 2% 7% 2%
http://c3wales.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/URG-15-01-Flood-Climate-report-final2.pdf
These percentages suggest the propaganda is working in the UK with about 5% slipping from natural activity to human activity caused between 2010 and 2014. Interestingly the largest group, both human and natural activity has grown by 1%.
Not that it matters to science, science is not based on surveys but on evidence. Politics are based on surveys and polls. Unfortunately climate science and climate politics are indistinguishable.
2010
18% mostly natural process
47% both
31% mostly human activity
2014
13% mostly natural process
48% both
36% mostly human activity
But what it actually shows is that the percentage of people that have the correct Idea has increased from 47% to 48%
It’s probably +/- 2% or more for each response so most
of the differences or not meaningful.
I think I would have answered “There is no such thing as climate change”.
Because to me, these words are a political campaign slogan, and the memes behind the slogan are all badly wrong.
If you’re talking 10 years of weather = climate, then “It is partly natural causes & partly human activity”. Otherwise they can go jump.
The climate is always changing. Constant change is the status quo. For the climate to change it would have to stop changing. That, clearly is not the case, so there has been no change in the climate – it is still changing, just like always.
It shows most of them are fence sitters.
Where’s category #5, it’s total BS? It hilarious that so many people in Scandinavia and Canada worry about warmer weather that isn’t even happening.
‘tabnumlock
June 3, 2015 at 6:10 am
Where’s category #5, it’s total BS? It hilarious that so many people in Scandinavia and Canada worry about warmer weather that isn’t even happening.’
says it all, tabnumlock.
Regards – Hans
““We see that the older respondents write more about weather and ice and are less focused on the future in their responses,” says Tvinnereim. This may be because climatology focused more on physical aspects in the past, whereas now there is more talk about solutions and consequences for society. It may also be because older people do not have so much time left and are therefore less worried about the future, apart from when they think about their children and grandchildren.”
Or it could be that older people have not noticed a great deal of change in the climate or weather (I haven’t in the last 60 years). If I thought CAGW was a threat I would be shouting from the opposite camp, but anyone with knowledge and logical thought is much more capable of arriving at a correct conclusion than someone driven by belief and emotion.
It might also be that older people remember the temperature from previous events earlier in their lives and know that the data has been doctored to scale back temperature records from the past
This whole ordeal has been very distasteful to say the least. As one who was the introduced to “Weather Forecasting” by the Dean of Philadelphia Meteorologists, Dr. Francis Davis. One of Drexel University’s finest who kept a diary of his 92% accuracy. He was the Military’s forecaster for the Enola Gay’s 6Aug45 historic flight. One of his favorite quotes is that ” forecasting the weather was always dry even when it was wet.” A true professional, I don’t think he had a published opinion on the nonsense of today. He was a pioneer at WFIL for years. I wonder what his view of the succulent female forecasters that paint on their outfits before each newscast. I suggest you read https:broadcastpioneers.com/francisdavis/http to get a history of this first Philly PhD in Meteorology with BS in Physics and Mathematics.
Surprise surprise, skeptics are more nuanced in their opinions than the warmists believed.
I’ve seen this many times with the trolls who drop by here from time to time.
They are convinced that the skeptics are absolutists who hold dogmatic belief that man has no influence on the climate at all. Even when you tell them otherwise, they still refuse to believe it.
It’s similar to how they ignore any data that does not confirm their belief in CAGW.
“They are convinced that the skeptics are absolutists who hold dogmatic belief…”
Psychological projection because that’s how they themselves think. Or maybe because that’s what’s been asserted and reinforced so often in the shame stream press.
It’s standard vilification. They are so enamoured of Us vs Them that they fail to reailze that we aren’t monsters.
Be careful, though Mark, that villification works both ways. Remember, “Not Evil, Just Wrong”
Ben – A question came to mind upon reading your comment: At what point does being wrong, after understanding the “wrong-ness” of your stance and not changing that wrong-ness into “right-ness” (I.E., repeating the warmumista mantra) become evil?
I can’t say I rolled my eyes much.
But I notice it didn’t occur to the authors that older respondents’ lower concern about the future may have arisen from the greater experience they have with doomsayers and scientists.
older respondents write more about weather and ice
===============
because they have seen it all before and know that “saving the world” in reality means “taking your money”.
The really sad thing is the killing off of real science and leaving us with just The Ghost of Real Science
Will, science might appear to be a ghost, but as long as it’s spirit lives in some of us it is not gone. Just as the spirits of Feynman and Sagan live on in the minds of those they’ve mentored (even posthumously).
cheers, Steve L
Here is a rough draft poem I just jotted down from your inspiration, Will Penn.
Climate, Politics And Fear
The man we elected as President now calls me a denier;
He says those who follow him should “put my feet to the fire”!
Engaging in other-isms, ridicule and vicious mirth,
Proposing that “doubters live on a flat earth”.
Twisting and inflating every climate fact he’s learned
Until truth from fiction cannot be discerned.
Authoring my verse I wonder how long it might be
Before men in black suits come to visit me?
Even though I admit carbon dioxide’s effect,
The Sagan in me has come to suspect
That there’s more to climate than reradiated infrared,
And larger feedbacks and forcings remain yet unsaid.
The panicked legislation is hard to surmise
After this many years with no temperature rise.
The models are more incoherent each year,
Yet a consensus tells us we’ve so much to fear!
I can only suspect governmental centralization
And non-elected leaders of a new world-wide nation.
Breaking news: pollsters “discover” polls are often biased to reflect views of pollsters. They then conduct their own, still-biased poll. Film at 11.
it is easy to fool a young person that the climate is changing because they have no first hand knowledge of past climate.
old folks are harder to fool about climate change, because after having lived through the ice ages they look forward to global warming.
Apparently it is quite easy to fool the president of the United States too 😉
Perhaps that should read fool and / or bribe!
Part of Obama’s motivation to talk about CAGW is the state of the US economy, race relations, and foreign policy. Partly as a distraction and partly as a scapegoat.
His term is up soon, so he must look elsewhere to satisfy the lust for power. The only upward position is world leadership appointment. Selling the emergency of climate change places him in favor for a UN appointment.
If this vehicle is disabled for him he will have little else to propel him to world power and have to regroup with little real accomplishment to stand on.
Dawtgtmis – my first thought was that perhaps Obama was positioning himself to lead the IPCC once out of office, but I think his real desire is to host a late night TV show. He loves to hear himself talk and to rub elbows with the Hollywood elite. Likely, better golf couses in CA, too.
Many theoretical scientists used to shuffle bits of paper, nowadays bash at the keyboard instead, far removed from the reality.
Sceptics need to engage the ‘theoreticians’ of the AGW FataMorgana.
Engineers have different perspective on things. Someone who never hooked an oscilloscope probe to a peace of electronics could say for THIS : “and so what?”
The aim is to use accepted data, analyse it and point out the inconsistencies with the AGW hypothesis. Most may dismiss it, but if one or two of the less feeble mind, at least enquire ‘how come?’, than the effort was worthwhile.
As Jose Duarte has recently pointed out, getting your results published in the wrong genre of publication almost certainly means that the ‘peer review’ was carried out by people who are not competent in the field.
Language analysis: If I was asked what I think when I hear the words ‘climate change’, I would immediately ask whether the question relates to Global Warming Climate Change or Natural Climate Change.
“immediately ask whether the question relates to Global Warming Climate Change or Natural Climate Change.”
So you equate Global Warming Climate Change as caused Man and our CO2? The MSM built that, quite successfully. They don’t even have to mention Man’s input at all. So when they say something like “Global Warming caused the ice to melt”, are they wrong?
Paul – yes, they are wrong cuz they have no proof or means to determine the proof of what caused the ice to melt in percentage terms of natural variability or the CO2 monster.
“Paul – yes, they are wrong cuz…”
No, their hypothetical statement was “Global Warming caused the ice to melt”. They didn’t say it was man-made or Nature, that’s up to the reader to decide. Since most equate “Global Warming Climate Change” to mean Man-made CO2, the don’t have to point out the source. They are correct no matter what the source or cause of the warming turns out to be.
BTW, I agree with what you’re saying. My point was the connection has been established between Global Warming and Man’s CO2. The connection is: Global Warming = Man’s CO2 NOT Global Warming = (Nature + ~Man’s CO2). Most are led to believe that ANY warming = Man, ANY change = Man.
“So when they say Global Warming caused the ice to melt are they wrong?”
Nope. Warm melts ice. Cold creates ice (if you have water). Almost everyone knows this.
It is a “book opening” as in chess. He makes a move to which you must say “yes”. I say yes. His next move presumes I will habitually say “yes” now that I have been conditioned. But don’t bet on it.
What you should reply with is, “Do you mean Fabricated or Natural?”
..Previous studies have shown that people with lower education are more sceptical about climate change than people with higher education. We did not observe any such correlation in our survey…..
Let me change that for you. “Previous smears have claimed that people with lower education are more sceptical about climate change than people with higher education. We did not observe any such correlation in our survey.”
There. Fixed….
The article is here:
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/pdf/nclimate2663.pdf
The authors included some references to studies by Leiserowitz at Yale that seem to be important. Leiserowitz carried out four studies of between 1000 and 2000 survey respondents between 203 and 2010. One of his conclusions regarded the rise of skepticism from 10% to 20% between 2002 and 2010:
“Several significant trends in Americans’ associations
with “global warming” over time were identified.
Perhaps most notable was the large increase in
the proportion of naysayer images (e.g., “hoax”). The
proportion of naysayer images rose from less than
10% in 2002 to over 20% of total responses in 2010
(χ2 (3) = 84.65, p < 0.001)".–Source: Smith and Leiserowitz, 2012, Risk Analysis
Also notable is that the Norwegian authors used the term "naysayer" rather than the big D word, as did Leiserowitz. In their review of previous studies, they somehow missed the definitive contributions of one Lewandosky.
IMO, the ClimateGate revelations were the tipping point.
Following Lance Wallace’s link leads to a link to Tvinnereim, E. & K. Fløttum, “Explaining topic prevalence in answers to open-ended survey questions about climate change”, “Published online 01 June 2015” which is actually behind the paywall at $32. Even paying a fee, how would one know that that is correct article? Another article might be Howe, P.D., et al., “Geographic variation in opinions on climate channge at state and local scales in the USA”, “Published online 06 April 2015” which is also behind the paywall at the same price. Nature Climate Change is science for sale.
Jeff Glassman–
Sorry, when I click on the link I get to the full article, I guess because I am using my institutional access.
Here is the article on Dropbox.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/75831381/Tvinnereim%20and%20Flottum%20survey%20of%20Norwegian%20ideas%20on%20climate%20change.pdf
And here is the interesting similar survey in the US by Leiserowitz
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/75831381/Smith%20and%20Leiserowitz%20rise%20of%20skepticism%20re%20global%20warming%202012-Risk_Analysis.pdf
Lance,
Thank you for the links. I’m checking them out.
Jeff
“Naysayer” is a great term–midway between “skeptic” and “denier,” so maybe it can come into common use. It’s more accurate than “skeptic,” because we mostly aren’t mere doubters. And it’s not insulting, like “denier.”
I’m not surprised. The group commonly referred to as climate change skeptics is a large group with many opinions on climate change. Ranging from it doesn’t exist to it exists but it’s nothing to worry about. Some think made-made CO2 has no effect and some think it has a minor effect. But the one common opinion is that there is no catastrophic global warming.
There’s also the “it exists but adaptation is cheaper than prevention” wing.
In a nice departure from the usual level of climate studies, the authors have made available not only the data but also the code:
Data deposition. A replication data set with R code has been deposited at the
Harvard Dataverse Network: E.T.; K.F., 2015, `Replication data for: Explaining topic
prevalence in answers to open-ended survey questions about climate change’,
http://dx.doi.org/10.7910/DVN/28689 Harvard Dataverse Network [Distributor]
V2 [Version].
The full data set is available from the Norwegian Social Science Data Services
(NSD): http://www.nsd.uib.no/nsddata/serier/norsk_medborgerpanel.html
OK, credit where it’s due. Kudos to them for that.