Guest post by David Middleton
From The Hill…
Poll: 70 percent believe in climate change
By Timothy Cama – 01/05/16 10:41 AM EST
A new survey finds that 70 percent of Americans believe the climate is changing.
The poll from Monmouth University, released Tuesday, found a stark partisan divide on most issues surrounding climate change, including whether it is happening, how serious it is and what should be done about it.
The research, conducted mostly before nearly 200 nations voted last month in Paris on an international climate accord, found that Democrats (63 percent) are much more likely than Republicans (18 percent) to see climate change as a very serious issue.
The poll provides another piece of support for actions internationally and by President Obama to fight climate change. Obama’s main climate policy, contentious new limits on carbon emissions from power plants, is due to be litigated this year in federal courts.
But the support is complicated. Pollsters found that only 27 percent of respondents agree with the overwhelming scientific consensus that human activity is the main cause of climate change.
[…]
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/264767-poll-70-percent-believe-in-climate-change?ref=yfp
Wow! 70% of Americans believe in climate change!!! That’s as astonishing as saying that they believe in weather!!!
This is the real story:
“Pollsters found that only 27 percent of respondents agree with the overwhelming marginal scientific consensus that human activity is the main cause of climate change.”
100% – 27% = 73%
So, 73% of Americans reject the 52% consensus.
Note: In this post “AGW” is shorthand for “the standard definition of consensus: that most warming since 1950 is anthropogenic.“
So many press releases play games with the words. This one reminds me of a Russian news article about the Olympics. It said United States comes in next to last and the Russians take second place. This was true but they neglected to mention that only the US and Russia were competing in the event. Unfortunately too few people look past headlines to discover the BS twist.
There is an overwhelming consensus in the mainstream media that the most responsible way to report the news is to tell gigantic lies about almost everything.
Of course the MSM tell the biggest porkies they can get away with. It’s no different to the tabloid newspapers in the old days where the Front Page ‘headlines’ were usually intended to help sales! (I suppose it’s still the same today, but I have not purchased or read a newspaper for some 25+years!). Modern MSM is the same, but obviously via different medium, clickbait articles are well known, as is the sensationalistic ‘on the spot’ ‘live’ reporting when anyone does anything out of the ordinary. It’s rather sad that pretty much all journalism now has to factor this into its very being, and each and every story has to be sensationalised. I am at least grateful that my 12 year old daughter has started to understand this for herself (perhaps with a little prompting!) and has indeed developed a healthy skeptical nature to the MSM in general. If only half the worlds adults could do the same!?
As lawyer’s know, a debate using terms having different meanings is usually meaningless.
4 Jan: Gallup: Lydia Saard: Government Named Top U.S. Problem for Second Straight Year
Graph: Most Important Problem Facing the US in 2015
Environment/Pollution: Yearly average: 2%
http://www.gallup.com/poll/187979/government-named-top-problem-second-straight-year.aspx?utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_content=morelink&utm_campaign=syndication
Pat – here is an analysis of a similar poll on the subject from March.
From Gallup- March 5-8, 2015
Americans continue to name the government (18%) as the most important U.S. problem, a distinction it has had for the past four months. Americans’ mentions of the economy as the top problem (11%) dropped this month, leaving it tied with jobs (10%) for second place.Though issues such as terrorism, healthcare, race relations and immigration have emerged among the top problems in recent polls, government, the economy and unemployment have been the dominant problems listed by Americans for more than a year.
http://www.gallup.com/file/poll/181964/MIP_Satisfaction_150311%20%20.pdf
ECONOMIC PROBLEMS (NET) % 33
Economy in general * 11
Unemployment/Jobs * 10
Federal budget deficit/Federal debt * 5
NON-ECONOMIC PROBLEMS (NET) % 75
Dissatisfaction with government/Congress/politicians
Poor leadership/Corruption/Abuse of power * 18
Immigration/Illegal aliens * 7
Poor healthcare/hospitals; High cost of healthcare * 7
Terrorism * 6
Education/Poor education/Access to education * 6
Ethics/moral/religious/family decline; Dishonesty * 5
National security * 4
Poverty/ Hunger/Homelessness * 4
Situation in Iraq/ISIS * 4
Foreign policy/Foreign aid/Focus overseas * 4
Race relations/Racism * 4
Here is Gallup’s list of problems. How many of the above do you consider to be the top problem and how many do you consider it is the governments handling that is the real problem. By my count Government or their handling or their meddling hits closer to 96% not 18%
3. In general, are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way things are going in the United States at this time?
Date———– 2009 May 7-9
Satisfied — 35%
Dissatisfied — 62%
Unsure – 3%
And this is the record lowest O-bama has been able to achieve for Dissatisfied on the direction of the country. all the rest were higher When every month of your Residency you have more than 62% of folks telling you are going the wrong way, it is a problem with leadership.
http://www.gallup.com/file/poll/181964/MIP_Satisfaction_150311%20%20.pdf
http://rs90.pbsrc.com/albums/k247/dhm1353/dhm1353130/Fear_zpsaupkou1q.png?w=480&h=480&fit=clip
Next time ask them why the heck they still have a land line phone.
Because it doesn’t cost as much to have a land-line phone!
They are superior in other ways as well. Cell phone technology leaves a lot to be desired.
What’s a cell phone?
It’s kinda lame, isn’t it? The voters were never asked, in the voting nations.
And, in recent years, the climatariat have expressed frustrations that democracy fails because it allows too many people to not vote for what the global-warmers think is good for us.
Thanks, David Middleton.
Some people cannot believe some other people cannot believe in “climate change”.
Because land-lines are cheaper!
Here is a clip on this topic. the whole thing is fraud.
https://youtu.be/QowL2BiGK7o?t=32m19s
The media discussion and surveys have all slipped into a religion instead of what should be the focus, some way of more accurately predicting near term (IE shorter than long term but longer than weather) weather pattern changes.
Surveys, anymore, make me want to hurl, spew chunks, lose my cookies, and barf.
This is the result of a generation of brainwashing. Unfortunately I missed the brainwashing boat.
Does that mean you have a dirty mind?
Well, if it is of any interest – the Hare Krishnas appear to now officially support action on climate change:
http://www.iskcondesiretree.com/profiles/blogs/iskcon-supports-hindu-declaration-on-climate-change
Which is especially intriguing when we consider that this is also the same organization which promoted and in some part still promotes the theory that the moon landings were a hoax. As revealed here:
http://krishna.org/proof-of-faked-apollo-footage/
Can somebody please throw this all together into an academic paper and get it published in a leading psychology journal?
I thought some warmist proved that only deniers believe the moon landings were faked?
Government by and for the Demi Gods
Who elected that man ?
A great book called Obama Zombies followed the rise and first election of the current POTUS.
One of the underlying things that Obama’s handlers saw was an untapped source of votes that existed among the educated college type crowd, esp he ones going to fancy schools. These were the grandchildren of the most successful generation ever. If anyone knows a rich grandparent or two they rarely say no to their grandkids and turn many into little demigods.
So much of politics since Watergate has been a swinging of the pendulum back and forth. A dividing of the nation into nice little groups that respond well to backlash of previous extremes.
Obama carried the presidency on the backs of the above described group. They rallied targeted votes and accomplished something that in their minds made them extra special. They were going to right the wrongs of their forebears … at least in their minds, change the world. Funds would be diverted from the militaristic trend of the previous administration. Bush bad. Obama the savior, the uniter.
And so here we are. CAGW was one of their special issues. If you’re ever bored search around to see the ages of the folks who inhabit this administration. He rewarded them for their loyalty and now they have had a taste of how the ends justify the means. Dig even deeper and see the explosion of wordsmithers in this current administration. Message makers, handlers, spin experts.
The question becomes is their sufficient backlash to elect a new path ?
Will 2016 be the unraveling of a bloated market ?
Bloated real estate prices in favorite cities ?
Watch 2016 as the current president tries to hold onto the the financial house of cards with increasing tenacity. This is his achilles heel. If it goes down, the GOP will get elected. If not, the charades will continue because the masses won’t be pissed off enough.
18 to 35 year olds are running this country.
Marie Harf for President.
Interesting that the survey does not offer the option of ‘mostly natural but some human contribution’.
That’s the one I’d like to vote for……
Just watching a show about sugar and the sugar industry lobbying and manipulating the funding for medical reseach into sugar related health issues. Similar to the big tobacco stuff. Big Green has learned its lessons’ well. There is a lot of irony as to where they learned them from I suppose but it still does not excusae the bulldust and propaganda such as the spin on the poll results mentioned in the article referred to.
I think only 1% of those surveyed answered this question accurately. Nobody really “knows”. Truth is not a popularity contest.
Politicization of science is the real problem for this issue (and many others). Both sides need to be humble when making claims about complex systems.
A suggestion
We could raise funds through this site to commission a real opinion poll by a professional polling company that asked the right questions.
How about that Anthony?
It seems that, historically public opinion, including scientific community, is correct as much as it is wrong. Thus it is useless in evaluation of validity of anything. It was once widely believed that Earth is flat sitting on the back of some giant animals (wrong), or energy and momentum is conserved (correct – I hope), or Earth is in the center of Universe (wrong), or Einstein’s relativity (correct)…. Time will show whether public was right on the dark matter, dark energy, Universe expansion, string theory, Big Bang, man made global worming… In the meantime the majority (I hope I’m wrong here) of scientists are forced to compete for piece of bread instead of advancing science. This turns them be become corrupt by this struggle. And this corrupt majority presents their hypotheses as falsified and well established theories. So, I wouldn’t give my money for polling of anyone.
The difference here is that the government wants to spend our money on efforts to halt, fight and/or fix climate change.
So unlike plate tectonics vs geosynclines, the public’s opinion matters, because they vote.
“Both equally” is a horrible choice, what is the chance of that? When asked to pick a team, don’t say the game ends in a tie. I have to put that response in the category of “I don’t know”.
To David Middleton:
Yes formulated like that and it seems that public opinion matters. However, the funding for any research is distributed by the agencies that hire program managers who bring their biases with them. Biased program managers assemble panels that evaluate research proposals. These panels bring their biases (and “politics”) that, to no surprise, match biases of the program managers. In such way a clique is formed in scientific community. This clique controls funding, publications, and, finally, shapes both public and government opinions. Therefore, studying or relying on this secondary opinions is useless. We have to change current system for funding scientific research that leads to formation of cliques in science. And then opinions will compete and will matter. Read Lee Smolin “Troubles with Physics” for an example of current state of science. Also, Leo Szilard’s “Mark Gable Foundation” gives great insight into flawed system.
I was thinking more about Cap & Trade and regulatory malfeasance than research bucks.
I agree that research funding is in dire need of an overhaul.
Thank you David for your article.
Two decades ago, the question was:
Is global warming alarmism simply false or is it fraudulent?
Now, after the Mann hockey stick fiasco, “Mike’s Nature trick”, “Hide the Decline”, the fabricated aerosol data used to false-hindcast the warming alarmists’ climate models, the Climategate emails, and the many false “adjustments” of the surface temperature data record, there is no question:
Global warming alarmism is clearly fraudulent – in financial terms, it is one of the greatest frauds of all time.
Indeed, but I doubt most care. Perhaps fraud weariness has set in. While honest thinkers want the charade to stop, I wouldn’t doubt that many people are fine with a new energy paradigm that decentralizes. It will hurt if it costs them an arm and a leg.
If you doubt the above, think in terms of the real estate debacle. Most folk know that bankers ripped them off.
The public paid and still pays to fatten their coffers, yet most don’t squawk much as long as their house rises in value and they can keep on keeping on.
The fraudsters are diabolical in how they give a little to get alot.
I certainly don’t have the answers to show the nakedness of the emperor, but the more skeptics focus on the past fraud of CAGW research, the more the warmists make headway on a new energy frontier.
I have worked in the energy industry for much of my career.
When challenged on this question by green fanatics, I explain that that fossil fuels keep their families from freezing and starving to death.
Cheap abundant reliable energy is the lifeblood of society – it IS that simple.
A few facts:
Wind Power is what warmists typically embrace – trillions of dollars have been squandered on worthless grid-connected wind power schemes that require life-of-project subsidies and drive up energy costs.
Some background on grid-connected wind power schemes:
The Capacity Factor of wind power is typically a bit over 20%, but that is NOT the relevant factor.
The real truth is told by the Substitution Capacity, which is dropping to as low as 4% in Germany – that is the amount of conventional generation that can be permanently retired when wind power is installed into the grid.
The E.ON Netz Wind Report 2005 is an informative document:
http://www.wind-watch.org/documents/wp-content/uploads/eonwindreport2005.pdf
(apparently no longer available from E.ON Netz website).
Figure 6 says Wind Power is too intermittent (and needs almost 100% spinning backup);
and
Figure 7 says it just gets worse and worse the more Wind Power you add to the grid (see Substitution Capacity dropping from 8% to 4%).
In my province of Alberta, intermittent grid–connected wind power is paid 20 cents per KWh, 24/7 even when there is no demand for that wind power, whereas reliable fossil-fueled power is paid about 5 cents per KWh. In reality, wind power is probably worthless due to its intermittency, so the subsidy is not [20/4]=400%, it is INFINITE.
Same story applies to grid-connected Solar Power (both in the absence of a “Super-Battery”).
This was all obvious to us decades ago – we published similar conclusions in 2002.
Trillions of dollars have been wasted globally on green energy that is not green and produces little useful energy.
**********
Today’s comment:
The following numbers are from the 2015 BP Statistical Review of World Energy, for the year 2014:
http://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/pdf/energy-economics/statistical-review-2015/bp-statistical-review-of-world-energy-2015-primary-energy-section.pdf
Global Primary Energy Consumption by Fuel is 86% Fossil Fuel (Oil, Coal and Natural Gas),
4% Nuclear,
7% Hydro,
and 2% Renewables.
That 2% for Renewables is vastly exaggerated, and would be less than 1% if intermittent wind and solar power were not forced into the grid ahead of cheaper and more reliable conventional power.
This is not news – we have known this energy reality for decades. As we published in 2002.
“The ultimate agenda of pro-Kyoto advocates is to eliminate fossil fuels, but this would result in a catastrophic shortfall in global energy supply – the wasteful, inefficient energy solutions proposed by Kyoto advocates simply cannot replace fossil fuels.”
We also write in the same article, prior to recognition that the current ~20 year “Pause” was already underway:
“Climate science does not support the theory of catastrophic human-made global warming – the alleged warming crisis does not exist.”
I (we) now think naturally-caused global cooling will commence after the current El Nino runs its course, prior to 2020 and possibly as soon as 2H2017. Bundle up!
Regards to all, Allan
2012 Discussion: How can we make intermittent electric power more economic?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/16/wind-power-plug-pulled-in-illinois/#comment-895358
polski says: February 17, 2012 at 6:51 am
Let’s say that the subsidies are removed. Let’s say that many wind farms go bankrupt. Now what should be done with all those wind turbines. Is there an opportunity for some bright, hard working, free enterprise individual to somehow make a viable business out of all this mess?
What would a large amount of intermittent power be good for? Milling wheat, corn or soy? Water heating/treatment for local towns. Powering compressors to aerate lakes and sewage ponds?
Since they are so big and heavy would they not be difficult to just scrap and recycle?
Allan says::
You are on the right track polski. We probably cannot afford to take down these worthless eyesores, although maintaining them may not be economic either.
If we ever develop a “super-battery”, such as millions of electric cars plugged into the grid when parked, wind power may become more economic.
Other possibilities, such as those you have mentioned, are to use wind power for applications where its intermittent nature is not such a detriment. Large heating systems using hot water could be one such application, perhaps coupled to large industrial users. However, waste heat from coal and natural-gas fired power stations would probably be less expensive.
Typo Correction:
In my province of Alberta, intermittent grid–connected wind power is paid 20 cents per KWh, 24/7 even when there is no demand for that wind power, whereas reliable fossil-fueled power is paid about 5 cents per KWh. In reality, wind power is probably worthless due to its intermittency, so the subsidy is not [20/5]=400%, it is ~INFINITE.
Now ask how much are willing to pay.
I find it amazing that 30% of those polled don’t know the climate is always changing. What kind of ignorance are we churning out of our schools? Of course the climate is changing. God help us if it ever stops. But that was never what the debate was about and as such the entire poll is crap.
This confused poll is from a country where 40% of the pop rejects the theory of evolution, isn’t education wonderful !.
The real question is what value is a poll? Either the climate is changing or it’s not. Collect the data and see what changes. You wouldn’t take a poll and ask “do you believe that gravity is changing?”
Physics Major
You really shouldn’t take a poll of self-selected physics majors, give them a 92 billion dollar budget to find a new value for gravity and fund their future political power based on the question: “What is the cause of future changes in gravity?”
How many governments can 31 trillion dollars in carbon futures trading can the banking industry buy? How many government-run academics can the government buy for 1.3 trillion dollars every year in new carbon taxes? How many “scientists” can the federal government buy for 92 billion dollars, if one $25,000.00 payment for one project by one think tank corrupts a private scientist for all time?
The climate is changing. We did not cause it to change now or in the past. We cannot stop it from changing in the future.
@Rik Myslewski January 7, 2016 at 11:27 pm d3nied the semantic switch from global warming saying science has always called it climate change.
It’s almost like Mann didn’t write a book called Dire Predictions: Understanding Global Warming
Or James Hansen didn’t say “Today I testified to Congress about global warming, 20 years after my June 23, 1988 testimony, which alerted the public that global warming was underway. There are striking similarities between then and now, but one big difference.”
Or Bill McKibben didn’t say “Since I wrote one of the first books for a general audience about global warming way back iin 1989”
Or John cook didn’t write a paper called “Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming”
Rewriting history is much more difficult now isn’t it?