From the PEW RESEARCH CENTER and the department of unintended consequences, comes this study that suggests the “March for Science” and the “People’s Climate March” didn’t really have any impact when it comes to public opinion. Personally, I think it hurt more than it helped, because as I demonstrated with pictures of the marchers and their signs, a lot of them came off looking like total buffoons.
Americans divided on whether recent science protests will benefit scientists’ causes
More Democrats and younger adults believe the science marches in April will lead to public support for science
WASHINGTON, D.C. (May 11, 2017) – Americans are split in their support of recent science marches and whether these events will make a difference, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. Some 44% of U.S. adults think the protests, marches, and demonstrations will boost public support for science, while an equal share (44%) believe the protests will make no difference and 7% believe the demonstrations will actually hurt the cause.
The representative survey of more than 1,000 U.S. adults finds consistent divides on this topic along political and generational lines. Fully 61% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents believe the marches will increase public support for science, while only 22% of Republicans and those who lean Republican say the same. Instead, 60% of these Republican supporters think the protests will make no difference, compared with just 32% of Democratic partisans who think that.
Younger adults, ages 18 to 29, are particularly likely to think the marches will increase public support for science (55%). Yet 54% of seniors, ages 65 and older, believe the recent science marches will make no difference to public support for science and just 29% say the marches will help.
“The data speak to the difficulties of making the case for science in the politically polarized environment,” said Cary Funk, lead author and associate director of research at Pew Research Center. “These survey findings show the American public is closely split in their views about the protesters’ goals — a sizeable share of the public is aligned with the protesters’ arguments but a roughly similar share are either opposed to the goals of the protesters or have yet to be convinced.”
These are some of the findings from a Pew Research Center survey conducted among a nationally representative sample of 1,012 adults, ages 18 or older from May 3-7, 2017. The margin of sampling error based on the full sample is plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.
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Read the report: http://www.pewinternet.org/2017/05/11/americans-divided-on-whether-recent-science-protests-will-benefit-scientists-causes/
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I don’t see how people dressing up like science clowns and carrying signs saying such things as, “God hates climate deniers” does anything but provide entertainment.
I mean, as long as no animals are treated with cruelty, I can still enjoy a circus.
…this one just happens to be 5 tents in size.
Marches are devalued by overuse. They are damaged by the number of people who use them as a distraction while they destroy property. They are confused by the myriad of causes, most of which would be poorly supported if they stood alone. Marches were originally the last desperate way to give a voice to people without one. Now marches are the temperamental squeal of over pampered elites who have little to worry about but their pet crusades. They’re usually attended by people who live nearby, in some of the most expensive property in the World or by celebrities who jet in from their tax haven to berate the plebs before swanning off for something obscenely indulgent. They are often blatently political and by their nature offend those with the opposite political bent. I’d say that they were virtue signalling but for most marchers virtue is too old fashioned and really it’s just a ‘swivel on it’ to the bulk of society for not doing as they were told.
People march everyday in Venezuela. The Maduro dictatorship is using huge amounts of gas grenades, but I believe the marches are weakening the regime. But it’s true that eventually the conflict will move to burning oil wells and facilities. The marches are sort of a training ground for much tougher undertakings. But it’s a different situation.
Maybe the world would nootice the real marches if there weren’t more amusing ones with women wearing pink hats with cat’s ears?
The “public support for science” issue is a faux issue, designed solely to smear climate skeptics/realists as anti-science.
I find these marches odd. A march should be done to raise awareness of a topic. So the march for science makes no sense. Is there a need for a march for business, or a march for music?
Who is not aware of the importance of science? Even the science illiterate know it is important.
Frankly, after walking 25+ miles in the George Harrison inspired “March for Bangladesh,” I concluded that they were wrong in “Animal House” … there are some thing that don’t deserve a “useless effort on the part of somebody.”
Especially, when they march when the people you are trying to impress have gone home for the weekend.
This poll purports to measure what people think the effect of the marches was. Why not measure what the effect of the marches was?
…because it’s a zero-sum game. Or there was so little impact it was found to be immeasurable.
They serve a purpose: It’s the sinkers in the punch bowl, not the floaters, that pose the greatest threat to the planet.
Yeah yeah yeah. The marches firmed up a few things and left other things much much gooier.
Firmed up:
Warmists, alarmists, socialists, communists, combat yoga peace poppers:
A) Can not count!
B) Can not read!
C) Are unable to design their own signs.
D) Cannot keep their crayons within the lines, ever!
E) Are obviously not on the same page(s).
F) Are as thoroughly greedy as all revolutionaries. It is for others to starve and suffer.
G) We have our doubts that any two marchers agreed on anything.
It is also very obvious that virtually all of the marchers do not believe any of their own swill about giving up fossil fuels.
Most of them look and act like spoiled urbanites who’ve never suffered for anything.
No mikey manniacal in a hair shirt.
No Gavinator in self made shoes.
No 350orgy master in handwoven garments.
No hardworking peasants or serfs in homespun selling foodstuffs.
Those poor fools really need very long religious retreats and soulless searching; often call prison by civically minded people.
“Public support for science,” defined as what and measured how?
The measure is how much conservative tax money they are willing to sacrifice.
The marchers may have succeeded in impressing and even intimidating politicians with their numbers in the locations they demonstrate. That may be their aim. They may also have succeeded in making other warmists bolder in asserting their beliefs, again because of their numbers.
The wide gap between whatever it is these marchers think they are ‘marching for’, and the things they do that contradict their alleged interests is rather obvious to a bystander like me, and others who’ve noted some of these contradictions.
For example, they detest, despise and don’t want any use of ‘fossil’ fuels. The contradiction is their obvious use in every aspect of their lives of synthetics derived from fossil fuels, e.g., petroleum, which is the source of most synthetic clothing including Goretex.
They deny having any interest in any organized religion. The contradiction is that they are turning CAGW into that very thing, with an entire belief system that includes zealotry, proselytizing, money-seeking, and all the other stuff I can’t keep track of any more, including something that closely resembles the ecstasy felt when a religious convert has an epiphany. I really expect to see a list of something akin to saints and a hierarchy that has a godhead at its peak, never mind a “Guidebook to CAGW Ideology” that will quickly become their ‘BIble’.
Do you see where I’m going with this? It has all the earmarks of a religious sect, and the fact that several people (Shekla, Nye) have even suggested and/or demanded that those with opposing view be prosecuted (or persecuted, take your pick), clearly shows the need for control of something that is NOT controllable by humans: this planet. They have no control over what it does, but try to convince them of that.
If the marchers did their cause more harm that good by making themselves both ridiculous and repellent, and by having nothing new to say – just repeating the same slogans and drivel – that’s fine with me. I prefer to stand off to the side and watch them march right off the cliff.
I know this is petty and spiteful, but I want to see them locked out in the cold, left to exist with no heat, no electricity, and no syntho clothing to keep them warm. And no grocery stores or coffee shops to pander to their idiocy. They need a harsh dose of that kind of reality.
Henry Beston said, in his popular book ‘The Outermost House’, ‘The world today is sick to its thin blood for the lack of elemental things: for fire before the hands, for water, for air, for the dear Earth itself underfoot.’
It may be cynical of me to say so, but these latter-day hippie marchers couldn’t last five minutes in the forest preserves around here. The raccoons, coyotes and possums would scare the crap out of them, frogs sending out mating calls would drive them nuts, and the bugs you run into – well, that’s what bug spray is for.
This is the wrong, or at least not the most salient question. Pew should be asking: Did the science and climate marches affect YOUR attitude towards science and public support (money) for science? I’m betting that if there is any measurable effect it is to further increase the divide. Those who already support the protestors positions support it more strongly, those who disagree also do so more strongly.
MikeM, exactly so. Two small groups got further away from each other. Most people didn’t care, or hung up.
Hey, let’s do one of those fundraising walks for science.
Nothing says commitment to a cause like annoying everybody you know to give you money to go out a walk, as if this frivolous, recreational, physical effort somehow is REAL work for the cause. I have come to view all such walks as stupid, even though, in the past, I have participated in a couple. They are just big parties for people comfortable enough in life to stage them as forms of recreation. Just raise the money and give it to the cause — don’t do this faux work and somehow think people feel more strongly that you are working harder for the cause, because you are walking for fun.
And tell Girl Scouts to stop setting up their cookie-begging stations in front of stores to ambush you with pleas to buy their wares. And tell Walmart cashiers to stop begging for money for worthy causes at checkout. And tell waiters to stop with pitches to donate to universities before telling you what the night’s specials are. Get my drift? This whole public-visibility-for-a -cause thing has grown to sickening proportions.
With Girl Scout cookies you get something that tastes good.
The rest of them, I could do without.
Anthony,
With respect to your comment about buffoons in the march, I believe one of the sign holders is likewise commenting on the buffoonery of the crowd, without them knowing it. The ‘Get Schwifty’ sign ridicules the marchers. Very few in the crowd would understand the implications of the sign.
No point being so obscure that your message fails.
R
I wondered about that one too. ‘Get Schwifty’ Sounds very subversive, but in a way that the cat is amongst the pigeons. I would say it is definitely an assault on the intelligence of the protestors. Google says “a giant head coming to Earth asking for an original song who then brings the Earth to an “American Idol” like parody to judge their planet”. Language warning… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1188GO4p1E
Trouble with most of these polls, is that they survey the coastal urban centers, because it s easier. If they went out into the boondocks of Nebraska and Montanna, they may get a different result.
R
I feel a smidgen of responsibility for these modern day protests, since as a youngster in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, not only was I protesting the Vietnam war (which was more of a noble cause) but I was on the front lines of the marches to stop the nuclear testing at Amchitka Island in Alaska. Other than the Civil Rights marches earlier in the 1960’s, these two causes were the formation of the modern day protest movement that soon incorporated all environmental issues, starting with a whaling ban which everyone would support today. It was was also primarily spontaneous by a very young baby boom population demographic that was ripe to take on an establishment that was led by some very bad ideas with poor political governance. (i.e. Nixon)
Which as some may recall fairly soon to led to the formation of Greenpeace on the left coast of Canada specifically regarding the Amchikta nuclear testing. But Greenpeace has now become the antithesis of what it started out to be with the new international religion of CAGW and environmental zealotry of every stripe. Perhaps the protests about the Amchitka nuclear tests were rational, since it was directly on an earthquake fault with potential volcanic fallout. I might even protest that one again today, since it probably isn’t a really bright idea for that location, but they don’t do that anymore anymore because it was a bad idea.
The difference today is that protesting now is a well oiled organized professional protest by people with deep pockets employing wholesale unions and student body academics led by activist professors to enforce their CAGW religion down everybody’s throats. As well as paid professional protesters. It isn’t a spontaneous eruption but a calculated one, including dozens of causes and themes in the same march and that is the difference between then and now. We had legitimate singular causes to make a fuss about in the 1960’s and 1970’s, and it did make a difference. Unfortunately, some people think now that any cause they care about is eligible to be taken seriously in a march/protest. If they keep this up, then they are just crying wolf and no one will take them serious, so IMO, they are now doing harm to their own ‘movement’. I don’t take them serious, and if anything, I just see the hypocrisy of their actions as do I believe the majority of most other people as well.
Had i attended that march I would have carried a placard that said:
…….Standing on the shoulders of Marx
Socialism — the science that informs all others
…….To see the furthest climb the giant!
Eugene WR Gallun
The reality is that the climate change we are experiencing today is caused by the sun and the oceans over which Mankind has no control. Climate change of this nature has been going on for eons. It is all a matter os science. There is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate. There is plenty of scientific rational to support the idea that the climate sensivity of CO2 is zero. It is all a matter of science. Opinion poles do not change the fact thatthe AGW conjecture is just too full of holes to defend. It is all a matter of sceince.
This is nothing new. All sorts of political movements have tried pulling to themselves democracy, truth, justice, science and more. They usually have major grudges against faceless enemies. The rest is semantics. Now, let’s see how long Eric will hold my messages in moderation for maintaining these views without exceptions.
Good. Looks like my embargo has been lifted.
Green Economics: Hire People To Push Busses
Employing Americans as bus pushers would mean jobs. These jobs would be “labor intensive,” so we could “create” plenty of them. Bus pushing, need it be said, would also benefit the environment. Getting rid of buses would go a long way in helping avert a global catastrophe. And since these jobs are largely untethered from any market forces, “we” can pay workers great salaries by relying on government subsidies. So, win, win, and win.
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/05/14/green-economics-hire-people-to-push-busses/
Sort of like giant rickshaw with rear-end propulsion.
Eugene WR Gallun
The division of the “Peoples’s Climate March” into various groups with nonsensical names was strange, but I guess they were using hivemind dynamics. Being part of a huge group is good, but with so many possible sub-groups, they were able to make people feel even more “special”. Feeling special, and being part of a huge group with the Noble Cause of “saving the planet” is what it’s all about.
The March for Science Apr 22 2017. Is it real Science or “Politically Correct Science?”
We’ re marching for Science, Yippee!
Obama is gone. We are free
to explore what is true.
No more models will do.
The Climate has changed, totally!
The Climate doomsayers are out in force are out in force again. On a sign the headline “The “Debate” is over” stands out.
So, let’s see what facts are in.
CO2 is a strong greenhouse gas, second only to water vapor in affecting the climate on earth. If CO2 were to double from pre-industrial times, which it will have done in 50 years or so, global temperatures on earth will increase about 0.9 degree Celsius from pre-industrial times, if that was the only factor affecting the greenhouse effect. This corresponds to a radiative forcing of 4.9 W/m2. But water vapor is a stronger greenhouse gas than CO2, and, this is important, they are not orthogonal as defined by chemometrics, that means, the responses from water vapor and CO2 are not independent, and they are only partly additive. The CO2 concentration is on the order of 400 ppm, the average global H2O concentration at surface level is around 12,500 ppm. Since both H2O and CO2 absorb in the same area, if water vapor concentration is more than 30 times higher, the CO2 concentration doesn’t matter, it is all absorbed by H2O, and this is the reason there is no hotspot in the equatorial troposphere. All climate models predict there must be one, so there must be something seriously wrong with all climate models.
What does IPCC do with this evidence?
IPCC ignores it, and claim the models are still correct.
This is not science, but politically correct science denial.
We are now in a nineteen year Climate “pause”, where increasing cloud cover with its strong negative feedback cancels out the potential temperature rise of rising CO2.
We are in the bog-building phase of the inter-glacial period, and the long term temperature trend is down, rising CO2 will delay the onset of the next ice age by maybe 2000 years.
The real debate has just started, and this time, let us talk real science, verified by observations, not fear-mongering political statements. https://lenbilen.com/2017/04/21/the-march-for-science-apr-22-2017-is-it-real-science-or-politically-correct-science/
Democrats and young people are apt to believe the marches will help because:
1. Most of the marchers were one or the other or both
2. Democrats and young people believe WORDS are all that is needed to “fix” something. If there is a march, science will magically be supported. Their belief in magic is contrary to science, but irrelevant as long as no one says anything about it. Actual results are irrelevant, much as they are in “science” now. Only what is “said” is important.
Marchers certainly show their intellect and education with the proifanity in the signs. All that says to me is “Moron carrying this sign barely passed 2nd grade English classes and is incapable of advanced thinking. IGNORE ME.” I do hope that was the intent when he/she made the sign.
Since the marchers were anti-science, it is difficult to answer a question if their march was successful in increasing support for science.
“He made me look ridiculous. And a man in my position can’t afford to be made to look ridiculous!” The movie producer Woltz in “The Godfather,” explaining why the Corleones’ protege Johnny Fontaine will never get the role in Woltz’s upcoming picture.
Apparently, scientists don’t mind if crazy kids parading in the streets with anti-intellectual agitprop make them look ridiculous. Well, they can’t afford it, even if they don’t know it yet.