From Reuters
U.S. Democrats and Republicans can’t even agree on the weather: Reuters/Ipsos
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Only 200 miles separate Michael Tilden and Miranda Garcia in rain-soaked Iowa. But they are worlds apart when it comes to their opinion of the weather.
The contents of grain silos which burst from flood damage are shown in Fremont County Iowa, U.S., March 29, 2019. REUTERS/Tom Polansek
Garcia, a 38-year-old former journalist and Democrat from Des Moines, thinks flooding has been getting worse in the state, which just came out of its wettest 12-months on record. Tilden, a 44-year-old math teacher and Republican from Sioux City, thinks otherwise: “I’ve noticed essentially the same weather pattern every single year,” he said.
Their different takes underscore a broader truth about the way Americans perceive extreme weather: Democrats are far more likely to believe droughts, floods, wildfires, hurricanes and tropical storms have become more frequent or intense where they live in the last decade, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.
Partisan goggles
Americans’ political affiliation can affect how people perceive the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll.
The divergence shows how years of political squabbling over global warming – including disputes over its existence – have grown deep roots, distorting the way Americans view the world around them. The divide will play into the 2020 election as Democratic hopefuls seek to sell aggressive proposals to reduce or even end fossil fuel consumption by drawing links between climate change and recent floods, storms and wildfires.
Nearly two-thirds of Democrats believe severe thunderstorms and floods have become more frequent, compared to 42% and 50% of Republicans, respectively, according to the poll.
About half of Democrats, meanwhile, think droughts, hurricanes and tropical storms are more common in their region, versus less than a third of Republicans, according to the poll.
HT/macusn
The writer’s comment that the Yale Program for Climate Change Communications carries out “research” shows just how ignorant the writer is. YalePCCC is purely a “education”, read propaganda organization.
As Roger Pielke, jr has reported, there have been few significant long-term trends in weather, so those evil Republicans have a better sense of history, or just might be older.
I was raised on stories to the dust bowl. That’s pretty good context to refute stories that we can see the evidence of global warming just by looking out our windows. In the 1930s, there were times my parents couldn’t even see out the windows for dust.
Or they have a broader perspective than just “where I live.”
My source for local weather phenomena:
http://www.aos.wisc.edu/~sco/clim-history/
I expect most states have similar sources.
Basing an opinion of weather extremes on what our wonderfully objective news tells us is foolish to say the least.
Democrats read and watch democrat-oriented/massively biased, democrat-run newspapers and television. In turn, the info-outlets preferred by these democrats are all struggling to make an antiquated business model work, doing all they can to keep enough advertising money flowing from an ever smaller slice of the ad-dollar pie to run the presses another day.
That means presenting more and more drastic, doomsday-is-coming, unsubstantiated, often abjectly fake “news” to capture the temporary attention of an increasingly distracted audience — the numbers of which are used to demand better or at least continued advertising rates.
It is then no surprise that democrats —who feed their confirmation bias with doomsday-driven news brought to them by information sources that must offer doomsday-style headlines to survive — much more strongly agree with crackpot, the-sky-is-falling stories that scream, “This is the worst it’s EVAH been. In fact it worse than ‘the experts’ thought possible……”
A majority of republicans and conservatives, meanwhile, just yawn…and go about their (actual, productive) jobs, and lives…knowing the weather is always changing, and so is the climate.
TomBR
A majority of republicans and conservatives, meanwhile, just yawn…and go about their (actual, productive) jobs, and lives…
Meanwhile you can’t build a new house in Berkely, CA with a gas hook-up, and you can be sure that will spread to much of the country in short order.
Not to mention wind mills and all the rest of the green mafia crap that is being jammed down our collective throats.
Recently a block from my house a car was struck by a train and the man in the car died. Three eye witnesses to the accident said that at the time of the accident the warning gates were not down and the warning lights were not flashing. One of the witnesses said she saw the accident from the balcony of her apartment which overlooks the tracks. The other two witnesses, an attractive young couple, said they were in the car right behind the car that was struck. Sounds like eye witness testimony shows the warning system wasn’t working at the time of the accident. Except – a video camera on the train’s locomotive show the gates were down and the warning lights were flashing and that the driver of the car went around the flashing gates and the computer recording device on the gates shows that the gates were down. So which are you going to believe?
We have a problem with the global warming story. The news media screams that the sky is falling every time we have a bout of hotter than normal weather. Yet when you look at the numbers (which are poor quality and which appear to be doctored in the warmist direction) the rise in temperature appears to be negligible and most likely random and within normal weather fluctuations. The number of hurricanes and severe storms are going down. So which are you going to believe?
“bout of hotter than normal weather” – Well, first off: defined “hotter than normal”. Where I live, “normal” is an average summer temperature of 82F +/- 4F, which means that a day at 78F is normal and a day at 86F is normal.
The ecohippies and Warmunistas and Greenbeaners are all people who spend their entire lives in air-conditioned buildings and only go “outside” when forced to do so, so of course they eat up that propagandized hogwash like it’s candy.
Here in N.CA … they’re interlopers. New Arrivals from some corner of this great land … or India … hey! this IS the Silicon Valley land of H1b Visas. They know NOTHING of our “normal” weather here. They were “told” that the weather is always a perfectly comfortable 78 deg.F … every day of the year. And when it rains “too much”, or is hot for “too long”, or way hotter than “normal” … they scream man-made Global Warming!! We MUST put you into a self-driving battery powered vehicle (note: I did NOT say auto-mobile, as there will be NO autonomy allowed in the coming Nirvana)
Last week saw record high temperatures in 5 western European countries, in the summer’s second heatwave in the area.
We are talking 10 degrees Celsius over the usual temps…
Is that negligible and doctored? It didn’t feel like either of those to me!
Not quite sure I get your point GRiff.
Are you saying that a temperature reading of 10 degrees over the AVERAGE temperature, which is the proper manner of representing the deceptive representation of “Usual” or “Normal”, are you saying that if the recorded temp was 96 when average highs for that day as previously recorded are 86…are you suggesting that stands as proof of global warming and that it is scientifically proven to be tied directly to an increase in CO2 to 400 parts per million within our atmosphere? And what of those days when a temperature reading comes in at 76, 10 degrees below the average? Does that also stand as evidence of the same problem?
And you seem to have survived. I’d bet than in less than a decade you will experience a record cold spell. It’s happened twice just during my lifetime and will, I am sure, for so long we are here just as it did before we evolved.
Imagine planets are sentient creatures and how they might perceive plants and creatures living on their skin.
That’s a great example. We used to be presented in law school with myriad examples in our evidence classes that demonstrated (most of the time) the notorious unreliability of eyewitness testimony. It’s why video camera evidence in accidents and police shooting cases becomes even more critical, where such evidence is actually obtained. So many factors, including our fragile memories and yes, our personal biases, can affect what we directly witness or remember about what we witness.
All politics may, as Tip O’Neill is reputed to have said, be local. But all weather is NOT “local.”
Marty: That is great. Do you have a link to that story.
I’m not good with computers or posting links. But there are a number of stories about the incident in the local press. Among others abc7chicago.com/man-killed-after-morton-grove-train-crash and wgn.com/2019/07/14/amtrak-strikes-car-near-morton-grove. There are about a half dozen stories listed if you google train strikes car in Morton Grove (Illinois) 7/14/2019. In general the earlier stories are based on eye witness statements and blame the crossing gates and the later stories tell about the locomotive video and computerized gate crossing data. I’m glad you found the story interesting. I hope this reply is helpful.
Thank You very much.
As a lawyer, I need to worry about the difference between what witnesses say they saw and objective evidence. It is very important to resolving cases profound and trivial.
“Some people are weather wise,but most are otherwise”. – Benjamin Franklin
I thought our recent winter was somewhat harsh; one of my colleagues thought it mild. His rationale was that we hadn’t seen temperatures lower than -20F as of the time of our discussion (end of January– we reached -23F later in the season, but that is another discussion). I decided to gather data to see. I compared the winter period 1961-1975 with 2001-2015. In the earlier period there were 6 winters without a reading below -20F and in the latter period there were 7 such winters. The average lowest temperature changed between the two periods by 1.7F.
In a strict technical sense our winters are a bit milder, but in a practical sense they are the same.
You are measuring the effectiveness of Media Brainwashing. Confirmation Bias is at play for Democrats who are looking for positive affirmation that the world is coming to end and it is all their fault. Republicans are less susceptible to media propaganda.
This highlights another divide in America. Journalism majors and those who rely on such for their information, whining that one group of people believes in A, and another believes in B, without bothering to look up and report whether it’s A or B that’s true.
Then there are those of us who are not burdened with that degree in journalism, who can just look up for ourselves whether it’s A or B that’s true.
As for Iowa, we had about 15 inches of rain in a 5 week period, last summer. Of course any 12 month period with those 5 weeks included are going to be among the 12 wettest months in history. We are now officially too dry. That’s what happens with weather. It swings from year to year.
The left has long looked to big government for all solutions. There is no reason in the current green terrorist approach. They will continue to move the goal posts and end of world crisis predictions and willingly give up their rights, freedoms, treasure and the nation’s treasure for the lies they themselves invent.
So where are the charts showing actual statistics of weather phenomena increases? Shouldn’t that be a part of real science? Then you could see if Democrats or republicans were more accurate in their perceptions. Except that would be bad news, because all of the respondent’s perceptions were wrong, and there is no response category for “less often” or “less severe”.
Obviously perception is every thing and facts count for nothing.
Ongoing confirmation that Democrats couldn’t find their b#m with both hands.
Sadly Republicans are only marginally better at doing the same.
AndrewWA
Perception is only pseudo-reality. Someone high on LSD, who thinks he/she/it can fly, and steps off the roof of a tall building, will be introduced to reality very quickly. Unfortunately, they will probably not be able to learn from the experience.
My concern is that the alarmists will destroy civilization and not learn from their experience.
Of course the article adds …
U.S. government researchers have concluded that tropical cyclone activity, rainfall, and the frequency of intense single-day storms have been on the rise, according to data compiled by the Environmental Protection Agency.
For example, six of the 10 most active years for tropical cyclones in the Atlantic basin since 1950 have occurred since the mid-1990s, and nine of the top 10 years for extreme one-day precipitation events nationwide have occurred since 1990, according to the data
Hence … Republicans “opinions” on weather are WRONG. The EPA says so. NOAA says so. So all you Republicans need to STFU! Because our top government scientists would NEVER propagate “political opinion” in their scientific compilations of raw, hard, data. You stupid Republicans don’t “believe” in science. You all just “believe” that a “Sky Daddy” gives Farmers rain or drought depending on whether they are aroused by gay sex, or not [sic] .
/intense sarc.
The media has a huge influence on people’s perceptions. The other day a fellow I do business with on a regular basis queried me. “have you ever seen a year with such crazy weather?”
My answer was much the same as the one I often provide,
“why yes I have; this year is much the same as _____”
I knew the answer because I had looked up the past records for our area. The media counts on the public’s short attention span and their poor memory of past weather events to promote the idea that today’s weather events are becoming more unusual and more extreme than in the past.
Well, even that claim is misleading. Before the satellite era, the fifteen-minute fish-storm hurricanes counted in recent years would have gone uncountedn. It is well understood that past records failed to capture all the hurricanes.
Have they considered that age is a factor in whether people believe that current events are unusual?
Are Democrats and Republicans of similar age distribution?
Outstanding question. I am 63.5 years old, and have lived my entire life in N.CA. When I hear that we are experiencing EXTREME weather, because the temps go >100 deg.F in August … I just shake my head and wonder how long these weather anchors have been alive … let alone living in N.CA. The weather hysteria is hilarious … if it weren’t so sadly affecting public policy.
Young people … and new CA arrivals need some perspective. However, I doubt they’re very much interested in any … perspective … of their elders. So much easier to dismiss us as … olllllld and senile. Very Convenient to do so.
The young and especially women are targeted. One can only look on with awe at the scale of the propaganda operation. Sierra Club, NRDC, and Green Peace have infiltrated and manipulated millions of minds with misinformation that seems to target the easily distracted and busy people who do not have time to investigate and have clearly too much trust to begin to question. In a broader sense it’s s tossup on which had a bigger effect in the last 50 years, tech inventions or psycho marketing.
Worst floods in World History/US rain records
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/29362/
What if this weather is the new normal ?
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/28957/
I’d like to suggest a WUWT starter tab for those individuals just getting started in their journey to some facts and safe climate science. Call it Climate Detox 101 or The Climate Hari Krisnas at the Climate Commune Don’t Own Me!
Garcia, a 38-year-old former journalist and Democrat
Full stop there — waste of time.
The Klimate Klucker Klan just love the “weather is getting worse” meme. Selective memory and confirmation bias are definitely at play, plus it dovetails nicely with the CAGW belief system. They cluck and quack joyfully, loudly, and brainlessly about it to anyone who will listen, even to people who they know are skeptics/climate realists. I guess it makes them feel good about themselves. Because they are the “woke” (and we aren’t).
The article states:
“U.S. government researchers have concluded that tropical cyclone activity, rainfall, and the frequency of intense single-day storms have been on the rise, according to data compiled by the Environmental Protection Agency.
For example, six of the 10 most active years for tropical cyclones in the Atlantic basin since 1950 have occurred since the mid-1990s, and nine of the top 10 years for extreme one-day precipitation events nationwide have occurred since 1990, according to the data.”
Tom Halla points out:
“As Roger Pielke, jr has reported, there have been few significant long-term trends in weather,”
I’m inclined to believe the careful work of Dr. Pielke, and the alarmist view looks to be cherry picked criteria. How do we resolve the disparate statements?
Climate politics will remain as is until/if the scaremongers get enough traction with their claims to get government to actually do something about it that in turn affects peoples’ lifestyles. A few pennies more for gasoline to fight climate change? No problem, we’re saving the world. Give up your personal transportation to save the world? Stop eating meat? No more airplane or car vacations? Move into a high rise? No way, now we want proof of CC. Marxist ideology is popular in large cities because the incomes are higher and the people more willing to part with a small percentage of it “to do the right thing”. But when “doing the right thing” impacts them personally it’s a different story. Witness how well the Green New Deal went over with the people. People won’t pay attention beyond the MSM to what’s really going on with CC until it personally affects them.
It’s the Eco-fascist World Government, Stupid!
Something stated early in the article, and quite significant: “Garcia, a 38-year-old former journalist … Tilden, a 44-year-old math teacher …” It appears that they probably take different approaches. Now the article didn’t explicitly state it, but I would be very surprised if the math teacher didn’t use a more objective, quantitative approach to arriving at his view, than the former journalist.
Now survey the population on recognition of taxpayer funded measurement systems and known climate cycles like the two satellites measures, ARGO, ENSO, PDO, and AMO. Throw in a few bogus choices to limit guessing with choices like WWF, NRDC, Green Peace, Sierra Club, and IPCC.
Why would anyone think the climate has changed in the absence of actual data. Just show me the data.
When I read the headline, I thought it was from “The Babylon Bee.”
Does this research make any attempt to see which set of beliefs most closely correlates with reality? Have storms actually got stronger or more frequent? Which side’s beliefs are closest to the truth?
Or is that unimportant?
What does Facebook say?
This is a disguised IQ test. Dems are low IQ from the results and after fact checking the survey.