Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to a German think tank, most people are not aware of the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change, with a majority of people even in European countries believing that the modern warming is at least partially a natural phenomenon. But the survey notes even believers are reluctant to embrace expensive climate interventions.
Denial of climate change leads to inaction
Tuesday, 24 November 2020
New research in Europe and the United States shows that less than half of the public across the countries surveyed are aware of the scientific consensus on climate change.
The survey, commissioned by dpart, a Berlin-based think tank, and the Open Society European Policy Institute (OSEPI), was published yesterday. The data collection for the survey took place in August. In total, the survey is based on the responses of 10,233 people, ages 18 to 74, in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Poland, Czech Republic, the UK and the US.
“Many citizens across Europe and US still don’t realise that scientific consensus on human responsibility for climate change is overwhelming,” said Heather Grabbe, director of OSEPI. “Though outright denialism is rare, there is a widespread false belief, promoted by vested interests opposed to emissions reductions, that scientists are split on whether humans are causing climate change.”
“Our polling shows that the more convinced people are that climate change is the result of human activity, the more accurately they estimate its impact and the more they want action,” she added.
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Large minorities – ranging from 17 per cent in Spain to 44 per cent in France -– still believe that climate change is caused equally by humans and natural processes. This matters because those who do accept that climate change is the result of human action are twice as likely to believe it will cause negative consequences in their own lives.
When added to the “hard” sceptics, who do not believe human activity is a contributing factor to climate change, these sceptics together make up the majority in France, Poland, the Czech Republic and the USA.
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Read more: https://www.brusselstimes.com/news/142255/denial-of-climate-change-leads-to-inaction/
The survey (in English) is available here.
The survey also attempted to gauge support for climate action, and noticed that climate action skepticism was strongly correlated with climate skepticism.
Cost matters – the survey also noticed people are reluctant to support expensive climate interventions. “… Overall, people in all countries see action on climate change largely through a rather personal lens. They are more likely to consider changing their personal consumption than engage in collective action. In terms of policy, they are in favour of a government response, but seem reluctant to support policies that directly affect them in a costly way. …”
Why do people care about the cost, if the future of the planet hangs in the balance?
I suspect the inconsistencies in the climate narrative are a much bigger obstacle to acceptance of costly climate interventions than anything climate skeptics do or say.
For example, renewable energy advocates frequently claim renewables are cheaper than fossil fuel, but for some reason politicians still need to provide trillions of dollars in the form of green new deals or other costly interventions to drive the low carbon revolution.
Renewable advocates have never provided a satisfactory explanation for why the most profitable, lowest cost energy option needs so much government assistance.
Previous cost driven energy revolutions, like the switch from whale oil to lower cost kerosene, did not require any government intervention whatsoever. From 1858 to 1860 the number of US whaling ships collapsed from 199 ships in 1858 to 167 ships in 1860. Only 39 whaling ships were still in operation by 1876. An abrupt collapse like this is the kind of pattern you would expect to see from a genuine cost driven energy revolution.
People are not stupid. Having no satisfactory answer for obvious questions is the easiest way to kill enthusiasm for a proposed investment, even if a lot of people are onboard with the idea that the investment is necessary.
It is long established that single issue surveys are completely unreliable. Minor changes in the questions, that do not even slightly change their meaning, produce wildly different results. All you need is a little work on the questions with focus groups before you start and you can always get the answer you want. It is not at all the same as polls on forthcoming elections, people have thought about that, have thought about it often during their lives, there is a history of polling tested by elections to guide pollsters.
Little attention should be paid to such surveys unless they are confronted by a reality test – an actual vote in the near future.
Whenever pollsters ring me up, which doesn’t happen often since I dropped my landline years ago, I always tell them the opposite just to try and screw their polls up as generally they are as useful as tits on a bull and generally only the brain dead take any notice of them
Millions of Americans, in their zeal to get rid of Trump, have enabled progressives to have free rein in outlawing fossil fuel. Evidence science be damned, no matter how loony the climate alarmist claims are, Biden/Harris are going to cripple the American economy with Green BS.
In reality, I doubt it. These modern Luddite democrats are too f-kin useless to actually do anything except think about the next election.
Let’s keep track of Kerry’s envoy-ness vs the Keeling Curve, combatting climate and global temperatures over the next four years.
From Grabbe’s Wikipedia entry she appears to have contributed absolutely nothing of value to the World in her fifty years.
“Climate Deniers are Holding Back Climate Action”
In the same way that a concerned citizen might hold back a person trying to throw someone off a cliff?
Yes, since climate action policies are, in my opinion so destructive, then the “den1ers” are saving the planet.
The one question to ask is “What percentage of your weekly income are you willing to commit from today onwards to reduce the temperature by a couple of degrees over the next 100 years?”
“The survey also attempted to gauge support for climate action, and noticed that climate action skepticism was strongly correlated with climate skepticism.”
Well! Who would have thought that? Did somebody get paid good money for this drivel?
Just perusing the Reports of the stink-tank :
https://dpart.org/reports/
how many mention “Open Society” – George Soros’s outfit? That “philanthropy” took its name from Sir Karl Popper’s “Open Society and its Enemies”.
In his 2010 lecture, Soros said “I started developing my philosophy as a student at the London School of Economics in the late 1950s… under the mentorship of Karl Popper” who argued that “empirical truth cannot be known with absolute certainty… Even scientific laws can’t be verified”.
These people have relieved themselves of the burden of truth.
“Large minorities – ranging from 17 per cent in Spain to 44 per cent in France -– still believe that climate change is caused equally by humans and natural processes.”
Then care to point us to the scientific consensus on the actual percentage breakdown if 50/50 is wrong?
Many people are willing, eager, even, to pay lip service to Climate Belief to make themselves look good, particularly when questioned by another Believer. Where the rubber meets the road, however, is how much they are willing to pay for said Beliefs. What many don’t realize, or don’t want to know, is how much they have already paid, and will be paying for it, including lost opportunity. But the highway robbery by the Climate Liars doesn’t stop there. They are actually causing much human misery, and even death, particularly among those in poor countries. This, while pretending to “care” about poor and oppressed people, which is an outrage. Even Climate Believer Bjorn Lomborg points this out, much to the Climate Liar’s dismay. It is actually a double whammy, because this is money that could have been spent on helping people, instead of hurting them.
When Climate Liars conduct “polls”, what they are actually attempting to do is to further lie in order to prop up their failing propaganda. Astonishingly, they try to point the blame for non-Belief and inaction based on lies on Truth-tellers, whom they like to call “Deniers”, which itself is a lie. The downfall of Climate Liars is in fact Truth, which they hate. But Truth doesn’t care. Much like the sun’s disinfecting properties, it eventually wipes out the sickening mold and bacteria spread by the Climate Liars. Despite all, the Climate Liars are losing, and this outrages them.
Tough Noogies, Climate Liars.
Well said.
The sad part is that the majority of people are having it forced on them by a corrupt and ignorant minority.
Put another way, they have failed to fool all the people all of the time. They blame people for not blindly accepting the faith-based beliefs instead of checking the facts regarding their assumptions. They will double their efforts to re-educate the masses & indoctrinate the children in schools. “All hail the IPCC & the AGW alarmists.” but not by me and many others whom check the details & check the facts.
I think you folks have missed that they are talking about the “political” science consensus about climate change.
The average punter in Euroop (or anywhere really) has no idea what a consensus is. They probably see it starts with con- and that rings a bell to warn streetwise people to play dumb.
“I know nothing” …
Some nasty & evil things have come out of German think-tanks.
I have been very skeptical anything issued by a German “Think Tank” since January 30, 1933.
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/adolf-hitler-is-named-chancellor-of-germany
There is no scientific consensus regarding the validity of the AGW conjecture. The consensus is all just speculation. Scientists never registered and then voted on the validity of the AGW consensus. But even if they had, the results would have been meaningless because science is not a democracy. The laws of science are not some sort of legislation. Scientific theories are not validated by a voting process or by some other form of a popularity contest.
The reality is that, based on the paleoclimate record and the work done with models, one can conclude that the climate change that we have been experiencing is caused by the sun and the oceans over which mankind has no control. Despite the hype, there is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate and there is plenty of scientific rationale to support the conclusion that the climate sensitivity of CO2 is zero. If CO2 really did affect climate then one would expect the the increase in CO2 over the past 30 years would have caused at least a measurable increase in the dry lapse rate in the troposphere but that has not happened. It is all a matter of science. Mankind just does not have the power to stop Mother Nature from slowly changing the climate as has been happening for eons. But even if we could somehow stop the Earth’s climate from changing, extreme weather events and sea level rise would continue unabated because they are part of the current climate. Mankind does not even know what the optimum climate is let alone how to achieve it To better protect ourselves from the ravages of extreme weather events, the best we can do is to improve the global economy as mush as possible. Wasting time and money pursuing climate control over which mankind just does not have the power is very counter productive. There are many good reasons to be conserving on the use of fossil fuels but climate change is not one of them.
“Scientific theories are not validated by a voting process or by some other form of a popularity contest.”
Shame, mommy couldn’t afford you a Montessori education then? All Montessori kiddies know: Perception IS reality, and Truth IS determined by majority opinion.
You don’t know nuffin, you probably hate science and it’s because of you not wearing your mask while eating, that my 102-year old granma is busy dying with Covert. Just kidding. Drank herself to death, while back when she heard of the Think Tanks (CFR, Tavistock…) stealing thousands of ‘vulnerable’ children and putting them onto sex-change regimes.
Riddle: Calculate the exact size of the Arctic circle, today, 2020-9-26. Show your work. Points wil be awarded even if numbers are guesstimated. Tip for Montessori kids: Looking at any map older than a decade will be utterly useless, because you do not even understand where the seasons come from! Am I allowed to post a link here?
https://greenpets.co.za/index.php/en/2-greenpets-natural-happiness/136-climate-change
Dear Mr. Stone,
Again: Heather Grabbe has nothing to do with Germany. She does work for a US-citizen, for Mr. Soros in Brussel treating the EU as a US-colony. Looking to the post Second WW era, your statement should be corrected on the following way:
“I have been very skeptical anything issued by a US “Think Thank”.
For example, how many wars have been initiated only by Mr. Obama, and how many people have been killed in these wars? And before labelling me as an “antisemitist”, info only for you: Mr. Soros is persona non grata even in Israel.
Actually, for the most part, people are pretty stupid.
Translation: The aren’t enough poor people and not enough desperation compared to plan.