Essay by Eric Worrall
“… Unexpectedly, climate skepticism has consistently grown over the past 3 years (37%, +6 pts in 3 years), and is particularly striking in France this year (37%, +8 pts in one year) …”
Climate change: a growing skepticism
Purchasing power is now the key priority on a global level. Despite the importance they attribute to the climate and extreme weather events, people are less inclined to become involved and are more dubious as to the human origins of the phenomenon.
8 December 2022
…
Despite topping the list of environmental priorities, climate change is not generating greater concern and climate skepticism is growing
Climate change (46%, +2 points vs. 2021) and extreme climate events (43%, +2 points vs. 2021) have become the key reasons for environmental concern this year on a world level, although this is also due to the drop in concern about waste and plastic (41%, -5 points vs 2021) and air pollution (37%, -3 points vs 2021). Nevertheless, if the two items are combined, 66% of the world’s population still view the climate as a priority issue (60% in 2019).
…
In France 16-24-year-olds are less worried than the population as a whole (45%), but they are either more indifferent (16% vs 7% overall), or on the contrary express greater demoralization (38% vs 27% overall).
Unexpectedly, climate skepticism has consistently grown over the past 3 years (37%, +6 pts in 3 years), and is particularly striking in France this year (37%, +8 pts in one year)2 whereas concern about the environment is particularly strong in that country. More specifically, the idea that has progressed the most is not a denial of change, but the notion that it is “mainly due to the kinds of natural phenomena that the Earth has experienced throughout its history”. …
Age does not appear to be a divisive criterion on this subject: …
…
Read more: https://www.ipsos.com/en/obscop-2022
On one hand I’m encouraged that young people seem to be starting to break free from all the intense green brainwashing many of them experienced at school.
Having said that, the proportion of people who hold hardline alarmist views also seems to have edged up slightly – so a component of that increase in skepticism may represent an increase in polarisation.
I wish there was a way to somehow increase the rate of progress. It is sad watching people in Britain, Europe and parts of the USA suffering unnecessary hardship because political climate activism has driven up the price of energy, even if many of those people voted for the politicians who created this mess. I guess sometimes people have to learn the hard way.
Rather unsubtle choices. That one does not know how much climate change is natural, but that there are no net ill effects, and attempts to control CO2 are as futile as misguided does not fit into their push poll.
Exactly Mr. Halla. I could answer yes to all three, depending on what definition of climate change I use. Yes, humans have affected climate (as have termites). Yes, there is climate change that that is not caused by humans. Yes, the climate hasn’t really changed much.
Indeed.
My own favorite (non-push) poll is Gallup’s “Nation’s Most Important Problem” poll. Currently “Environment/Pollution/Climate change” are thought to be the nation’s most important problem by 4% of respondents.
My hope is that, as energy misery takes hold in Europe, there will be a collapse in belief in CAGW (Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming).
Peter Zeihan has it that Germany is seriously pooched. That would be a self inflicted injury. I don’t know if they can recover. (OTOH, Why do I listen to Peter Zeihan?)
These are horribly phrased questions. One component of climate, SURFACE TEMPERATURE, clearly is higher in metro areas and lower in rural areas. Does anybody deny this is due to humans living in those metro areas?
Remove all the humans from a metro area and temperatures would still be higher than in rural areas. It has nothing to do with ‘humans’ as such, it’s to do with the concentration of heat absorbing materials.
Other than my pedantry, I agree with you.
Materials and the greenhouse (not “Greenhouse”) effect that changes circulation models in thermodynamic climates.
I deny it is due to humans using fossil fuel. I understand it to be the abundance of glass, steel and concrete and the immense population in close quarters.
Now help everyone understand how the Urban Heat Island effect translates to an “End of Days” prognostication.
Within the context of the explanation illustrate the selectivity of the Greenhouse CO2 gas as it traps radiated heat with selective purpose jumping over rural areas and how this should not be a consideration while concocting an end days scenario.
It will be helpful to conclude with a scientific explanation of how the Central Governments will be able to master control over the climate by controlling individual use of fossil fuel. I am sure that among the think tanks the first rule is: “fossil fuel for me but not for thee.” with thee being the great unwashed masses.
I wonder just how many people are now divided over the claimed “climate problem”. Whilst I, as a regular WUWT reader, understand about the incidence of brainwashing and the stupidity of blaming carbon dioxide for so much, I am just a little concerned about pollution in general – and especially the uncaring attitude towards waste of so many people. Is it possible that it is this dichotomy which is causing such confusing survey results?
I am just a little concerned about pollution in general …
‘Pollution’ is a vague word. ANY trace gas or particle could count as ‘pollution’ – the critical issue is how much of it is there, and what are it’s effects?
We used to simply rely on environmental scientists making that estimation for us, and assumed that they were making an unbiased risk/benefits analysis, so that when they claimed that ‘pollution’ was ‘excessive’ we needed to worry.
I think that we all now realise that this is not so, and that claims of danger and deaths are being made which are not justified. I would not get worried unless I had gathered all the data myself…
While I don’t know if this laser focus on C02 (while ignoring lots of very real environmental threats) could have skewed the poll, what I do know is that the mainstream environmental movement went off the rails many, many years ago. Of course, this poll didn’t ask those questions, but I would love to know some of the big enviro orgs are getting fewer donations (though perhaps not less money) from the average concerned citizen than back in the 70’s and 80’s.
I had (and still do) some environmental concerns back then as a teen and young adult. And I’d give a few of my hard-earned dollars to the Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife, World Wildlife Fund and a couple of others. Also read Scientific American. But back then these orgs fought things like deforestation, habitat destruction, poaching, over-harvesting of animals (and plants), and sometimes things like particulate pollution and chemical dumping/spills. All of those things are known to cause problems to the environment.
But then, suddenly it became all about CO2! All other issues got brushed to the side….Well, I dropped all of those orgs and their glossy magazines (and, on a side note, eventually Sci-Am for the same reason).
Part of me wonders if this reason might be tanking some of the climate lunacy – people can actually see plastic trash floating in rivers, streams, etc but yet they get up every day and nothing drastic happens with the weather or climate.
Lee, same for me. Back in the seventies I donated money on a regular basis to the Nature Conservancy. They seemed to have a good idea for conserving wild areas through private purchase and preservation. Then they seemed to become extreme and strident. Their literature became typical simple minded environmental propaganda. I stopped sending them money. I used to like reading Scientific American, Science News, National Geographic. I stopped reading them when they became political propaganda.
What’s sad for me is that even Fine Homebuilding is becoming filled with climate propaganda. At least I can still skip most of those articles – so far.
An issue is that Climastrologists use “pollution” in a religious sense.As it is human created, it is unclean, regardless of the actual effects. All human creations are evil to some greens, and will be condemned.
Does anyone remember stories in the 1970’s about burning rivers, and smog so bad you couldn’t see in many cities in the US? At the time, I went to school across the street from a pulp mill in Berlin, NH. You can image the pollution from that. Yet, 50 years later, almost all US rivers and air have improved 100%. That pulp mill is gone and Berlin and the waters are clean enough to fish from and swim in.
Yes, there is still pollution but it has gone better and continues to improve year by year, decade by decade.
I remember the pollution back then. The EPA did a good job cleaning it up. But that job is finished and the EPA has outlived its time. All we need now is just a small agency (maybe 250 people total?) to handle emergencies and novel situations. The EPA is an agency in search of a problem.
First off, in the west, the levels of pollution are way down compared to a few decades ago.
Secondly, out in the real world there is always a hierarchy of concerns. Just because not everybody puts “pollution” as the most important of their concerns is not evidence that they aren’t concerned.
Beyond that, decreasing “pollution” costs money. Many people feel that they aren’t willing to pay more money for tiny decreases in ambient pollution.
The same two conditions apply to the issue of waste.
It is still very high and not many will wise up for years ahead as the media/public schools propaganda waves are still continuing unabated despite that what they promote is stupid and insulting to rational thought.
The problem is that too many people are too lazy and disinterested to give a dam about the truth surrounding the topic of globalwarming/climate change.
I was recently shut down on Twitter for the crime of being over the top civilly while promoting Where is the Climate Emergency? article Willis Eschenbach had thoughtfully and devastatingly written that so angers people who have been well propagandized.
Warmists/alarmists show their abject hatred to it in several forums I posted it in and despite multiple pages of posts in two separate forums not a single one addresses the CONTENT of the article Willis wrote.
Here is one forum where it even brought out a dishonest PHIL CLARKE (starts on page 3) to attack it on the outside without addressing with the content inside, that is how low even a someone like him with a science degree goes.
FORUM
“not a single one addresses the CONTENT of the article Willis wrote.”
This is because the alarmists don’t have any evidence that CO2 is anything other than a benign gas, essential for life on Earth.
So they do personal attacks instead. Or they try to shut the critics up. Typical lefty/true believer behavior.
Indoctrinate children at school and expect a backlash as they get into their late teens early 20’s.
When you are told for 8 years of secondary school that you will never see snow again, and 5 years later you’re still seeing snow the penny begins to drop.
Our youth are growing up with an overload of digital information, they can interrogate the internet like most boomers can only dream of.
And look at who’s promoting the climate fear – boomers and their children into their 40’s/50’s.
Rebellion against received wisdom is natural for youngsters and with the help of digital media and social apps. it can spread like wildfire. Youngsters also get bored hearing the same old sh*t and are naturally confident and optimistic.
We all went through it and eventually realised that the most precious of beliefs are invariably the lies of adults. We can thank Santa and the Tooth fairy for waking our children up to the fact that adults lie all the time.
Santa and the Tooth fairy are metaphorical images of youthful innocence and optimism.
I can live with Santa and the tooth fairy being lies. But you’d better not mess with my Easter Bunny!
“And look at who’s promoting the climate fear – boomers and their children into their 40’s/50’s.”
The youngest Baby Boomers will be in their early 60s, the oldest mid/late 70s. As one at the older end I would say most of my peers are sceptical or unconvinced. Certainly not fear mongering.
I would agree that most of the fear is being generated by 40-60 year old journalists, those taking on board the fear are their 20-40 year old children. Neither group are Boomers.
That, and we grew up with actual environmental concerns. Fought for anti-pollution laws to be passed, and lived through some truly God-awful environmental abuses that lead to historically epic legal cases of our times.
CAGW was built upon, and rests on the abuse of the scientific method. Which is a crime in of itself, but the ignoble virtues of the concept of social justice, DEI, and ESG are the corporate and NGO vultures come to pick clean the CAGW carcass that generated trillions of governments invested taxpayer money.
Corporations and NGO’s no longer need CAGW hysteria to generate investment. They used CAGW to blow a hole through the Bank wall of government funding, and taxpayer money is flowing unchecked by our elected officials.
“I would agree that most of the fear is being generated by 40-60 year old journalists”
I don’t think age has anything to do with it. It’s the state of mind of the individual person.
Leftists always purposefully leave out the most important choice option of the survey:
“Global Warming exists, but human’s contribution isn’t a major concern and may even be a net benefit.”
But alas, because this optional choice would likely be the majority opinion of the honest scientific community, it’s never included, for to do so, would end this ridiculous Leftists’ CAGW money, power and control scam…
Why is skepticism growing? There are literally hundreds of locations that show no warming. Do the laws of physics cease to exist at these locations? Until you can explain why CO2 didn’t warm these locations you can’t blame CO2 for warming other locations. At least that is how it works in real science.
https://imgur.com/a/IrE63Xo
This is why skepticism is growing.
Let’s get real. CO2 pre-industrial was around 300 ppm, currently, it is about 400 ppm, which means that at best man has contributed 100 ppm over the past 300 years, What does that mean? Man has added 1 molecule out of 10,000, and that molecule vibrates with the energy of a -80 C Blackbody when activated by 15-micron LWIR. Does anyone actually believe that vibrating 1 out of every 10,000 molecules can materially impact the thermal energy of the other 9,999. Newsflash, that is a joke, and the greatest scientific fraud in world history. There is a reason COVID economic shutdown didn’t impact the trend in atmospheric CO2. Real scientists need to speak, silence is complicity.
“Man has added 1 molecule out of 10,000….”
That’s a nice way of putting it. To many people 100 ppm probably doesn’t mean very much, and quite a few may not even know what “ppm” means.
But probably if you put it like this everyone will understand:
“If you take 10,000 atmospheric molecules, then on average only one molecule was added by human emissions”.
But then of course we have to worry about how many people even know what a molecule is….
Chris
“Unexpectedly, climate skepticism has consistently grown over the past 3 years (37%, +6 pts in “9
Unexpectedly? wait til this winter is done! People aren’t so stupid, just hyper brainwashed.
You can fool SOME of the people, SOME of the time. You can fool all of the people, SOME of the time. But you can NOT fool all of the people, ALL of the time. SOME of the people are capable of thinkng for themselves! ALL of the time! Be part of THOSe people!
More are asking
Interesting.
‘Climate skepticism’ is really more of an insult than a useful description.
Let’s admit, that the skepticism is a well-founded human reaction to press-hyped Grand Mandatory Schemes invented and described by mostly unelected Emperor-wannabes, many of whom mislabel themselves as involved in the natural sciences.
I wear the terms “climate skeptic” and “climate denier” as a badge of honour in my private life, not so much in my business life though
Polls & surveys results are always a product of what questions are posed to which selected sample groups.
I’m still intrigued by almost universal lack of interest shown by climate groups, academia, politicians, bureaucrats and the media in the UN’s 7-million people global survey completed a few years ago about what rated as the most important issues in life for them.
Of 16 issues posed, the respondents rated climate LAST.
Ipsos: Climate Skepticism Rising Three Years in a Row
About time, too! 20 years too late, if you ask me,….
Polls. Can you have one without leading questions of one sort or another?
What about the emotional state at the time of responding?
Pinch of salt every time
Can you have one without leading questions of one sort or another?
I’ve done some of this sort of research (not climate related). The first time
was on the downtown streets of Cincinnati, OH. 1966, I think.
Writing good questions is not easy; beyond the time and mental effort required.
In the case of “climate”, most folks know about glaciers, and that much land
is now uncovered that once had ice. So, climate change is known.
Cyclical or episodic weather is not climate change even though it is
reported as such.
Ask a person (that hasn’t moved) if the native plants around them have changed in their
life time. If the person isn’t over ~66, ignore the answer.
I am surprised it is not more. Did a little digging at Ipsos. This study is funded by EDF, whose French energy portfolio is nuclear and renewables. The results are not good news for them; that might explain why not more skepticism. After this bad winter with renewable failures in EU, maybe it will be more in next year’s survey. 40 years of deliberate AGW misinformation and failed projections sponsored by the UN does not get corrected quickly, no matter the mounting counter evidence.
From the wonderful IAmKate website
And all time
I still maintain that the only change that people have about the climate is how much it will change their living standards if they vote for governments who will hit them them with new laws, taxes and restrictions supposedly to save the environment. I still agree with one of the guest columnists on this site who, a few months ago, claimed that there are three main groups pushing for climate action. First are the special interest types hoping to effect societal change by using the climate “crisis” as an excuse. Then there are the subsidy seekers looking for handouts to finance their own research or projects because private investors won’t touch them, and finally there are the politicians and government officials seeking to raise new tax revenue that will be tossed at whatever might help their re-election.
I don’t suppose a 37% skepticism on CAGW alarmism is anything to cheer about, though obviously it was lower. Still, I’ll begin to think we’ve reached a “conversational balance” when skepticism hits 51%.
Skepticism must be at all times greater than dogmatic hysteria just to have the necessary conviction to reach those more willing to sit on the fence. In the marketplace of ideas, like politics, the middle ground is the battleground.
water freezes at 32F and EVERYONE knows how deep they have to drill to get to the walleyes.
The ones in the ”There is no climate change” group are closest to the truth – when it comes to the contemporary concept of climate change.
Sadly my daughter throws a complete wobbly if I even mention the climate let alone hint that it might be worth looking at from a different perspective. I put it down as a Pavlovian reaction to the propaganda she got at school. Still love the bones of her.
It makes me think that it will be a long time before we return to sanity. Come on you psychologists can’t you think of some way to speed it all up?
I found this quite interesting….
FLICC
Follow data
Look for full risk
Interrogate causal
Contrariness
Cultural Awareness
Deconstructing Scepticism: The True FLICC – Climate Scepticism (cliscep.com)
Freezing, hungry, impoverished westerners and developing nations striving to give their peoples the same fossil fuel driven benefits the West has had for 200 years will become ever more resistant to the nut zero / renewables con
In the UK at least the reputation of scientific modelling dropped after the Covid models created by Ferguson were shown to be blatantly wrong and written to support an agenda rather than properly balanced.
As Lincoln actually said, “[you] cannot fool the people: you may fool people for a time; you can fool a part of the people all the time; but you can’t fool all the people all the time.”
That’s a convenient assumption. Seeing when the price of energy started skyrocketing, it is clear the price of gas went up when Russia started to limit the amount of gas it sent to Europe starting September 2021 in preparation for the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. There’s plenty of evidence for that. Then sanctions against Russia did wonders to increase the price of energy even further.
Years of wrong climate-induced energy policies have left us Europeans utterly dependent on foreign energy, but the price increase is due to the Ukrainian war and the decision to impose sanctions on Russia. To the Americans, the sanctions are easy, as they don’t buy much from Russia. This winter is bad. Next winter will be worse.
Ipsos asked the wrong question or asked it the wrong way. We can’t say humans don’t affect the climate although the effect may be too small to measure. The question is whether human impact on climate is dangerous, beneficial or neutral and whether it is sufficient in scale that we would even notice. If the present slight warming and generous greening of planet Earth is our doing (which is implausible but not impossible) then we should pat ourselves on the back, rather than prostrate ourselves before the alter of the new climate religion.