13 thoughts on “Claim: More Americans now believe in global warming”
Michael I certainly admire your faith in the purity of “climate scientists”, although I don’t share it.
With regard to earth’s rising temperature trend, so what? c1650 is generally agreed to have been unpleasantly cold, with temperatures generally rising since and that has been very good for life on earth.
Why should we be concerned we have thermometrically measured some of that rise? Why should we be concerned we were producing atmospheric CO2 during part of that rise (or should that read: “recovery”)?
Your “concern” is premised on cooler temperatures being either “correct” or somehow advantageous, which frankly I find absurd. The Holocene Climatic Optimum (or Thermal Maximum, as it now seems to be renamed) was certainly considerably warmer and the Sahara was a mixture of wetlands and productive savanna, filled with game – should I fear such a recurrence?
I find it strange people don’t speak of polar paradises but do of tropical ones and yet can be stampeded with fears of a trivially warmer world.
Finally, I’m not at all convinced earth is +1 K since 1900, the current figure appears to be +0.6 ± 0.2 and the mid-troposphere, where enhanced greenhouse theory insists heating should be at its greatest, has gone nowhere since the (late) 70s, see, e.g.: http://junksciencearchive.com/MSU_Temps/UAHMSUglobe-m.html
I don’t doubt that some scientists play games to get more funding. But as a scientist myself (engineer) I can tell you that we generally are more concerned with figuring out how things work than we are in getting rich. This is especially true for people that pursue a pure science like climatology.
It just doesn’t make sense that so many scientists are deliberately trying to deceive the world and hurt the economy just so they can get more funding. What is much more plausible is that fossil fuel companies are using their vast resources to confuse the issue in order to protect profits and limit their liability in case they really are damaging the environment.
As far as the earths temperature is concerned, it has been on a upward trend since the late 1800’s when we first began adding huge amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. Since 1900 the earth is up about 1 deg K with 0.8 of that coming just since the 1970’s. I’m not saying we should go into panic mode and stop all fossil fuel use now, but I think we have enough reason to be concerned and start taking some small steps just in case.
Basically I think the organizations are political and self-interested. There’s buckets of money to be had addressing a crisis but none for stating the alleged problem only exists in PlayStation® climatology and not in the real world.
It’s rather like friends of mine trying to do research in feed conversion efficiency in livestock – no grant money available for practical work but rewording the grant applications to address global warming emissions (methane production) in livestock sees them fully funded, virtually no questions asked. Their work hasn’t changed, the methane producing microfauna and flora in ruminants’ guts parasitically consume the animals’ feed without contributing to the animals’ energy production and their work is still on improving livestock feed conversion efficiency – except they now report on “greenhouse emissions abatement” (he who pays the piper…).
The bottom line is that earth has been 288 ± 0.5 K as long as people have seriously been trying to measure it (say since 1850). That’s a remarkably stable base ± 0.2% for all that time. Why should anyone care about that when the earth undergoes almost 4 K warming from January to July with a similar cooling back to January – i.e. base ± 0.7% throughout each and every year.
Climate scientists estimate ….
Yea … they estimate the sensitivity based on an assumption that the feedbacks are positive. The elusive, decades old, climate sensitivity still lacks the evidence to show if the sign of the feedback is positive or negative. It really doesn’t matter what any group of people “believe”. If they can’t support their assumption with quantitative data then their belief is based on faith. A belief based on faith is not science even if the person is a scientist.
I’m all about facts, the more the better. I hope AGW isn’t true, I’m 6’5″ and would love to buy a big gas-guzzling SUV!
According to this study, over 3,000 of the 10,257 scientists responded to their survey. The 79 number was for people actively publishing on climate change. The fact is, the vast majority of respondents believe in AGW.
In addition to that study, every single major scientific organization in the world agrees that human activity is warming the earth. Are these organizations all stupid, naive or duped?
Oh dear Michael, I fear you are likely to be exposed to some facts if you hang around here. Let me start you off with a link or two regarding your 97%
Doran, P. T., and M. Kendall Zimmerman (2009), Examining the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change, Eos Trans. AGU, 90(3)
Did you know that 97% refers to a subset of just 77 of 10,257 surveyed Earth scientists? 75 of the 77 could be said to agree with the survey authors positions, thus 97% but, in reality, just 0.73% of the surveyed pool.
More ‘magical thinking’ from the big green propaganda machine. The reputations of these so-called scientists are permanently damaged.
We are on pace to double CO2 concentrations from pre-industrial levels by the end of this century. Climate scientists estimate this will raise global temperatures between 1.5 deg C and 4.5 deg C. Many of them believe a 2 deg C rise or more would cause significant problems for the planet.
As far as “belief” in AGW is concerned, how many people that study the climate believe? About 97%.
Looks like the development of a new Hockey Stick.
I have been researching and arguing against CAGW for about 15 years now – Yet I would have answered the survey in such a manner that they would interpret “I believe in global warming”
It is a totally meaningless survey,
If the question really was worded as shown in the screencap, then this proves nothing. It only asks if it’s been getting warmer, nothing about what people may believe is causing it.
A large percentage of Americans believe in ghosts. That doesn’t mean that they want the Feral Government to regulate them.
The data used come from the National Survey of American Public Opinion on Climate Change and the National Survey of Canadian Public Opinion on Climate Change. They were compiled by three political scientists associated with the Brookings Institution.
There, you get 13 pp. of *interpretation* of findings, but no mention — not even in the ‘methodology’ section — of what the questions actually were. Without knowing the questions posed, the LA Times article, and the Brookings report, should be rejected as unfounded.
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Michael I certainly admire your faith in the purity of “climate scientists”, although I don’t share it.
With regard to earth’s rising temperature trend, so what? c1650 is generally agreed to have been unpleasantly cold, with temperatures generally rising since and that has been very good for life on earth.
Why should we be concerned we have thermometrically measured some of that rise? Why should we be concerned we were producing atmospheric CO2 during part of that rise (or should that read: “recovery”)?
Your “concern” is premised on cooler temperatures being either “correct” or somehow advantageous, which frankly I find absurd. The Holocene Climatic Optimum (or Thermal Maximum, as it now seems to be renamed) was certainly considerably warmer and the Sahara was a mixture of wetlands and productive savanna, filled with game – should I fear such a recurrence?
I find it strange people don’t speak of polar paradises but do of tropical ones and yet can be stampeded with fears of a trivially warmer world.
Finally, I’m not at all convinced earth is +1 K since 1900, the current figure appears to be +0.6 ± 0.2 and the mid-troposphere, where enhanced greenhouse theory insists heating should be at its greatest, has gone nowhere since the (late) 70s, see, e.g.: http://junksciencearchive.com/MSU_Temps/UAHMSUglobe-m.html
I don’t doubt that some scientists play games to get more funding. But as a scientist myself (engineer) I can tell you that we generally are more concerned with figuring out how things work than we are in getting rich. This is especially true for people that pursue a pure science like climatology.
It just doesn’t make sense that so many scientists are deliberately trying to deceive the world and hurt the economy just so they can get more funding. What is much more plausible is that fossil fuel companies are using their vast resources to confuse the issue in order to protect profits and limit their liability in case they really are damaging the environment.
As far as the earths temperature is concerned, it has been on a upward trend since the late 1800’s when we first began adding huge amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. Since 1900 the earth is up about 1 deg K with 0.8 of that coming just since the 1970’s. I’m not saying we should go into panic mode and stop all fossil fuel use now, but I think we have enough reason to be concerned and start taking some small steps just in case.
Basically I think the organizations are political and self-interested. There’s buckets of money to be had addressing a crisis but none for stating the alleged problem only exists in PlayStation® climatology and not in the real world.
It’s rather like friends of mine trying to do research in feed conversion efficiency in livestock – no grant money available for practical work but rewording the grant applications to address global warming emissions (methane production) in livestock sees them fully funded, virtually no questions asked. Their work hasn’t changed, the methane producing microfauna and flora in ruminants’ guts parasitically consume the animals’ feed without contributing to the animals’ energy production and their work is still on improving livestock feed conversion efficiency – except they now report on “greenhouse emissions abatement” (he who pays the piper…).
The bottom line is that earth has been 288 ± 0.5 K as long as people have seriously been trying to measure it (say since 1850). That’s a remarkably stable base ± 0.2% for all that time. Why should anyone care about that when the earth undergoes almost 4 K warming from January to July with a similar cooling back to January – i.e. base ± 0.7% throughout each and every year.
Yea … they estimate the sensitivity based on an assumption that the feedbacks are positive. The elusive, decades old, climate sensitivity still lacks the evidence to show if the sign of the feedback is positive or negative. It really doesn’t matter what any group of people “believe”. If they can’t support their assumption with quantitative data then their belief is based on faith. A belief based on faith is not science even if the person is a scientist.
I’m all about facts, the more the better. I hope AGW isn’t true, I’m 6’5″ and would love to buy a big gas-guzzling SUV!
According to this study, over 3,000 of the 10,257 scientists responded to their survey. The 79 number was for people actively publishing on climate change. The fact is, the vast majority of respondents believe in AGW.
In addition to that study, every single major scientific organization in the world agrees that human activity is warming the earth. Are these organizations all stupid, naive or duped?
Oh dear Michael, I fear you are likely to be exposed to some facts if you hang around here. Let me start you off with a link or two regarding your 97%
Did you know that 97% refers to a subset of just 77 of 10,257 surveyed Earth scientists? 75 of the 77 could be said to agree with the survey authors positions, thus 97% but, in reality, just 0.73% of the surveyed pool.
Here’s a story about it: Lawrence Solomon: 97% cooked stats and you can see dissection of the thesis here.
More ‘magical thinking’ from the big green propaganda machine. The reputations of these so-called scientists are permanently damaged.
We are on pace to double CO2 concentrations from pre-industrial levels by the end of this century. Climate scientists estimate this will raise global temperatures between 1.5 deg C and 4.5 deg C. Many of them believe a 2 deg C rise or more would cause significant problems for the planet.
As far as “belief” in AGW is concerned, how many people that study the climate believe? About 97%.
Looks like the development of a new Hockey Stick.
I have been researching and arguing against CAGW for about 15 years now – Yet I would have answered the survey in such a manner that they would interpret “I believe in global warming”
It is a totally meaningless survey,
If the question really was worded as shown in the screencap, then this proves nothing. It only asks if it’s been getting warmer, nothing about what people may believe is causing it.
A large percentage of Americans believe in ghosts. That doesn’t mean that they want the Feral Government to regulate them.
The data used come from the National Survey of American Public Opinion on Climate Change and the National Survey of Canadian Public Opinion on Climate Change. They were compiled by three political scientists associated with the Brookings Institution.
Since you can pre-determine the outcome of any poll by how you phrase the questions, I went looking for those used in this poll. Noodling around the Brookings website, I found the ‘full paper’ behind the poll findings. The 13-pp. pdf can be found at http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/rc/papers/2011/04_climate_change_opinion/04_climate_change_opinion.pdf
There, you get 13 pp. of *interpretation* of findings, but no mention — not even in the ‘methodology’ section — of what the questions actually were. Without knowing the questions posed, the LA Times article, and the Brookings report, should be rejected as unfounded.