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back to article US climate-change skeptics losing support

Not only does a growing majority of Americans believe that global warming is, indeed, underway, but for the first time a majority have come to the conclusion that it's caused by human activity. "Americans' belief in the reality of global warming has increased by 13 percentage points over the past two and a half years, from 57 …

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      1. Psyx
        Reply Icon
        Go

        Re: Considering the Lewandowsky scandal ...

        "Two things stand out. One is that the Global Warming supporters have comprehensively lost the scientific battle"

        Two: That perception bias is alive and kicking the crap out of reality in some people's minds.

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  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Mouth over reason

    It seems any actual reasoned discussion of whether or not global warming is happening has long been replaced by a tedious slanging match about how many people hold which of the various views, but presented, principally by the media, in a way that suggests that winning the argument is equivalent to fixing the problem. While "what the human race wants" >= "What the human race gets" worked well enough for Xfactor and the Medieval belief in vicious Dog faced men roaming the countryside, it's got a pretty poor track record on real, large scale global problems. The only answer would seem to be a version of the Golgafrincham B Ark on a far larger scale, with the side benefit that the world would be a far more pleasant place without Fox news, lobbyists and the PR industry.

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    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: Mouth over reason

      And now that we all have our own private phones (and never put them to our ear/mouth) the only failing of the Golgafrincham wouldn't apply.

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      1. Captain DaFt
        Reply Icon

        Re: Mouth over reason

        Never under-estimate the human ear as a vector of infection!

        (Just look at the AGW debate itself for proof.)

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        1. TheRealRoland
          Reply Icon

          Re: Mouth over reason

          >Never underestimate

          And Snowcrash

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  3. mememine69
    FAIL

    *In three debates so far, Obama hasn’t mentioned climate change once.

    *Obama has not mentioned the crisis in the last two State of the Unions addresses.

    *Occupywallstreet does not even mention CO2 in its list of demands because of the bank-funded carbon trading stock markets run by corporations.

    *Julian Assange is of course a climate change denier.

    *Socialst Canada killed Y2Kyoto with a freely elected climate change denying prime minister and nobody cared, especially the millions of scientists warning us of unstoppable warming (a comet hit).

    *Not one single IPCC warning of crisis isn’t peppered with “maybes” and “could bes” etc.

    *Help my house is on fire maybe? But you lab coats said we are at the brink of no return, maybe?

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    1. Thought About IT
      Reply Icon
      Unhappy

      Silence from politicians

      "In three debates so far, Obama hasn’t mentioned climate change once."

      That just goes to show how effective the propaganda campaign by so-called sceptics has been to make it politically impossible to take any action to curb AGW. They are winning a pyrrhic victory.

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    2. Charles 9
      Reply Icon
      Thumb Down

      The reasons for the lack of talk on climate are far more prosaic. It's hard to think about climate when you're having trouble keeping a job and paying the bills. The economy is the top subject for both debates, with related subjects getting airtime as well. It's simpler, more subject to the influence of government and, frankly, more direct for people.

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    3. Psyx
      Reply Icon
      FAIL

      "*Julian Assange is of course a climate change denier."

      And your point is?

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  4. jake Silver badge

    Most Americans also claim to follow one deity or another.

    Doesn't make any religion a scientific fact.

    I weep for my country.

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    1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
      Reply Icon
      Happy

      Re: Most Americans also claim to follow one deity or another.

      "Doesn't make any religion a scientific fact.

      I weep for my country."

      But (as Winston Churchill observed) Americans will always do the right thing.

      After they've done everything else.

      IOW. The times are a changing.

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      1. Local G
        Reply Icon
        Facepalm

        "Americans will always do the right thing."

        Did Churchill say the Americans were going to eventually do the right thing in perpetuity?

        Just asking.

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    2. Shakje
      Reply Icon

      Re: Most Americans also claim to follow one deity or another.

      Sure, but science stays out of the arena of whether or not there is a deity. It doesn't publish papers on it, and people don't submit papers on it (of course, what they do in their own time is different). On the other hand you have AGW which has a mass of papers published on it, and the skeptics who, in many cases, refuse to even submit because they think that the whole thing is a conspiracy.

      Do you know what would make their case? SUBMITTING A PAPER. Then, if it gets rejected out of hand, they can put it in the public domain, and people can look at it, dissect it, and ask why it was rejected, assuming there's nothing fundamentally wrong with it. If it gets accepted, congratulations, you're taking part in the scientific process, not just mouthing off to journalists and conference centres.

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      1. Stoneshop
        Reply Icon
        Devil

        Re: Most Americans also claim to follow one deity or another.

        Sure, but science stays out of the arena of whether or not there is a deity.

        The inverse, however, is far from true, witness the amount of effort expended by religion to try altering or invalidating scientific findings.

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  5. mevets
    Paris Hilton

    love the trust chart...

    TV weather reporters are more trusted than the President, the Opposition and the news reporters? Sure, trust could mean, ‘trust’, as in ‘I trust him to be wrong’ [ eg, PM ]. How could 60% of people avow trust in a weather reporter, especially with respect to weather-related information [ ie. climate]? Put another way, politicians and news reporters have a lot to be ashamed of.

    Paris, because they are all ____!

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    1. Don Jefe
      Reply Icon
      Happy

      Re: love the trust chart...

      I can't stand weather forecasters. If I had known there was a job that allowed me to be wrong at least half of the time I would never have gotten into IT.

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      1. Christo
        Reply Icon
        Happy

        Re: love the trust chart...

        I believe that the TV weather man is a dig (intentional or not that's not for me to decide) at Anthony Watt. He maintains one of the biggest sceptic sites on the net (http://wattsupwiththat.com/).

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  6. G R Goslin

    Americans!!

    Americans! Huh!.Who'd believe them. Global warming must be one of the least important fallacies that the Americans believe in

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  7. Johnny Canuck

    @ mememine69

    You forgot to mention that the Liberal party under Jean Chretien signed the Kyoto Accord and then did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to meet Canada's goals under the accord - for 8 years. Don't try to blame Harper for the failure of Kyoto in Canada, put the blame where it really lies - at the feet of Canada's Liberal Party. Canadians want to look after the environment, but not at the expense of impoverishing ourselves.

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    1. Ian Easson
      Reply Icon

      Re: @ mememine69

      True, absolutely true.

      A politician's reluctant recognition of reality has little if anything to do with their response to it. They are only concerned with political (social/class) power issues, nothing else.

      (Speaking as a Canadian!)

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  8. Rune Moberg

    The arctic

    Ah... Yes, it was warm up north this year and a lot of ice melted. But 'unprecedented'? Funny how that report only goes back to 1979, completely missing the reports from the 1930s or the 19th century (see The New York Times archive) of ice-free waters.

    Indeed, if such events equals 20 years of our CO2 emissions, then the melting witnessed in the 30s would account for 20 years of warming according to the scientist quoted in the article.

    http://rps3.com/Pages/Burt_Rutan_on_Climate_Change.htm claims CO2 values were as high as now a century ago.

    To me, it doesn't look like we have had much of a warming the past 15 years. I would like a warmer climate with double the CO2 in the atmosphere, but so far nobody has delivered on that promise. I feel cheated.

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    1. Thought About IT
      Reply Icon
      Boffin

      Re: The arctic

      " it doesn't look like we have had much of a warming the past 15 years"

      This graph neatly sums up your understanding of global warming:

      http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics/SkepticsvRealists_500.gif

      5 3
  9. Don Jefe
    Meh

    funny

    Almost every argument against climate change is posed by those who have never spent significant time outdoors. I spend a lot of time outside in many different places for work & it doesn't take a genius to see that things are rapidly changing. Wildlife, fauna, flow of springs & creeks are much different even since 2006.

    Maybe it is caused by people, maybe it isn't, but I don't believe anyone who gets outside would disagree that the overall climate is changing.

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    1. John Deeb
      Reply Icon
      Boffin

      Re: funny

      Then again, Don, I don't think anyone claims anywhere that climate would not be "changing". The discussion is about the when's, why's and who-did-it's. Thank you for joining the discussion though.

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    2. JDX Gold badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: funny

      Well done Don for beautifully illustrating the kind of ignorance this subject is plagued with.

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    3. itzman
      Reply Icon

      Re: funny

      That rather depends on where you get outside.

      Her a decade of warming in te 90s has been followed by no change in te noughties and falling tempeartures in the tenses.

      In fact the climate here this year resembles the 1950s...

      Is the climate changing? I'd say 90% of people would say yes.

      Does man made activity affect the climate at all? Id say 90% of people would say yes.

      Is the climate change of the last 10,000 years largely due to man's activity? Id say 99% of people would say no.

      And the 64,000 dollar question - is today's climate change overwhelmingly down to human activity? And I suspect around 70% would say no.

      And the really important question. If today's climate change IS down to human activity, will bankrupting the West's economy building windmills that don't work, make any difference if China continues on its present course?

      And there we probably have 100% saying no it wont.

      You can spin the result of any loaded question questionnaire anyway you want - why does it matter what people think? Because when you are marketing a product - renewable energy, so called - what is important is not whether climate change is happening, but whether people believe its happening.

      Even if climate change is happening and it is overwhelmingly man made, there is zero chance that cold starving people wont dig up coal and burn it or cut down trees to keep warm. Faced with the prospect of a marvellously preserved planet with no one on it, or a rather battered and hot planet with a few people left to enjoy it, which would you prefer?

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      1. Charles 9
        Reply Icon

        Re: funny

        "Even if climate change is happening and it is overwhelmingly man made, there is zero chance that cold starving people wont dig up coal and burn it or cut down trees to keep warm. Faced with the prospect of a marvellously preserved planet with no one on it, or a rather battered and hot planet with a few people left to enjoy it, which would you prefer?"

        The concern is that the latter creeps itself all the way down and becomes the worst of both worlds: a torn-up world with NO people in it (and perhaps a lot less life altogether than before). Given the choice, mother nature and Luddites would take the former. At least that way, nature can try again.

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        1. Anonymous Coward
          Reply Icon
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: funny

          You have put your finger on a crucial part of the problem.

          If us in the "first world" still had to dig up the coal or cut down the trees we would use a whole lot less because there is a natural limit to both, by one person, in one day.

          Energy use for us is too easy, foot on the gas, turn the thermostat up.

          Daily we use many times more energy than those with shovels and axes mainly due to the industrial revolution, we have become totally disconnected from the real costs or affects.

          If the man with axe cuts a few trees down more than is sustainable he has to walk further to the next wood or move home, to us it's all hidden and academic.

          Just because we consume by proxy does not mean the problem is someone else's.

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  10. JDX Gold badge

    near spot-on warming predictions found in a 30-year-old paper

    You mean after all this time they managed to find one paper with predictions that are matched by subsequent facts? Never mind the thousands of papers which predicted different things,

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  11. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
    Unhappy

    I love these

    kinds of studies, providing vast amounts of ammunition for all sides to jump up and down and wave under people's noses.

    No doubt the politicians will sieze on this and spend endless hours debating how to make people see the world their way instead of saying "You build nuclear power stations NOW"

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  12. mememine69
    Thumb Up

    Climate Change is Dead

    Wanna lose an election? Then just keep threatening the voter’s kids with CO2 deaths.

    *In three debates so far, Obama hasn’t mentioned climate change once.

    *Obama has not mentioned the crisis in the last two State of the Unions addresses.

    *Occupywallstreet does not even mention CO2 in its list of demands because of the bank-funded carbon trading stock markets run by corporations.

    *Julian Assange is of course a climate change denier.

    *Canada killed Y2Kyoto with a freely elected climate change denying prime minister and nobody cared, especially the millions of scientists warning us of unstoppable warming (a comet hit).

    *Not one single IPCC warning of crisis isn’t peppered with “maybes” and “could bes” etc.

    *Help my house is on fire maybe? But you lab coats said we are at the brink of no return, maybe?

    *Climate Change Science and its 26 years of needless panic is the new Reefer Madness.

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  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Skeptic losing ground

    Deniers are losing ground as more become skeptics Shirley?

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  14. mememine69
    Thumb Up

    REAL planet lovers are happy, not disappointed a crisis was exaggerated.

    Why won’t your Gods of science who say we “could” be at the point of no return, say it “WILL” happen, not just “might” happen. The exaggeration is obvious to progressives.

    Not one single IPCC warning is without; “maybe” and “could be” and “likely”………

    Climate blame ………………the new REEFER MADNESS.

    Let's make a deal, when science says it "WILL" happen, I'll join the dozens of climate blame protesters worldwide to save the planet from boiling from SUV gas.

    Stupid Mother Nature eh?

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: REAL planet lovers are happy, not disappointed a crisis was exaggerated.

      Come back when you've read a tiny bit of Karl Popper's work on the philosophy of science.

      Because scientists NEVER say it will/will not happen.Why? because they have open minds.

      E.g. Not 'the sun will rise tomorrow' but 'given the current state of knowldege it is probable that the sun will rise tomorrow'. So saying that 'the earth is likely to xxxxx in the next 20 years" is as definite a statement as you saying 'the sun will rise tomorrow".

      Which is why the ignorant/biased/bigotted have and advantage when they demand 'proof'.

      5 2
      1. Ben Tasker
        Reply Icon

        Re: REAL planet lovers are happy, not disappointed a crisis was exaggerated.

        Not sure anyone here has asked for 'proof'.

        What I'm sure a lot would like to see is empirical evidence, that has been properly and thoroughly peer-reviewed. Oh, and of course, we'd like to see all the raw data so that we can (in theory) replicate the methods to see if the same result is returned. Without that, you might as well be waving a holy book around and calling it 'proof'.

        Personally, I'm a skeptic (could you tell?), but I can see two groups on the Pro-AGW side. Those who are only in it to make money (let's face it, some of those on either side) and those who truly believe. The problem is, no debate is actually being had. One side are screaming about how we're killing the earth, and often failing to provide real evidence, whilst the other side are stuck asking for evidence (or in some extreme cases, screaming back).

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    2. Psyx
      Reply Icon
      FAIL

      Re: REAL planet lovers are happy, not disappointed a crisis was exaggerated.

      "Why won’t your Gods of science..."

      Don't capitalise that. 'gods' is not a name.

      "who say we “could” be at the point of no return, say it “WILL” happen, not just “might” happen. The exaggeration is obvious to progressives."

      Because they're not morons who deal in absolutes, like religious maniacs do.

      "the new REEFER MADNESS."

      There is/was no such thing. As a point of reference, the world would be a hell of a better place if we all sat down and had a smoke together.

      "Let's make a deal, when science says it "WILL" happen, I'll join the dozens of climate blame protesters worldwide to save the planet from boiling from SUV gas."

      Please don't. I don't want an idiot like you near me.

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  15. JeffyPooh
    Pint

    It disgusts me...

    ...to see the word "belief" being used in what should be a pure scientific debate. The consensus group need to address the sketical group with logic and reason (always, even if they think that the skeptics are insane). It's called "The Scientific Method". Allowing the debate to slide into religious vocabulary should be a capital crime.

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  16. abedarts

    Behind the curve again

    I'm sure I just read that according to a Met Office study global warming stopped 16 years ago, and if they say so it must be right eh?

    I suppose I can't blame our American friends for not seeing it, I doubt they've heard of the Met Office but this news did get around a bit, after all the Daily Mail reported it. Oh wait they don't get that either.

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Behind the curve again

      No, they didn't. That was reported, and the Met office immediately put out a statement contradicting it.

      Here, a reference, since I care about primary sources (contrast: "I'm sure I read...")

      http://metofficenews.wordpress.com/2012/10/14/met-office-in-the-media-14-october-2012/

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      1. peter_dtm
        Reply Icon
        FAIL

        Re: Behind the curve again

        http://judithcurry.com/2012/10/14/pause-discussion-thread/

        http://judithcurry.com/2012/10/17/pause-waving-the-italian-flag/

        and from WUWT

        http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/10/21/update-and-confirmation-of-global-warming-stopped-16-years-ago/

        Another critic said that climate expert Professor Judith Curry had protested at the way she was represented in our report. However, Professor Curry, a former US National Research Council Climate Research Committee member and the author of more than 190 peer-reviewed papers, responded:

        ‘A note to defenders of the idea that the planet has been warming for the past 16 years. Raise the level of your game. Nothing in the Met Office’s statement . . . effectively refutes Mr Rose’s argument that there has been no increase in the global average surface temperature for the past 16 years.

        ‘Use this as an opportunity to communicate honestly with the public about what we know and what we don’t know about climate change. Take a lesson from other scientists who acknowledge the “pause”.’

        The Met Office now confirms on its climate blog that no significant warming has occurred recently: ‘We agree with Mr Rose that there has only been a very small amount of warming in the 21st Century.’

        end quote

        Note the last paragraph. Note the 'very small amount of warming in the 21st Century' is in fact LESS then the ERRORS and therefore the correct statistical statement is that the warming trend is 0.0 deg C/ decade +/- 0.15 deg C (as the errors are approximately 0.15 deg C ).

        SO

        Phil Jones (CRU) thinks ther is no current significant raise in Global Temperature; the Met Office AGREES with this (even if they weasel their words).

        Oh; and look at the Arctic sea ice recovery; as well as the Antarctic sea ice extent (Antarctic SEA ice; note : the ice floating on the sea AROUND the Antarctic continent). References to source material available from http://wattsupwiththat.com (that is SOURCE material) see the References Tab --> Sea Ice...

        CAGW - probably not; but the climate - it keeps on changing

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      2. Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
        Reply Icon
        FAIL

        Re: Behind the curve again

        ...That was reported, and the Met office immediately put out a statement contradicting it....

        Odd, that. I read the statement. And it didn't contradict the Mail's piece.

        The Mail said that warming had stopped for the last 16 years and that temperatures were flat. The Met Office said that temperatures were indeed flat, but this might be normal. Oddly, that contradicted all the earlier work on this subject (look up Tamino) which indicated that a 5 year flat stretch might happen, but a 15 year one should prompt re-examination of the hypothesis.

        Then they added that the last 10 years held some of the highest temperatures in their data. Which was nothing to do with the original Mail piece, but was included to try to draw attention away from the problem of the halted warming...

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        1. Jerome Fryer
          Reply Icon

          Repeating the same article, when he knew it to be false

          The first question and answer reported:

          http://metofficenews.wordpress.com/2012/10/14/met-office-in-the-media-14-october-2012/

          -----

          Q.1 “First, please confirm that they do indeed reveal no warming trend since 1997.”

          The linear trend from August 1997 (in the middle of an exceptionally strong El Nino) to August 2012 (coming at the tail end of a double-dip La Nina) is about 0.03°C/decade, amounting to a temperature increase of 0.05°C over that period, but equally we could calculate the linear trend from 1999, during the subsequent La Nina, and show a more substantial warming.

          As we’ve stressed before, choosing a starting or end point on short-term scales can be very misleading. Climate change can only be detected from multi-decadal timescales due to the inherent variability in the climate system. If you use a longer period from HadCRUT4 the trend looks very different. For example, 1979 to 2011 shows 0.16°C/decade (or 0.15°C/decade in the NCDC dataset, 0.16°C/decade in GISS). Looking at successive decades over this period, each decade was warmer than the previous – so the 1990s were warmer than the 1980s, and the 2000s were warmer than both. Eight of the top ten warmest years have occurred in the last decade.

          Over the last 140 years global surface temperatures have risen by about 0.8ºC. However, within this record there have been several periods lasting a decade or more during which temperatures have risen very slowly or cooled. The current period of reduced warming is not unprecedented and 15 year long periods are not unusual.

          -----

          Just in case you don't follow that reply: this means, "No, there was a warming trend -- you don't know what you're doing".

          Fiddling with data that you don't understand will produce spurious results, and this rehash of an earlier failure to comprehend the data appears to be entirely politically motivated given that the Met Office already explained his errors and corrected him earlier.

          http://metofficenews.wordpress.com/2012/01/29/met-office-in-the-media-29-january-2012/

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  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Most sheeple will believe anything

    Most people believe whatever they read, hear or are told even when it's complete rubbish.

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  18. Steven Roper
    Facepalm

    Wait until

    their electricity bills triple because of it. We'll see how many of them still believe in AGW when they can no longer afford to run their shinies any more.

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    1. Dr Stephen Jones
      Reply Icon
      Holmes

      Re: Wait until

      People make sacrifices if they think it is worth the pain. Any American action to reduce CO2 is pointless, because the developing countries emit more, and simply ignore what the USA does.

      Steve McIntyre pointed this out recently. Even if the USA reduced CO2 emissions to zero, China's output today is greater than the USA's emissions in 2005.

      The propaganda is not working because no propaganda to reduce CO2 emissions in the USA and Europe will now work.

      Your got post got downvoted because the Greens cannot accept this reality.

      3 1
      1. Terry Barnes
        Reply Icon
        Holmes

        Re: Wait until

        That's illogical though isn't it? A bit like saying that there's no point you not buying a posh new car and HiFi because your wife just spent a ton of money buying new clothes and you're already in financial trouble.

        If other countries are increasing their use, then more technologically advanced countries need to increase their speed of reduction. Essentially you're describing the philosophical problem of "The tragedy of the commons".

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      2. peter_dtm
        Reply Icon
        Happy

        Re: Wait until --> Dr Stephen Jones Posted Sunday 21st October 2012 15:34 GMT

        quote

        Your got post got downvoted because the Greens cannot accept this reality.

        end quote

        Small correction Dr Jones - the 'this' is superfluous :

        Your got post got downvoted because the Greens cannot accept reality.

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  19. sean.fr
    FAIL

    No support for more action

    The key point is not “is there warming”. Rather, where on a scale of serious problems would you put warming compared to other competing serious problems, like heath care, debt, employment, immigration, crime, tax levels? Do you believe the present level of money and regulation put in place by the USA government is too much, about right, or too little? If electors wanted more green money and regulation from government the candidates would be promising it.

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    1. peter_dtm
      Reply Icon
      FAIL

      Re: No support for more action : sean.fr --> Posted Saturday 20th October 2012 21:07 GMT

      No

      It is more like trying to bail out the Titanic with a teaspoon; you would be better employed building a raft or other ADAPTIVE measure to ensure you survive.

      The fact that the ship is more like HMS Victory (ie not only NOT sinking; but because she's not at sea; actually incapable of sinking) makes your comparison even more inappropriate.

      Just remember - the climate changes; always has; always will

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  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Unfortunately

    While popular opinion does not always make science, it certainly influences policy.

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