Great Barrier Reef an icon that half of Australia never visits. Climate change scary as “litter”

Another survey that proves Australians still tick “yes” to motherhood statements. (Especially when there is no cost involved, and all choices are “Free”)

Survey shows Aussies’ love and concern for their Great Barrier Reef

A James Cook University researcher has found more than three quarters of Australians regard the Great Barrier Reef as part of their national identity and nearly 90 per cent believe it is under threat from climate change.

But what the media-release doesn’t say is that after 25 years of hearing how the climate apocalypse is coming, people think climate change is going to be slightly worse than beach litter.

In terms of extreme threats, 6% more people think Climate Change will be worse than flotsam and jetsam. As a multibillion dollar marketing campaign endorsed by the UN, WMO, IMF, and western media — that’s got to hurt. Climate change is not much more scary than litter, ships, or runaway fertilizer.

Figure 3: Respondent perceptions of threats to the Great Barrier Reef as scored on a 10-point scale (1=not at all threatening and 10=extremely threatening). The “Top 2%” refers to the percentage of respondents […]

If they are heard, the Climate-change skeptics win the public opinion war

This study really reinforces how important it is for skeptics to be heard. Just get out there, write letters to the editor, email your MP, and speak up at public events. It does help.

There’s a new long detailed study out struggling with how to keep Climate Fear alive. Oh, the disappointment, exposing people to both sides of the story created more skeptics. The researchers tried all their best angles, like pretending that using expensive energy would “help the economy”, or “free the nation from a dependence on foreign oil”. They tried the religious frame “we’re protecting god’s creation” and they tried what they thought was a nationalist frame (but which was really just another gonzo economic claim dressed up with US-flattery) “Innovative technology will keep our nation’s economy strong”.

Not surprisingly these dud messages don’t work. McCright et al miss the point that if they are selling schemes to change the weather, the best salesman would list the direct benefits — like how much nicer a cooler world will be, with fewer storms and floods, less heatwaves, and more cold days in winter, stuff like that right. (I can’t think why they don’t?) Could it be that no matter […]

54% of Australians skeptics of man-made global warming, 80% don’t donate to environment or vote for it

The devastating result of the latest CSIRO survey: 54% of Australians don’t believe the experts at the IPCC, and are not convinced that humans are the dominant cause of climate change. Starkly, only 28% of Liberal voters agree with Malcolm Turnbull. Amazingly 40% of Labor voters and even a quarter of green voters don’t accept the IPCC litany. Presumably they think humans have some effect but are not the major cause.

More importantly, even most of those who believe are not motivated. When it comes to spending money on the environment, 80% of Australians don’t voluntarily do it and 80% don’t care enough to change their vote because of this issue. Despite all the relentless propaganda, despite all the government funded groups being in lock-step, the trends are slowly falling for believers (from 2010-2014), though not “statistically significantly”. (Though longer term studies from 1990 to now show that falling trend).

The survey: CSIRO — Australian attitudes to Climate Change, 2015 PDF

Don’t miss below how a climate science professor reveals that most of the people he knows just follow their political team’s fashions. How telling? Also below, see how the ABC spins this to meaninglessness to support the […]

New survey: Nearly one third in US say “climate change a total hoax”

How the landscape is shifting. If we give people the right question instead of the usual loaded surveys, they surprise us. Here’s an opinion poll with an outrageously skeptical option: “climate change is a total hoax”.

Bloomberg Politics National Poll

31% of US voters surveyed said they strongly or mostly agreed.

See what happens when you ask a good question?

QUESTION:

I’m going to read stances some candidates have taken on key issues. For each, please tell me if you strongly agree, mostly agree, mostly disagree, or strongly disagree. (Read list. Rotate.)

Total Agree Total Disagree Strongly Agree Mostly agree Mostly Disagree Strongly Disagree Not sure Climate change is a total hoax 31 65 17 14 20 45 4

 

In March 2015 a Gallup poll on Climate Change suggested that 24% of the US population worried “Not at all”. I called these the “implacable skeptics”. I’d argue now that the implacable skeptic group stands at 31% who agree that it is a “total hoax”.

Has it really grown this much since March? Perhaps the ramp up of the US presidential campaign, with Republican candidates like Trump competing to be openly skeptical and even […]

Even after heavy loaded survey lists climate disasters, half of Brits don’t want to pay a cent

The Institute of Mechanical Engineers in the UK (IMechEng) has a new “climate” survey out. It’s good fodder for headlines about fear and worry. But after priming the audience with a litany of climate disasters and asking them if they are worried about “cyclones”, “droughts” and “the future of the human race”, the awful truth is that half of the Brits don’t want to pay anything to stop it.

It’s another motherhood-two-cent-survey, meaning it asks motherhood type questions and gets everyone’s “2 cents” on an issue (and it’s worth both cents). We get insights like finding that 64% think global warming is “already a problem”, but it can’t be that big a deal because 52% of people don’t think they personally should pay more in tax in an effort to do something about it.

No hard questions are asked, no one is forced to rank the worries of life, only the worries of the climate industry. Evidently the surveyors don’t really want to know if people think “climate change” is man-made. Nor do they want to know how much people want to spend attempting to change the weather. Money is only a Yes No type question.

As usual, there are […]

What consensus? Less than half of climate scientists agree with the IPCC “95%” certainty

I used to think there was a consensus among government-funded certified climate scientists, but a better study by Verheggen Strengers, Verheegen, and Vringer shows even that is not true.[1] The “97% consensus” is now 43%.

Finally there is a decent survey on the topic, and it shows that less than half of what we would call “climate scientists” who research the topic and for the most part, publish in the peer reviewed literature, would agree with the IPCC’s main conclusions. Only 43% of climate scientists agree with the IPCC “95%” certainty.

More than 1800 international scientists studying various aspects of climate change (including climate physics, climate impacts, and mitigation) responded to the questionnaire. Some 6550 people were invited to participate in this survey, which took place in March and April 2012. Respondents were picked because they had authored articles with the key words ‘global warming’ and/or ‘global climate change’, covering the 1991–2011 period, via the Web of Science, or were included the climate scientist database assembled by Jim Prall, or just by a survey of peer reviewed climate science articles. Prall’s database includes some 200 names that have criticized mainstream science and about half had only published in […]

UK youth unconvinced about climate change — peak believers 30-50 years old

I’ve discussed the big ComRes/ITV survey before, which showed that 62% of UK citizens are skeptics and are not convinced that humans are changing the weather. This is the same interesting survey which also showed that the highest proportion of skeptics were in the educated upper middle class, and the lowest was in the unskilled workers and pensioners. I didn’t explain then that this survey also split the groups according to age. So here (finally) are those graphs. Fittingly the young are undecided and the wise are more skeptical. But surprisingly there is a peak believer age, and that’s around 35 – 44. Either this generation has been assailed with more propaganda than any other, or something else is going on.

Is this the beginnings of the youthful revolution? Only 20% 34% of 18 – 24 year olds would be called believers?

They quizzed 2047 people from across the UK early last year and I’ve graphed the results according to age, and the “peak believer” band is clearly visible. In all three questions I colored believers red, and skeptics blue. The undecided are grey.

People generally switch from the “don’t know” category when they are young into the skeptic camp […]

Most Australians are skeptical: mankind is not main driver of the climate

The IPCC has told us in letters of fire for twenty years that humans are the dominant cause of climate change. But despite the unending propaganda 60% of Australians are not convinced. This fits with other better designed and much larger surveys by CSIRO showing that 53% of the population are skeptical, and a UK study which showed that 63% of British people were skeptical that storms and floods are probably man-made.

The IPSOS polls have been running for years, and are unashamedly pro-IPCC in leaning, but despite that obvious bias, and loaded, ambiguous questions, most Australians don’t agree that it is mainly our fault. The climate is changing but it is mainly or partly natural. IPSOS gloss over that, but if humans are responsible for less than half of “climate change” that makes Direct Action twice as useless. If natural forces caused more of the recent warming, that also reduces the scary projections.

The IPSOS Climate Change Report 2015 (Online poll, 1,063 people)

Q3: Which best describes your opinion about the causes of climate change?

Only 40% of Australians accept the IPCC position that mankind is the main cause of climate change (orange and red). | Click […]

Youth are rebelling against climate dogma: at 18-20, nearly half in US are skeptical

The X-Gens will be the maximal climate believers. The worm is turning with an uptick in skeptical thinking coming from the late-Millennials (born after 1994) who are just now starting to reach a voting age*. This group was raised on climate dogma and relentless propaganda, and the age-old rebellion of youth is starting to kick in. The big-scare-campaign may have missed its moment; it’s been pushed too hard for too long. Not only have the PDO and other natural cycles rolled into unfriendly cooler-wetter zones, but the generational wheel is rolling too.

It used to be that the older the survey group, the more skeptical it was. Youth are easily fooled by passion and namecalling. But new evidence suggests the rebellion factor is kicking in: 20% of 18-20 year olds in the US are implacable skeptics, and 23% are unconvinced. After twenty years of propaganda 55% of the generation “believe”, and only 12% are passionate. More of the same is not going to increase that. There is real hope here.

Data comes from Harvard Public Opinion Project. (PDF, currently not publicly available)

H/t GWPF

Harvard Political Review “For Young Voters, Climate Change Takes a Back Seat“

[…]

“Moral duty” poll: 57% don’t think UN Scientists can speak with authority on climate

New study says going on about “moral duty” will convince the skeptics (Sure, load on the guilt trip)

Last weekend a Reuters IPSOS survey found that if you ask the right questions, a majority of Americans see climate change as a moral obligation. The brains trust inferred from this that the climate propaganda groups ought to load up on discussing values to convince conservatives as if that might be the magic key.

“The moral imperative is the way to reach out to conservatives,” said Rev. Mitch Hescox, president of the Evangelic Environmental Network, a large evangelical organization that advocates for action on climate change. “Talking in terms of values is the only way forward if we are to bring our fellow Republicans along.”

UPDATE: Results of the online poll 2,412

Thanks to Pat for finding the survey. How the full results change the picture. Half the population are skeptics. And most people distrust experts, politicians, and even UN scientists.

Q6. Which of the following people, if any, do you think can speak with authority

about global warming? UN scientists 43% Bill Nye (the Science Guy) 31% Al Gore 18% President Obama 18% Neil deGrasse Tyson […]

Study shows skeptics know more about climate science than believers

UPDATE Dan Kahan has replied in Comment #54.

So much for the theory that skeptics are dumb or uninformed. Fox News reports that a new study shows that when people are quizzed about climate science, the skeptics outscored the believers.

Dan Kahan at Yale did the study on 2,000 people, but with only nine questions, so there is limited insight here, but it fits with his previous study which found people who knew more about maths and science were more likely to be skeptical. Readers of skeptical blogs (who chose to respond to surveys and list their qualifications in comments) are likely to have hard science degrees. The world is slowly waking up to the fact that the skeptics are more knowledgeable about science.

In a proper science quiz, the gap would probably be even larger. On two of the nine questions, skeptics got the science right. But believers “outscored” skeptics at repeating the propaganda (which shouldn’t be a question in a survey about scientific knowledge). I’d like to see all nine questions (can anyone find a preprint or the paper?)

Skeptics get science right:

One question, for instance, asked if scientists believe that warming would […]

Public are not buying science “experts” opinions: AAAS survey shows 30-50% gap

There is a large gap between what the certified appointed experts say and what the public thinks on GM, Climate Change, pesticides, ethics, and sigh, on evolution. The researchers were “surprised” that a collective pool of university educated, largely government employed scientists have a different spread of opinions to the population at large. On climate change half of the public are skeptics that man-made effects are dominant. In the AAAS, 87% of scientists think it is. But despite twenty years of propaganda the public are not buying their message.

UPDATE: Given that 48% of Meteorologists are skeptics and survey after survey shows that two-thirds of geoscientists and engineers are skeptics, the 87% figure “across the sciences” seems hard to believe. 3748 members of AAAS took the survey — and as A.Scott points out on WUWT in comments, only 7% of the respondents were from the Earth Sciences, and nearly half were “biomedical”. Link to the survey Questions. See TdeF in comment. H/t to Michael for the tip about Scott.

The answer is not more propaganda, it’s open public debate

To resolve the gap, scientists naturally think the public needs more education. But perhaps it’s the scientists who need […]

65% of US population are skeptical that each flood drought or heatwave is mostly “man-made”

How big is the Green B-lobby? So big, whole research projects are devoted to better ways to push propaganda onto voters. In this case, it turns out that despite an international PR blitz to unscientifically link your car exhaust to extreme floods in Bangladesh (etc and so forth), 65% of the US public just aren’t buying it. Instead the study finds that people are actually not too bad at judging whether a season was warmer than usual. (Was anyone surprised at this after 500 million years of evolution?). Disappointingly, though, for those pushing the climate propaganda, the meme that man-made global warming is to blame for all heatwaves, snowfalls, floods, hurricanes, and reckless fish is not working.

“Only 35 percent of U.S. citizens believe global warming was the main cause of the abnormally high temperatures during the winter of 2012”

This is a cruel blow to climate change activists. They had pinned their hopes on generating fear among voters by trying to associate every storm and bad-hair day to man-made global warming. But two-thirds of the public are not fooled. Even when they “personally experience” abnormally warm winters, or even hear news of a whole series of severe […]

Farmers and Ag advisors not convinced by climatologists

Just another survey that takes useful results, interprets with false assumptions, and produces mostly meaningless conclusions. Vale academia.

Farmers are a skeptical bunch, who watch the weather very closely– only 8% buy the whole article-of-faith that man-made climate is the dominant factor, compared to 50 – 66% of climate scientists.

Prokopy et al start from the unspoken assumption that climate scientists know what they are talking about (even though their models are abjectly failing) and try to figure out why farmers aren’t worried about climate change. At no point do they question that inbuilt paradigm and ask the opposite question — are climate scientists failing to convince farmers because the climate scientists are doing bad work? So they miss the obvious recommendation that climate scientists need to figure out the climate before they start the communications cycle. It’s a lesson in how important it is for all scientists to define their terms and state all their assumptions.

When Prokopyu et al manage to come up with a useful suggestion it’s largely by accident. They recommend two-way dialogues between stakeholders and climate scientists (what a wild idea). Can I suggest that climate scientists start by using English, instead of namecalling […]

Half the world is immune to “expert consensus” they don’t think scientists know what they are talking about

The headline here is that nearly half the population don’t think climate scientists know what they are talking about. Effectively thse people are immune to the 97% consensus figure. Who cares if most “experts” agree, if the blind are leading the blind? The most skeptical of environmental scientists were the people of China, Japan, and Germany. Two thirds of Swedes, on the other hand, still trust environmental scientists.

Ipsos Mori conducted this massive survey. Though, like many international multi-lingual endevours, there are confounding conflicts in the answers. All up, 16,000 online adults based in 20 countries were asked some interesting questions, and sometimes their answers made sense, but unfortunately we just can’t be sure when. In China 75% of respondents think scientists don’t know what they are talking about; 51% think that current climate change is natural, but 93% think it is also largely man-made. So 42% think that it’s our fault but it’s also natural. I suspect there is a language barrier. The Chinese were simultaneously the most paranoid cynics and the most dutiful recyclers. They were the third most skeptical nation while being the single most fervent believers and both simultaneously. Perhaps someone who knows more about China […]

Only 3% of Americans name “environment” as top issue.

The Gallup poll results for May show the environment is not the most important issue for 97% of Americans. Golly, but those naming the environment as the top concern tripled from 1% – 3% from April to May. It’s a blip up in a long term trend that’s falling. H/t to Brietbart.com.

How many times do people need to tell politicians that being a skeptic isn’t the vote killer that some commentators would like you to believe? Even people who believe in man-made global warming just aren’t as concerned about the environment as they are about jobs, corruption, and the economy.

Which politician will make cleaning out corruption their trademark policy?

Where’s the balance?

According to some the media doesn’t report on climate often enough. But where’s the “balance” — if 97% of the public are more concerned about something else, perhaps the message should be something else?

For those all-knowing super intelligent beings who protest that the public won’t worry about the right things if you don’t tell them, we can only ask if 20 years of non-stop campaigns, reports, advertising, documentaries, and Nobel Prize winning (flawed) documentaries are enough?

9.7 out of 10 based on 70 […]

Public are terminally bored with climate. Anderegg denies devastating Climategate damage

The big news from this new study is no news — the public are more bored with climate change than ever, and the trend is down. The fever peaked in 2007, and the last great spike of interest was in late 2009 when ClimateGate finished it off. Though that’s not the way Anderegg sees it.

Anderegg infamously published the blacklist of scientists in PNAS, so we know he struggles with the scientific method. Here, flawed assumptions render the conclusions a wishful fantasy. Anderegg argues that ClimateGate was not a big deal, didn’t affect opinions much, and (yawn) climate scientists need to do better communication. He’s wrong. His study misses the major damage — by assuming that the public are a uniform block his research could never uncover that the real effects of ClimateGate were devastating and irreversible. The scandal changed the opinions that matter — those of the smart engaged thinkers and leaders. I noted at the time that ClimateGate had put a rocket under the layer of influential busy achievers like never before. Suddenly people who hadn’t taken much interest in the debate were fired into action by the fraud. The nodes of influence shifted — as I said […]

Almost everything the media tells you about skeptics is wrong: they’re engineers and hard scientists. They like physics too.

In the mainstream media, skeptics are called Flat-Earthers, Deniers, and ideologues who deny basic physics. So it’s no surprise that they are exactly the opposite. A recent survey of 5,286 readers of leading skeptical blogs (eg here, WattsUp) shows that the people driving the skeptical debate are predominantly engineers and hard scientists with backgrounds like maths, physics and chemistry. Which group in the population are least likely to deny basic physics? Skeptics.

I asked Mike Haseler for more details:

around half of respondents had worked in engineering and a quarter in science around 80% had degrees of which about 40% were “post graduate” qualified. Respondents were asked which areas they had formal “post-school qualification”. A third said “physics/chemistry. One third said maths. Just under 40% said engineering. 40% said they had post school training in computer programming.

Furthermore, the media “debate” is nothing like the real debate. Four out of five skeptics agree our emissions cause CO2 levels to rise, that Co2 causes warming, and that global temperatures have increased. In other words, the mainstream media journalists have somehow entirely missed both the nature of the skeptics and the nature of the debate.

The so called “experts” (say like Stephan […]

Australia: more skeptics than believers, and few really care about “Climate change”

First up, despite the endless repetition in the media that the science is settled and the evidence is overwhelming, the latest CSIRO survey shows 53% of the Australian population don’t agree that “humans are causing climate change”. When the ABC gives 50% of its climate budget and time to skeptical arguments we will know it is fulfilling its charter. Right now, the ABC serves less than half the population. Secondly, even with 47% of the population agreeing that humans are “largely” causing climate change, many of these people still don’t think climate change will be that bad. The issue “Climate Change” ranks 14 out of 16 general concerns, and among environmental concerns a pathetic 7th out of 8. It seems a large section of the 47% think the warming will be minor, or even beneficial. The CSIRO has done another clumsy survey, the fourth in a series, still not learning that inaccurate survey terms make the results of most questions meaningless. The unmistakable bottom line from this is that only a minority of Australians think that humans are changing the climate in an important way. Most Australians are more concerned about their health, their income, their job, water shortages, or […]

UK poll: 62% don’t believe in man-made climate. Educated high income classes more skeptical than unskilled

Last week a new ComRes/ITV poll came out in the UK. The poll of 2,047 people from across the country shows that the population is split roughly into thirds. A third are skeptics, a third are believers, a third don’t know. Overall about 60% of UK citizens are not convinced that humans are changing the weather.

What was also really interesting but unreported about this study is that the wealthiest and most educated are more skeptical and those with the lowest income or shortest education were more likely to believe that humans are affecting the climate. In the upper middle class 36% think the floods are due to human activity, and virtually the same percentage — 35% are skeptics. In the manual worker and less skilled social bracket 44% think humans are to blame, and only 28% are skeptics. The skeptic message is winning over the upper class, better educated bracket. Presumably the rest will follow.

Firstly, most people think the weather is getting worse (red bar) — 65% of all the population. This belief is most common in the lowest income and less educated bracket.

Figure 1: Results from the question “Weather in the UK seems to get […]