Poll: AGW global warming, belief vs. skepticism
Here’s an interesting poll on the subject:
Over the past decade, Americans have clustered into three broad groups on global warming. The largest, currently describing 39% of U.S. adults, are what can be termed “Concerned Believers” — those who attribute global warming to human actions and are worried about it. This is followed by the “Mixed Middle,” at 36%. And one in four Americans — the “Cool Skeptics” — are not worried about global warming much or at all.
The “interesting” part is that, except for that “mixed middle” group (which has less education than the others), the groups don’t differ in their amount of education. Also, men are much more likely to be in that “cool skeptic” group (as are Republicans, which is no surprise at all—and men are more likely to be Republicans anyway).
Also interesting is the following chart, which tracks changes over time. You can see how the “cool skeptics” group has grown and the “mixed middle” shrunk. The “concerned believers” segment has had a few ups and downs, but has ended up pretty much where it began:
Men are most likely to be Republican because we are the superior sex. Now back to the kitchen with you woman!
Global warming is the biggest fraud in history.
Disagree, Cornhead; I pick Communism. AlGorebull Worming is danged big, though.
Addendum: biggest fraud in US history.
A lot of money those robber barons are making off Green money there.
I would guess that the 39% who are warmists would also line up as believers in the need for central control of the economy. I have yet to discuss or debate the issue with a warmist, who wasn’t convinced that the Gubmint could actually mitigate AGW. It’s a theory that lines up so well with the instinct for central planning/big government, they go together like two peas in a pod. The irrational inability of the warmists to consider any evidence that contradicts their theory is something you see from religious fanatics, not rational scientists.
The mixed middle are those who don’t want to take the time to consider all the evidence and kind of blow with the prevailing winds. And the MSM winds blow in the direction of “settled science.” It’s not easy to get the information on both sides of the issue. You have to seek it out.
The cool skeptics, of which I’m one, have considered the evidence for AGW and found it unconvincing. Of course, we are also the ones who are most against central planning. Even if the evidence was stronger for AGW, we would still be in favor of adaptation versus central planning for mitigation.
It’s extremely unfortunate that defeating the warmists is maybe one of the most important issues of our time because AGW is a tool, just like the Endangered Species Act, to deprive us of our private property rights and freedom.
The NIPCC (Nongovernmental Panel on Climate Change ) recently published their findings and not surprising to us Cool Skeptics, concluded any minuscule warming trend that was observable ended 17 years ago. There are some other interesting conclusions, also somewhat intuitive, such as natural global warming produces a greener planet and higher crop output. Global cooling leads to famine in animal and human populations, so it’s better to pick warming over cooling if you set out to change the climate. The summary conclusions can be found here:
http://climatechangereconsidered.org
The summary for policy makers is straightforward and easy to read..
Regarding education not being a discriminating factor, it would be interesting to break down what the college degrees were in for the believer and skeptics. I’d hypothesize the believers are predominantly liberal arts and non-technical type educations – in any case I don’t think the study could conclude education isn’t a strong discriminator, because it makes no distinction between a degree in English literature and one in physics, engineering, medicine, etc.
AGW is based on computer models. That’s the basis of their ‘settled science’. The consensus of climate scientists knows one thing with certainty; they know where their bread is buttered. As a result AGW is now causing droughts, floods, heat waves, the polar vortex, above average number of hurricanes, below average number of hurricanes, and lions laying down with lambs whenever lions are not busy eating lambs. Hogwash.
Parker, well said. It seems to be the only branch of physical science where the same input – ostensibly more CO2, produces exactly opposite responses. That alone should cause the inquisitive and educated to pause a moment and wonder where increasing the same variable into the same closed system causes opposite things to occur. In order to believe this, you have to substitute faith for reason, and delegate the thinking to people you believe to be Impartial experts. AWG is a huge political movement, not a scientific one. Like eugenics and other “settled science”, it’s dangerous irresponsible when science is politicized.
Parker
Check out Powerlineblog. It ran a story that stated that the computer models are very simple and without a full set of variables. If the models were realistic, it would take years to come up with a result.
I found that very significant and I had not seen that fact before.
To give a lighter version of Harry in the first comment, men (in general) are more rational than women, which is why more men are in hard sciences and are conservative in larger numbers. Women are more easily swayed by emotional arguments, plus in aggregate want someone taking care of them. This is why “game” works on so many women.
Effectively democrats “game” women with emotion and offers of fixing everything while republicans sit there explaining things with rational logic and telling them they will have to make and live with their own choices. Guess which one goes home with the hot chick? It isn’t until women are rational moms with kids and a budget that they figure out that beta republican might have been on to something.
I dont know DM. My comment was pretty light to start with!
March 24, 2014 edition of Powerlineblog.
The only way to prove, at the level of Newton’s Law proof, these hypothesis is to conduct an experiment that demonstrates human control.
Such as for example, evolution can be definitely proven by creating a new species using bio tech. A viable new species, not merely a mutation.
For global warming caused by man, that hypothesis can be proven by terraforming a celestial body, like Mars. Global, warming.
But the Left Will Never be able to succeed in these experiments. They can’t even imagine trying. It’s not something that helps them in their goal of enslaving humanity, you see.
“Like eugenics and other “settled science”, it’s dangerous irresponsible when science is politicized.”
southpaw,
Very dangerous and just another progressive thread in the warp and weft of totalitarianism.
“It ran a story that stated that the computer models are very simple and without a full set of variables.”
cornhead,
The models have to be simplistic. To paraphrase Rumsfeld; there are known knowns, there are known unknowns, there are unknown unknowns, and then there is the sun and oscillations in our orbit around the sun. The progressives worship gaia but do not comprehend that gaia is a fickle mistress answering to the sun, not man.
Just another survey of LIV.
It’s all a part of their matrix.
Blue pills for blue voters for blue emotions.
Ymarsakar – interesting you mentioned observing another planet. I recall reading a study conducted which measured (through satellite telescopes ) surface temperatures of several observable planets in the solar system, one being mars. To nobody’s surprise, surface temperature changes on other planets correlated very closely to those on earth. Indicating that solar activity was the predominant means of temperature increases on earth too. I will have to see if I can find that one. Its. Been a few years.
I wonder if 35-40% of humans aren’t just born suckers irrespective of the issue at hand, just plain stupidly and determinedly d-u-m-b, and I do not mean ‘retarded’. You know, like there is a placebo effect 20% of the time regardless of the symptom being “treated” by the placebo or the IQs of the placebo takers.
I mean, BHO still has an approval rating of approx. 40%
The assertion by the “concerned believers” is basically this: That over the last 150 years, the “average” temperature of the earth has risen from ~288.0 Kelvin to ~288.8 Kelvin.
Hysteria is a communicable disease.
Here’s what’s behind the theory of AGW is about. If I Wanted America to Fail:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=UULl6rgDuUBD2jMDM8jeYqmg&v=CZ-4gnNz0vc
I did some rather cursory course work in the computer science area that included modeling. What I learned caused me to be skeptical of any predictions based on very complex models. This is true even if there is high confidence that most parameters are accounted for, and are measured with some accuracy. But, then you have to achieve the next step and account for the interaction of the parameters. This probably necessitates assumptions, lots of them; and your assumptions must be very well controlled. Whew!
Several years ago I approached two friends who not only studied the art of modeling much deeper than did I (they call it science), but who went on to make their livings, very nice ones, in analytical fields that frequently used modeling tools. In answer to my question as to their confidence in the ability to model climate, they came across as cool skeptics–or serious doubters depending on your perspective.
Any residual confidence that I had in the AGW predictions was completely undercut when I learned that the advocates were either unwilling to share their data, or had unquestionably falsified data.
The two phrases which most often apply when the government is involved in any issue are:
1. “Unexpectedly” and 2. “Unintended consequences”. We should never forget those descriptions, and they should be taught in all civics classes (if there they still exist).
“This probably necessitates assumptions, lots of them; and your assumptions must be very well controlled. Whew!”
When your assumptions are based upon increased funding and appearing on the MSM to tout AGW, they cease to be mere assumptions, they become calculated actions for personal enrichment and ego polishing.
Mathematicians have long pondered the question of complexity. Some problems are easy to calculate, some take a little more time, while a lot of them seemed insurmountable – requiring more pencils, paper, and time than ever existed. They kicked these into the oddities attic, disgusting them over a few beers on occasion.
With the advent of digital computers they dusted off those moldy old problems and set to work. Lo and behold they found a vast number of problems that can not be solved by any conceivable computer in finite time.
Mind you, these problems are very well defined and very well behaved. It’s just that the number of calculations increase polynomially with the number of variables.
When you throw in cranky behavior (discontinuous functions) you can’t even state the problem correctly. These kinds of problems are called “chaotic”. Examples: weather, climate, the stock market, the economy, human behavior,…
The mathematically rational person says that any attempt to predict the weather beyond next week is the province of the terminally clueless.
Oldflyer, unfortunately, old-style Civics classes were terminated in the early 1970s — and that’s in the South.
The communists have been playing a looooong game.
Roy, are you talking about chaos theory? Chaos mathematics didn’t feature in the manmade global warming model, IIRC: that alone would invalidate it, because (bear with me, I’m an English major!) any system that involves fluid dynamics (i.e., atmosphere, oceans, etc.) on a large scale HAS to be modeled with chaos mathematics.
Is that right?
parker@8:15pm:
I’ve always believed (at least since I took astronomy in college) that those who want to truly understand climate and how it changes on earth are studying the sun.
Beverly, you are 100% right. I am a specialist in fluid dynamics, thermodynamics and, because of this, in non-linear stochastic dynamics, and Chaos theory is the most important discovery of the latter. In every process when coupled partial differential equations describe the system, a chaotic behavior is suspect, and in ocean and atmosphere circulation this is well established long ago, since Edward Lorentz, a meteorologist, discovered the first strange attractor in 1963 while modelling weather on IBM 360 for purposes of weather forecast. All firther developments in the field of Chaos theory stem from this early attempt in modelling weather, and the equations for global coupled ocean and atmosphere circulations are exactly of the kind Lorentz used. But it is impossible to solve these without lots of simplifications which make them completely useless.
Do you know Ed Belbruno, Sergey? taught chaos math at Princeton; worked on ballistic capture trajectories for spacecraft.
I must add that no real world system with chaotic behaviour can be successfully modelled for purpose of prognosis being inherently instable and so unpredictable. Modelling approach for such systems is wrong in principle, all such attempts are waste of money and effort. See “butterfly effect” as explanation: infinitely small disturbance in initial conditions exponentially grow in time, and no observational data can be error free.
No, I never heard of him. But I know that chaotic behaviour is much more often than people think, it is rather widespread in universe and even celestial mechanic gives examples of it. This has profound philosophical consequencies for principal limitations of all scientific knowledge: Universe itself has some “free will”, or principal unpredictability, and we never be able to know future for sure even in the most general terms.
They dealt with AGW in the book SuperFreakonomics (while not a huge fan of the book, it is certainly interesting).
They featured a group believing ‘scientists’ that were actively working on a free market approach which they really thought would work. They were shocked why none of the people in the industry (for lack of a better term) or government were interested in talking with them.
After reading that, I was firmly moved to hard corp skeptic. Of course, many people who might not believe may not want to admit it to the pollsters given the demonization of skeptics that has occurred.
Chaotic systems are all around us. I’ll bet you have a couple hiding in your basement. Here’s an extraordinarily simple machine that goes all gollywompers real quick:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U39RMUzCjiU
Ever notice how global warming has become climate change? Or how climate scientists appeal to authority not the data or the reliability of their models?
It is anything but science.
One of the most amazing thing about chaotic systems is that a very simple system can have a very complex behaviour. There is no need for complexity in system itself to produce chaos. This discovery was recently recognized by giving Abel Prize (equivalent of Nobel Prize for mathematicians) to Russian mathematician Yakov Sinai, a disciple of Kolmogorov, discoverer of Chaos Theory. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakov_Sinai
Belbruno (I interviewed him years ago):
Edward Belbruno (born 1951 in Heidelberg, Germany) is a mathematician whose interests are in celestial mechanics, dynamical systems, dynamical astronomy, and aerospace engineering. Belbruno received his Associate Degree from Mitchell College, his Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics from New York University, and his PhD in mathematics from New York University’s Courant Institute in 1981, where his mentor was mathematician Jé¼rgen Moser.
He was employed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory from 1985 to 1990 as an orbital analyst on such missions as Galileo, Magellan, Cassini, Ulysses, Mars Observer, and others.
During that time, he laid the foundations for the first systematic application of chaos theory to space flight originally called “fuzzy boundary theory,” which allows for the construction of very low energy paths for spacecraft.
In 1990 Belbruno applied his ideas for low-energy transfer orbits to the Japanese lunar probe Hiten, which had been designed only for lunar swing-by and had suffered a failure of the Hagoromo lunar orbiter. The main Hiten probe lacked the fuel to enter lunar orbit using a conventional Hohmann transfer trajectory, but Belbruno was able to devise a ballistic capture trajectory that would put it in lunar orbit using only a negligible amount of fuel. The probe entered lunar orbit in 1991, the first time that Belbruno’s ideas had been put to the test.
Belbruno had first proposed using a low-energy transfer orbit for a JPL probe in 1988. However, he faced a great deal of skepticism, and found himself in conflict with engineers. He had also expected to make no progress on Hiten, but the Japanese proved receptive to his ideas and called ballistic capture an “amazing result.”
Belbruno is president and founder of the company Innovative Orbital Design, Inc., based in Princeton, New Jersey, and holds patents on routes in space. He consulted on the rescue of the Asiasat-3 communications satellite for Hughes, although a different trajectory was ultimately used for the rescue.<<