Global-Warming Skepticism Hits 6-Year High 846
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Chris Mooney writes at Mother Jones that a new study, from the Yale and George Mason University research teams on climate change communication, shows a 7-percentage-point increase in the proportion of Americans who say they do not believe that global warming is happening. And that's just since the spring of 2013. The number of deniers is now 23 percent; back at the start of last year, it was 16 percent (PDF). The obvious question is, what happened over the last year to produce more climate denial? The answer may lie in the so-called global warming "pause"—the misleading idea that global warming has slowed down or stopped over the the past 15 years or so. This claim was used by climate skeptics, to great effect, in their quest to undermine the release of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Fifth Assessment Report in September 2013—precisely during the time period that is in question in the latest study. "The notion of a global warming "pause" is, at best, the result of statistical cherry-picking," writes Mooney. " It relies on starting with a very hot year (1998) and then examining a relatively short time period (say, 15 years), to suggest that global warming has slowed down or stopped during this particular stretch of time." Put these numbers back into a broader context and the overall warming trend remains clear. "If you shift just 2 years earlier, so use 1996-2010 instead of 1998-2012, the trend is 0.14 C per decade, so slightly greater than the long-term trend," explains Drew Shindell, a climate scientist at NASA who was heavily involved in producing the IPCC report. This is why climate scientists generally don't seize on 15 year periods and make a big thing about them. "Journalists take heed: Your coverage has consequences. All those media outlets who trumpeted the global warming "pause" may now be partly responsible for a documented decrease in Americans' scientific understanding.""
Re:Count on every Warmist... (Score:5, Informative)
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/12/22/3099141/climate-denying-groups-funding/ [thinkprogress.org]
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dark-money-funds-climate-change-denial-effort/ [scientificamerican.com]
http://guardianlv.com/2013/12/climate-change-denial-a-billion-dollar-industry-of-fabrication-says-study/ [guardianlv.com]
(sampled from the first few hits for: https://www.google.es/search?q=climate+change+denial+lobby+billions [google.es] }
Re:the sky is (not) falling... you're thinking abo (Score:2, Informative)
Stare at this honey till your eyes fall out: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9d/Kyoto_Protocol_participation_map_2009.png/800px-Kyoto_Protocol_participation_map_2009.png [wikimedia.org]
Re:An ode to wankery (Score:5, Informative)
It's not a peer-reviewed study, it's an informal systematic review.
http://www.desmogblog.com/2012/11/15/why-climate-deniers-have-no-credibility-science-one-pie-chart [desmogblog.com]
Re:An ode to wankery (Score:4, Informative)
...and it's 0.01% of published literature, not scientists.
Re:Show me a climate model for the past 16 years (Score:4, Informative)
The best models that they have are ones that have as part of them global warming. Can you point us at other models that have produced better predictions ?
No, I thought not ... so let us go with the best models that we have, even if they do have flaws.
Re:An ode to wankery (Score:2, Informative)
Don't know about 0.01%
But NASA claims 3% deny climate change: http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus [nasa.gov]
Remember that "scientists" are also mostly non-experts. Just non-experts with a higher average IQ.
Re:This isn't helping... (Score:5, Informative)
Try reading and you'll see it says nothing of the kind. [bloomberg.com]
The country is facing growing public pressure from citizens to reduce air pollution, due in large part to burning coal. Its efforts to promote energy efficiency and renewable power stem from the realization that doing so will pay off in the long term, Figueres said. “They actually want to breathe air that they don’t have to look at,” she said. “They’re not doing this because they want to save the planet. They’re doing it because it’s in their national interest.” China is also able to implement policies because its political system avoids some of the legislative hurdles seen in countries including the U.S., Figueres said.
There's no "only", there's no "this is the right way to do it", there's nothing like that. There's just "China is doing these things, this is why China is able to do these things".
Good page on debunking the "pause" (Score:5, Informative)
Too bad this wasn't linked in TFS:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/news/recent-pause-in-warming [metoffice.gov.uk]
Re:Which shows that people don't understand (Score:4, Informative)
It does. End of story.
Oh, you wanted a document? What about doing your own research, you lazy slacker?
http://nsidc.org/cryosphere/glaciers/questions/climate.html [nsidc.org]
http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence [nasa.gov]
http://www.geosociety.org/positions/position10.htm [geosociety.org]
(etc.. etc...)
And you are conflaing two things: the aquifer situation is the western United States, which is very preoccupying, to say the least, and global warming, which is definitely not going to improve the situation of said aquifers.
Re:Propaganda Piece fudges truth . . . News at 11 (Score:5, Informative)
Your "translation" is a complete nonsequeter: the article states that a 17-year window is a necessary condition, not that it's a sufficient one.
Re:Which shows that people don't understand (Score:3, Informative)
At this stage, you do not need to "marginalize the non-believers," they have done that nicely for themselves. The real scientific debates over this were back in the 1980's, for pete's sake (I participated in some of them). Now it's all just politics.
Re:Which shows that people don't understand (Score:5, Informative)
If I google "California rainfall reconstruction" (because there weren't many rain meters out in California in the 1800s) I get a pile of articles on the subject showing data going back over 1000 years:
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=california+rainfall+reconstruction [google.co.uk]
Re:Which shows that people don't understand (Score:5, Informative)
Here's a Scholar link [google.co.uk] which gives more relevant results.
Re:Propaganda Piece fudges truth . . . News at 11 (Score:5, Informative)
There is no huge record of colds in the northern hemisphere.
You know, Europe, also Skandinavia (which technically belongs to Europe), Russia (yes, left side of it is also Europe) IS ALSO IN THE NORTHERN HEMISPHERE
And here we have since decades records warmth winters. Particular this one. You know: Finnland, polar circle, christmas: +7 degrees centigrade. That is ridiculous warm it should have been around -30 degrees centigrade, or colder. Note: if you missed the small word: polarcircle.
Re:Which shows that people don't understand (Score:2, Informative)
Do you have some smarter troll friends that could help you out here? The entire premise of AGW is that humans are driving climate change faster than it would normally happen, which naturally involves studying every kind of historical data scientists can get their hands on.
Re:Count on every Warmist... (Score:5, Informative)
You realised you linked to a search with one result about a pro-climate-change lobby, and all the rest are reports on anti-climate-change lobbying efforts several times it size?
Re:Show me a climate model for the past 16 years (Score:5, Informative)
That's how you derive models for simple systems, and parameterise models where we already know that a particular function is a good fit - you probably fitted force to strain using Hooke's law as your function to find the force constant of a spring. Unfortunately we already know that climate is a good deal more complicated than Hooke's law; in systems like these there has to be some physical justification to the model that you're using. Otherwise you might be fitting to a large number of points but only forecasting a few, as these authors are, and therefore your model is likely to be overfit and therefore unsound. Or you could just create a good model by dumb luck. Remember epicycles?
Re:People are tired of the endless guilt trip. (Score:4, Informative)
I believe at the turn of the 19th century, your sentiment was called "turn of the century ennui". So many new things, so many changes, and almost all of them with some negative downside. Electricity? The devil's magic that had none of the charm of real fire. Cars? Toys for the rich that just destroyed good jobs. Etc. To some extent, you're in good company: feeling overwhelmed by change is nothing new. The trick is to do change right. Here, let me help you:
Do you use reusable grocery bags? Then you better be sure that you clean them good enough, otherwise you could get sick from the germs.
Or as an alternative, don't use it to transport broken eggs, loose lettuce, freshly ground meat or fish in a newspaper. If you use reusable bags for dry or at least properly sealed goods (which is about 95% of anybody's groceries these days) and compostable plastic bags for every thing, you're golden without changing anything.
Do you use new plastic bag? Then here is this documentary about a sea torturous who dies from eating your plastic bag that you threw away.
Well, yes. It's fine if one person tosses a plastic bag once. If millions do it multiple times every day, you're going to affect your own environment. In short: don't shit where you live. Which is all of earth, now.
How about if you stick with good old paper? Your Cold/Frozen food creates condensation and break the bag and you waste all this food.
Not sure whether this is hyperbole or not, but.... if you leave your paper bag out long enough that your frozen food creates so much condensation it breaks the bag, you're either using paper bags designed for holding a lunch sandwich, or your frozen food melted and it needs to be tossed anyway. Not to mention that even if the bag breaks, the food isn't wasted. Unless, of course, you carry frozen fish straight in the bag, in which case... you're still doing it wrong.
A hybrid, which needs more green house gasses to build.
You're referring to a widely debunked study that assumed many wrong things, the most egregious though being that Prius owners replace their cars every 6 years or so, and Hummer drivers replace theirs every 20 years. Stay up to date with your research, or at least read the stuff you're quoting.
A small, car which cannot carry enough people and good thus needing an extra car.
A medium sized car, which gives off more carbon, and yet still doesn't fit everything you need.
A large car/Suv/Truck you can carry what you need however a lot of time you just polluting gas.
Your needs analysis needs updating. 95% of traffic is done with 1-4 people in the car and a few groceries in the back. Even a Yaris can comfortably fit 5 large people and groceries or small luggage. I can count on one hand the times where I needed more than that in the last 5 years. And then, there were plenty of alternatives (like renting a truck). The fact that I have a sedan has little to do with needs and much more with wants. Most people don't understand the difference, sadly.
We do want to do good, however there are so many tradeoffs we need to think about, and with science showing us more, it overwhelms us, and in essence paralyzes us. So we choose what science we choose to follow and what we choose to disregard as a coping mechanism.
It is emotional, it isn't about being stupid, of ill informed, it is just about being emotional on your choice.
Well, I can't disagree with that. However, making an emotional choice doesn't excuse you from the consequences of that choice. Especially if you were told and taught about the other alternatives, and you still went with your emotional choice "just because it's too complicated". Not knowing about what you do is one thing. Willfully ignoring it is an entirely different matter.
Tired of being bombarded by enviro anvils (Score:4, Informative)
I am by no means a global warming denier. It seems straightforward that human use of carbon-based fuels has massively increased CO2 in the atmosphere, a known greenhouse gas. This isn’t rocket science. Additionally, there are numerous other impacts we have on the environment, polluting natural resources, where we need to clean up our act.
But the sappy, apocalyptic dogma is getting really old.
My family and I went to Disney recently, and we spent one day at EPCOT. Tomorrowland isn’t what it was when I was a kid. Back then, it was cool stuff about how great technology will be in the future. Now, they appear to have run out forward-looking ideas, and the whole experience is up-your-nose enviromentalist brainwashing. We went there to have fun and instead got lectured. And this lecturing is happening everywhere, and it’s annoying. OK, I GET IT. I recycle, I professionally do research in areas involving improving energy efficiency, and I donate money to organizations that work on envronmental protection and political activism.
This reminds me of this “common core” education program, which its original creators won’t sign off on, because it’s all become a load of crap. Instead of teaching kids math, science, language, and critical thinking, it’s all about instilling certain specific attitudes. And both the liberals and conservatives are trying to get their bullshit in there. Enviromental awareness is never about the environment. It’s about two warrning political parties trying to brainwash people into two different dogmas that further their agendas, most of which is to keep big businesses and the politicians themselves in power.
Re:There can't be global warming (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, science has been pretty clear about this. If there is any question, it's not whether global warming exists but whether humans are responsible for it.
What's really happening is that global warming - like evolution - is no longer a scientific argument, but a political one. These questions are no longer being asked in the arenas of logic and reason. In those arenas the questions have already been answered. In the political arena, however, "science" isn't governed by logic and reason.
Re:An ode to wankery (Score:1, Informative)
It's not a peer-reviewed study, it's an informal systematic review.
http://www.desmogblog.com/2012/11/15/why-climate-deniers-have-no-credibility-science-one-pie-chart [desmogblog.com]
Yeah, except that entire effort is a straw man of colossal proportions. "Climate deniers", really? What, do they deny the climate exists?
Many climate change skeptics accept the idea of greenhouse gasses and potential warming. What is contested is the severity of future warming, if any, and the certainty expressed by the IPCC when instead much is uncertain.
As to the "pause" being a statistical artifact, warming has in fact flattened for about fifteen years so far [climate4you.com] - despite CO2 being at record levels. We'll see how long it continues, we're right at solar maximum currently and looking at a long stretch of low solar activity ahead [wordpress.com]. So, the next 20-40 years should give us a true concrete idea of how a solar Grand Minimum effects the climate.
Re:Exactly 0% argue static climate (Score:5, Informative)
Climate change became the more popular phrase simply because so many people refused to accept that just because he planet as a whole is warming doesn't mean that every area also gets warmer. Most of the warming will happen at the poles, and that will fundamentally alter the thermal engines driving large-scale weather patterns, which can mean hotter summers and milder winters for some places, but can also mean colder summers and/or winters, as well as slower-moving storm systems which are responsible for flooding/snow-ins and droughts since their payload is all dropped over a much smaller area.
TLDR: Global warming is what's happening to the *entire planet*. Climate changes are the far more complicated regional results.
Re:Failure condition? (Score:5, Informative)
The question is how much, and it's still an open question (there's no scientific consensus on how much). The estimates range from
Re:Which shows that people don't understand (Score:5, Informative)
"in the mean time, the climate scientists studying the phenomena got trapped in ice?"
"The arctic disappears but the antarctic grows and the explanation is *global* warming?"
You suggest erroneously that the ice trapping a Russian vessel in the antarctic was caused by cooler conditions leading to more ice formation. In reality the trapping occurred because sea ice was blown by the wind trapping the vessel during the antarctic summer. There is abundant evidence that the antarctic, both East and West, is also melting, which is one of the reasons there is more sea ice, since when glaciers calve at greater rates there is more floating ice. Indeed the grounding line for the Pine Island glacier is rapidly advancing inland at rates not previously recorded in recent geological times.
Re:Which shows that people don't understand (Score:2, Informative)
Re:An ode to wankery (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, denialist.
And here's a graph showing exactly how your denialism works, and exactly how laughably wrong it is:
Global temperature graph. [woodfortrees.org]
The wiggly red-orange line is global mean temperatures for the last 50 years.
The pale blue straight line on the right, that's the fictitious cooling period we've had for the last 12 years. The straight purple line is the preceding 5 years of fictional global cooling. And before that is the blue line in the middle, 8 years of fictitious global cooling. And the decade before that is the green line, another fictitious period of global cooling. And the straight red line on the left is the preceding 12 year period of fictional global cooling.
That graph shows that we've had nothing but (fictional) cooling periods or "leveling off periods" essentially EVERY YEAR FOR THE LAST FIFTY YEARS.
The series of straight lines.... average declining temperatures lines... is a blatant staircase going up. And it illustrates just how absurd and wrong it is when denialists trot out your claim that warming has stopped or flattened. It is blatantly fraudulent to claim any of the straight lines in the posted graph represent any halt or even slowing in the rate of temperature rise.
There has been no halt in the temperature rise. There has been no slowing in the temperature rise. You're just grabbing at cherry-picked random fluctuations to draw a fictional staircase composed of fictional horizontal (or declining) steps.
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Re:Show me a climate model for the past 16 years (Score:5, Informative)
If the climate scientists have a model that accurately predicted the past 16 years then we can talk about the future.
There are no models that did prediction 16 years ago. The Hadley Centre's had DePreSys predicts a decade, but that only came online in 2007, not 1997.
So your requirement for talking about the future is set at impossible.
That is stupid and dangerous. Talking about the future is both sensible and important.
Until then the predictions of gloom and doom are about as believable as the heavens-gate cult.
0.8C temperature rise over the past 100 years, all in a spatial and temporal distribution that matches the CO2 greenhouse effect.
Measured energy imbalance at the top of the atmosphere, demonstrating warming.
Continued sea level rise, demonstrating energy absorbance, either my melting ice sheets or my warming oceans, and thermal expansion.
Extinction pressure on many ecosystems because of changing rainfall, temperature, and phenological changes.
And you claim these observations are from predictions as believable as heavens-gate cult, because the last 16 years, the warming trend has only been about 0.05C per decade [woodfortrees.org].
Much like the "pauses" in warming in 1978, 1987, 1997 and 2003 [skepticalscience.com]?
I don't think you've thought this through.
Re:Show me a climate model for the past 16 years (Score:5, Informative)
No, A model is not a curve-fitting exercise.
Why don't you read up a bit on HadGEM3: Design and implementation of the infrastructure of HadGEM3: the next-generation Met Office climate modelling system [geosci-model-dev.net], Hewitt et al, Geosci. Model Dev (2011).
As you can see, it is not an extrapolated curve fit, but an imitation of the global atmosphere, ocean and biosphere, based on physics.
For instance?