Uncritically, Media Accepts Misleading Global Warming Poll
The choices of answers for the question about whether “global warming made each of the following events worse” are also problematic. They were:
- “The current drought in the Midwest and the Great Plains”
- “The severe storm (known as a ‘derecho’) that knocked down trees and power lines from Indiana to Washington D.C. in June of 2012”
- “This year’s record forest fires in Colorado and elsewhere in the American West”
- “Record high Summer temperatures in the U.S. in 2012”
- “The unusually warm Spring across the United States in 2012”
- “The unusually warm Winter across the United States in 2011-2012.”
All of these events would have occurred (some did not occur at all — see below) during a period of no global warming. So the question makes no sense.
Average high temperatures for the U.S. as a whole did not set a record this summer. It was only when one takes the average of the lows of the night and the highs of the day that one gets a statistically insignificant one-fifth of a degree Fahrenheit higher temperature this past July than what one would calculate for July 1936. The average high of the day in July 1936 was still higher than this past summer.
Similarly, the frequency, intensity, and size of forest fires have not increased.
Asking whether global warming made “events worse” implies that the events are a problem. While that is true for droughts and derechos, most people would consider an unusually warm winter anything but a problem and a warm spring is usually a welcomed relief after winter. It makes no sense to ask if good events are made worse by anything, let alone fictitious global warming.
In another part of the survey, respondents are asked: “Has extreme weather caused more or fewer of the following problems in your local area over the past few decades?” One of the answer options is “forest fires.” But forest fires are not necessarily caused by extreme weather. Such factors as forest management play important — and typically more important — roles.
Research after research paper, poll after poll, these academic clowns still actually think that the general public believes all this crap. They as a whole have degraded academia to the level of a fifth grader. When I see Doctor, U of anything or renowned scientist, CLICK.
Trying to wade into this ocean of BS to begin with is probably a waste of time. When the dialog is so polluted from the start with misuse of language and an inability to reason and a conscious effort to avoid any trace of scientific method, you wind up arguing about the best way to milk a unicorn. To begin with the idea that 1880 just happens to be the only “normal” year temperature-wise for the last 4.5 billion years just because we started tracking at that time is just stupid. (Like 1979 is the only “normal” year for sea ice extent.) Or the idea that the sun’s energy absorbed in CO2 in the atmosphere is different than the same energy being absorbed on the ground and re-emitted in a longer wave radiation makes for some total energy difference. Or like using words like “impact” to refer to a new idea that hasn’t been explored yet. Or saying that models trump reality. We’re not climate change deniers; the whole argument from the start is idiotic and politically and financially motivated.
Climate change is a post doctoral topic of study. There are perhaps 200 experts on earth who are competent to voice an educated judgment on its danger to mankind. Every body else is a dummy. Polls, taken from a population of dummies, are worthless.
However, climate change is also a driving political movement, whose goal is to severely curtain the combustion of carbon in the US. This has, and will continue to cripple our economy. There is no other economical substitute for bulk energy supply, other than uranium fission. This industry also has been destroyed in America. We have not begun a large new unit, utilizing either, since the mid 1970s. Prior to that time, America brought a new big one on line every month or so. The certain result is that we lack two generations of experienced engineers, people who have found and fixed the bugs.
We have reached, or may have passed the point of no return, whereby we can engineer and build good ones. It is a certainty that billion dollar screw ups will be constructed (think Hubble telescope lens). If the next Administration kicks the can down the calendar, as the prior seven Presidents have done, our grid may collapse.
This life sustaining controversy must be resolved in this election; we are out of time.
Spoken like a true Engineer!
My hat is off to you, sir.
What the run-of-the-mill dolt thinks is neither here nor there. Provable facts are what matters.
Yet, we never hear facts. Instead, we hear nonstop steaming piles of disinformation issuing forth from people with no knowledge or expertise in the subject matter. How did they even graduate junior high without 9th grade science?
I have studied this debate from its earliest stages, through every glimmer of actual information. Any engineer that buys into this should lose his license. It’s Alchemy, at the very least. Perpetual motion comes to mind.
Albert Shanker has his wish. Teachers work half the hours, with a tenth the effort, and at 140% of the pay of an engineer. They are never accountable for their stupidity or their inability to teach anyone anything at all. It shows.
Engineers don’t join unions. Logic tells us that if we bleed the beast too well, it will die, throwing us out the door. That which can fail, will fail. It’s just a matter of time.
We now live in a logicless society, where polls trump reason.
May God have mercy upon us all.
Interesting indictment of education. Do teachers of engineering also “work one tenth of the time for 140% of the pay?” You started out well, but took a nosedive with that stuff.
As to the issue of the essay above, I disagree that the survey results “dont’ tell us anything useful.” They say plenty. The survey results demonstrate conclusively that the public has swallowed the global warming hysteria completely. For this I DO fault educators for two reasons:
First, over the last 50 years we’ve seen the takeover of public education from K through college become overrun with marxists, socialists, social Rousseauians, and other “social [in]justice” leftists. The agenda for social change beginning in America’s public schools has been achieved.
Second, over the last 50 years we’ve seen a decline in the quality of science education and a rise in our population’s inability to think in a linear fashion and act accordingly. This has made our population easy picking for global warming hucksters.
Climate change is a post doctoral topic of study. There are perhaps 200 experts on earth who are competent to voice an educated judgment on its danger to mankind.
Try being a REAL scientist and state: “There are perhaps 200 experts on earth who are competent to voice an educated judgment on its EFFECT on mankind”, rather than a presupposition.
This among several other frauds are being run on us. Perhaps more accurately called scams.
Que bono?
A single screen shot that explains why people think they can get away with this kind of nonsense.
http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/213908.php
Here’s my current favorite “can’t decide which is true”.
First, the GW adherents are all nodding in agreement with James Hansen that the 1 to 2 year Midwest droughts are linked to global warming.
However from a Word of God global warming site, the Medieval Warming period (which by the way, lasted decades) was apparent only in Western Europe and Greenland and is therefore a localized event, proving nothing.
http://www.astronomynotes.com/solarsys/s11b.htm
Read the rest of the so-called myths, as they are truly something else. Check out Myth#10 about the cooling from 1940 to 1970. The explanation is aerosols. Except one problem. No one knows exactly what effect aerosols have on climate. This is an a priori argument. It’s aerosols, because it explains something that we can’t explain, so it must be true. No testing needed.
Regardless of methodology, the poll is meaningless. What people believe is happening doesn’t change what actually is happening. It’s bad enough that various folks have “cooked the books” in some studies to show what they wanted to see. Now they look to be dispensing with actual data entirely and just asking what people think is going on.
All the poll proves is that the PR campaign called “global climate change” is sadly working.
The Yale Project on Climate Change COMMUNICATION and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change COMMUNICATION.
C’mon, man!
This must be one of those October surprises. Bring out the boogie-man. The shamans say to sacrifice your energy to appease the earth littlegods.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2217286/Global-warming-stopped-16-years-ago-reveals-Met-Office-report-quietly-released–chart-prove-it.html#ixzz29NUzHl00
Now about those major Rocky wildfires. Who will pay the carbon tax on those?
Poll reveals 87% of American public supports a total ban on dihydrogen monoxide.
The British DID try to warn us, donchaknow?
Democracy? As in EVERYONE? Are ye’ daft, man?
Yes. I think that’s been proven, now.
When Da’ Bamaphone lady has the vote, what can you expect?
please explain how this is possible, when 98% of the american public doesnt even know what dihydrogen monoxide is?
Hey just tonight O’Really said he believed in AGW. So it must be a fact.Yep! And he “hates” oil and gas companies.
When are we going to get together and force his advertisers to stop funding his goofiness?
What global warming?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2217286/Global-warming-stopped-16-years-ago-reveals-Met-Office-report-quietly-released–chart-prove-it.html
People have been trying to control the volacno gods from the dawn of history. It satisfies a basic human need to ascribe a simple controllable cause for events which are not controllable or well understood.
Most non experts assume that any hypothesis is valid and will latch on to one that “makes sense”. A few years back women readily accepted the idea that breast cancer was caused by underarm deodorants. It puts a scary seemingly random possibility into the realm of something understandable and controllable.
Because it is more emotional than logical the belief is likely to persist among those affected despite any evidence to the contrary.
well said
Drought! Famine! Global…Cooling? John Ransom
http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/johnransom/2012/10/16/drought_famine_globalcooling
I suggest the AGW scare has been allowed to run this long because the Main Stream Media have not done their job properly.
There have been plenty of clues and opportunities to question this issue thoroughly and at least ensure the “Climate Warming Advocates” are kept “honest” as it were. We have had Mann’s spurious Hockey Stick, Climategate emails, Gleick’s false Heartland paper, constant “adjustments” to global temperature measurements etc etc. And yet very few reporters have delved into these and exposed the situation for what it is.
I suspect one of the reasons is that the “Environment Desk” in most media organs is staffed by those who have “bought” the green message fully, hence their interest in the subject matter.
The only place to find a reasonable attempt to hold the Green lobby to account is via the internet amongst a few blogs.
The MSM ignores this at it’s peril.
The author of this post – Tom Harris – is rather compromised. He has received funding from Chevron, ExxonMobil, Dow, and 3M. Mr. Harris has no scientific basis for his assertions, only economic motivations. With his expertise in “thermofluids” Mr. Harris is best ignored as an “expert” on climate science.
I am glad to see the posting by “Brutus” that “He [namely, I] has received funding from Chevron, ExxonMobil, Dow, and 3M.”
Although it is completely false, I hope Brutus’ posting is left up since it is a good illustration of the depths to which some people will go to discredit anyone who dares question the sacred doctrine of man made global warming. What he says, he has no way of knowing because all our funders have always been kept entirely confidential for their privacy, and, quite frankly, safety. Regardless, anyone who knows anything at all about ICSC knows that we have said on numerous occasions, to quote our Webpage at http://climatescienceinternational.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=510, :
“To date, the vast majority of donations to ICSC have come from private individuals in:
Canada
The United States of America
The United Kingdom
New Zealand
The Netherlands
Denmark
Australia
“The identities of all donors are kept strictly confidential to protect their privacy and safety.
“Since its formation in 2007, ICSC has never received financial support from corporations, foundations or governments.
“While we welcome contributions from all sources, including corporations, foundations and government, and are actively soliciting support, ICSC operates as a non-partisan, worldview neutral entity, independent of political or commercial vested interests. We will not accept donations that are contingent on ICSC promoting a point of view in favour of, or against, any philosophical, political or commercial interest. If ICSC tried to influence the public statements made by the professors and other experts we work with, they would likely resign from our advisory bodies.”
Brutus next claims: “Mr. Harris has no scientific basis for his assertions, only economic motivations. With his expertise in “thermofluids” Mr. Harris is best ignored as an “expert” on climate science.”
My article was a straight forward analysis of the serious flaws in the poll. Anyone could have done it.
Similarly, anyone with a science and technology background can see the many serious problems with AGW (Al Gore warming). The fact that my training and experience relates to the field (after all, the atmosphere and the oceans are massive thermo-fluids systems) is irrelevant. It helps but it is not important since the problems are so obvious.
If “economic motivations” were what drives me to speak out on this topic, then I would surely side with the politically correct warmers. There is orders of magnitude more money for activists on that side.
Tom Harris
Executive Director
International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC)
P.O. Box 23013
Ottawa, Ontario
K2A 4E2
http://www.climatescienceinternational.org
613-728-9200
May we ask the reverse question; it is never voiced. Who are you Brutus? Please give us your full name and address. What is your technical background, your Curricula Vitae? You claim Mr. Harris is compromised due to backing from the carbon industry. How do you make your money? Who pays you?
I have given a summary of my energy background, many times, in the PJM forum. I would like to read yours.
I believe Upton Sinclair illuminated the real problem:
“It’s difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it.”
The effort in our society to identify, solve and then correct problems is stymied by this axiom. So many involved in securing their future.
And Brutus, when you cannot refute, go after the messenger, eh?