42% of Americans believe that there is a lot of disagreement among climate scientists

[one...two...tree 2,762]

According to a 2007 Newsweek poll, 42% of Americans believe that "there is a lot of disagreement among climate scientists about whether human activities are a major cause" of global warming". I posed the same question to members of the wunderground community on Monday, and even higher 56% of them thought so. However, the results of a poll that appears in this week's edition of the journal EOS, Transactions, American Geophysical Union, reveals that the public is misinformed on this issue. Fully 97% of the climate scientists who regularly publish on climate change agreed with the statement, "human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures".

Commentary

The scientists most involved in assessing the current state of the climate are the most likely to have the "pulse of the planet"--a deep understanding of how the climate works and where we are headed. If 97% of these scientists believe in significant human impact on the climate, then it is probably so. Why is there such a disparity, then, between what they believe, and what the public and other scientists, such as petroleum geologists, believe? Dr. Ricky Rood has some excellent commentary on this issue in his latest wunderground Climate Change blog, and I offer these three reasons:

1) There are a few good climate scientists (3%) that believe humans are not significantly impacting the climate. One tends to hear the beliefs of this tiny minority a disproportionate amount. This is primarily because the fossil fuel industry pumps millions of dollars into PR campaigns to make sure you hear these dissenting views. That's not to say that these scientists are paid lackeys of the fossil fuel industry--that is not the case. These scientists' point of view happens to coincide with arguments that would protect the profits of the fossil fuel industry, so naturally the industry spends a lot of money making sure you hear these points of view. The fossil fuel industry PR campaigns also emphasize the contrarian views of a handful of non-publishing scientists working for private think tanks, who provide a distorted, non-objective view of climate change science (e.g., the attempt to hide summertime Arctic sea ice loss by quoting irrelevant statistics about wintertime global sea ice). These efforts have been highly successful in casting doubt on what is an overwhelming (though not unanimous) consensus among climate scientists. The fossil fuel industry PR campaigns are similar to the ones run by the cigarette industry to cast doubt on the harmfulness of smoking. "Doubt is our product," a cigarette executive once observed, "since it is the best means of competing with the 'body of fact' that exists in the minds of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy." I recommend a reading of the 2008 book, "Doubt is Their Product", which discusses the many efforts by industry over the years to cast doubt on established scientific facts in order to protect industry profits.

2) The media contributes to the disproportionate coverage of the dissenting views, since one can make a news story more compelling by dramatizing conflict and giving equal weight to both sides.

3) Many people have a deep-seated belief in the relative insignificance of humans on a planetary scale. Geologists, who take the long view of time over geologic history, are particularly prone to this. Indeed, the planet is vast, and we are but tiny ants crawling upon its surface during a brief moment in geologic time. However, when one works regularly with the data, it becomes apparent that human activities are beginning to substantially impact weather and climate. When presented with facts contrary to ones beliefs, a good scientist will check the facts extra thoroughly to verify their validity, but then abandon those beliefs that don't fit the facts. The facts as accepted by 97% of our top climate scientists are that atmosphere is but a relatively thin, fragile layer of volatile gases beginning to show unmistakable changes due to the geometric explosion in human population over recent centuries. Those effects are only now beginning to be detectable, which is why human-caused global warming is so controversial in the public's eye. I predict that twenty years from now, climate change will be so obvious that the controversy regarding human responsibility will be gone.

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMaste...l?entrynum=1184

[NickD 203]

Find it far more disturbing that nine supreme court justices whose job it is to interpret can't agree on any given topic, far worse, it becomes law if only 55.5% agree. Key word here is interpretation and is climatology even at the stage where it can even be called a science? Given any set of data, and two scientists, can be interpreted no different than what the supreme court does. And when dealing with theories, it is possible and has historically happened where one guy would be correct and another billion dead wrong. Leave it to Newsweek to print statistics and the results of a poll.

In regards to carbon dioxide effects on climate, prefer to believe the scientists that say, we simply do not know. Attempt to explain that continuous global warming since the 15th century, if we did return to that climate today, about 86% of the human population would be wiped out, not only by lack of vegetation to support the needs, but by war.

Man made pollution is a science, can be measured, and in much higher concentrations where people tend to live on top of each other and replacing grassy fields with asphalt is certainly contributing to global warming plus using up valuable space where vegetation is a requirement for survival.

Alternate energy is another term I dislike, in reality, only one form of energy, that of the sun whether we harness the winds, temperature changes, or radiation it produces. Or even what the sun has done millions of years ago by giving life to plants and animals that long have decayed and can be found in the bowels of the earth. Ha, lucky you if you happen to own the land where that is abundant.

The results on either using pollution or global warming as the vehicle would be the same, but man made pollution is the far more accurate term to use, just sick about hearing about global warming. Wasn't even a subject until Gore brought it up, now all kinds of nitwits popped up out of the woodwork and piercing us with their opinions and speculations.

[Rocky_nBullwinkle 6]

According to a 2007 Newsweek poll, 42% of Americans believe that "there is a lot of disagreement among climate scientists about whether human activities are a major cause" of global warming". I posed the same question to members of the wunderground community on Monday, and even higher 56% of them thought so. However, the results of a poll that appears in this week's edition of the journal EOS, Transactions, American Geophysical Union, reveals that the public is misinformed on this issue. Fully 97% of the climate scientists who regularly publish on climate change agreed with the statement, "human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures".

There is your answer, and why the public is "skeptical".

--Bullwinkle

[one...two...tree 2,762]

According to a 2007 Newsweek poll, 42% of Americans believe that "there is a lot of disagreement among climate scientists about whether human activities are a major cause" of global warming". I posed the same question to members of the wunderground community on Monday, and even higher 56% of them thought so. However, the results of a poll that appears in this week's edition of the journal EOS, Transactions, American Geophysical Union, reveals that the public is misinformed on this issue. Fully 97% of the climate scientists who regularly publish on climate change agreed with the statement, "human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures".

There is your answer, and why the public is "skeptical".

--Bullwinkle

Yep. We're in the information age, but with it also the misinformation and disinformation age, which invites more skepticism. People need to think critically (which is different from simply being skeptical). It takes very little effort to be skeptical towards anything we can't understand fully or see with our own eyes.

[Rocky_nBullwinkle 6]

Yep. We're in the information age, but with it also the misinformation and disinformation age, which invites more skepticism. People need to think critically (which is different from simply being skeptical). It takes very little effort to be skeptical towards anything we can't understand fully or see with our own eyes.

Plus, with the internet, there is plenty of contrary information. Webmasters, not scientists, sway public opinion now! Case in point:

http://www.junkscience.com/

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Yep. We're in the information age, but with it also the misinformation and disinformation age, which invites more skepticism. People need to think critically (which is different from simply being skeptical). It takes very little effort to be skeptical towards anything we can't understand fully or see with our own eyes.

Plus, with the internet, there is plenty of contrary information. Webmasters, not scientists, sway public opinion now! Case in point:

http://www.junkscience.com/

Steven Milloy, the publisher of that website is a lobbying hack. His record speaks volumes. Hopefully most people won't be going to Milloy for real scientific analysis any more than people going to a gossip columnist for advice on their marriage....oh wait a minute.

[Rocky_nBullwinkle 6]

Yep. We're in the information age, but with it also the misinformation and disinformation age, which invites more skepticism. People need to think critically (which is different from simply being skeptical). It takes very little effort to be skeptical towards anything we can't understand fully or see with our own eyes.

Plus, with the internet, there is plenty of contrary information. Webmasters, not scientists, sway public opinion now! Case in point:

http://www.junkscience.com/

Steven Milloy, the publisher of that website is a lobbying hack. His record speaks volumes. Hopefully most people won't be going to Milloy for real scientific analysis any more than people going to a gossip columnist for advice on their marriage....oh wait a minute.

Yes, but he does have a website, and that makes my point! My grandad was an editor/writer for a Detroit newspaper, and back then, he would say, "Believe little of what you hear, and none of what you read!"

--Bullwinkle