Pollster Krosnick: Another climate crook
Stanford University’s Jon Krosnick (Krosnick@Stanford.edu) has been receiving a huge splash of publicity with his allegedly surprising state-by-state poling showing ‘the vast majority of Americans in each of 40-plus states surveyed say global warming is real, serious and man-made’ (USA Today)
Jon Krosnick is the director of Stanford’s Political Psychology Research Group.
Krosnick’s polling results, complete with handy maps showing rising “belief” in man-made global warming, are a climate activists dream. According to Krosnick’s new poll: “Majorities of residents in every state surveyed said the government should limit greenhouse gas emissions by businesses and, in particular, by power plants. Majorities also favored a cap-and-trade system to limit emissions; tax breaks to encourage the production of energy from the sun, wind and water; carbon sequestration; and government regulations or tax breaks to require or encourage improvements in the energy efficiency of automobiles, appliances and buildings. No state had a majority of residents opposed to any of those policies.”
Could Krosnick be right? Is his poll a true shocker that shows the American public is now in lock step with Al Gore and the UN IPCC and the mainstream media?! Answer: Don’t bet on it.
Even fellow global warming activists like UN IPCC’s Princeton University Prof. Michael Oppenheimer acknowledged this week that Krosnick’s Stanford polls tend to skew to more “believers” in man-made global warming. Oppenheimer tweeted on November 12: “Interesting new poll; often more believers in Stanford polls.”
Krosnick’s polling flies in the face of recent polling showing a committed lack of belief and concern about man-made global warming from large segments of the U.S. public. See: 2013 Rasmussen Reports Poll: Most People Don’t Blame Humans for Global Warming
Pew poll: ‘Americans are relatively unconcerned about global climate change’ — ‘Americans among the least concerned about this issue of the 39 publics surveyed’
Obama: ‘Dial testing’ of his State of the Union speech showed that the favorability ratings ‘plummeted’ when he vowed to act on climate change if Congress refused to do so – Wash Post excerpt: ‘Obama expressed concerns about the political pain involved, saying that ‘dial testing’ of his State of the Union speech showed that the favorability ratings ‘plummeted’ when he vowed to act on climate change if Congress refused to do so.’
2013 Pew Survey says only 42% say both that climate change is happening AND that it is mostly caused by human activity – ‘Not even Hurricane Sandy led to a lasting change in attitudes’
Washington Post Insiders: ‘Democrats’ lost momentum on climate change’ — ‘Climate change is probably leaving the stage as a political issue — just as Pres. Obama is trying to gather momentum for a major push’
Washington Post: ‘The public’s interest in climate change is waning’ – ‘A new Pew poll shows the percentage who say that global warming is a ‘very serious’ problem has slipped six points since October’
Cheers! Global Poll: ‘The perceived seriousness of climate change has fallen particularly sharply since unsuccessful UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen in Dec. 2009′
Krosnick Publicly Reprimanded for poor results and methods by both Gallup & Pew
Krosnick’s polling methods have been publicly reprimanded by both Gallup and Pew Center Survey for his faulty results and analyses.
See: Warming propagandist Prof. Krosnick exposed: Pew research ‘says that Krosnick’s survey is marred by faulty methodology. …used words that encouraged a positive response’ - Pew: ‘This is known in the polling world as acquiescence bias…almost all (surveys), except Mr. Krosnick’s, show a significant decline in belief in climate change’
&
Polling propaganda Prof. Krosnick slapped down by Gallup Polling! Recent polling ‘shows demonstrable drops in Americans’ acknowledgment of and concern about global warming’ - Krosnick’s Op-Ed ‘could leave the impression that polls showing a decline in American concern about climate change should be ignored or are incorrect. This would be a mistake. A number of survey questions, conducted by several polling organizations — including Mr. Krosnick’s own recent survey — show demonstrable drops in Americans’ acknowledgment of and concern about global warming.”
Krosnick’s polling results on global warming have been challenged for years. See: Flashback 2008: Krosnick’s long history of climate propaganda: ‘Krosnick invents a consensus position: climate change is occurring. But this is a meaningless assertion, devoid of any scientific value the public can expect psychologists to be engaged in brainwashing them into accepting political propaganda’ – ‘Krosnick conducted a poll amongst the public, to see if their beliefs match those of the scientists, but neglected to poll scientists to establish their views’
Professor Krosnick’s polling has been seen as propaganda for years. One 2010 headline said it all: Krosnick’s Polling Con Job: ‘When you don’t like the poll numbers, make up your own poll’
Now, in November 2013, Krosnick is at it again. He claims his latest survey purportedly reveals “Majorities consistently said that the U.S. should take action regardless of what other countries do.” Krosnick also conveniently claimed his research “suggested members of Congress who question global warming or oppose EPA power plant rules may not have an accurate view of what their constituents want.”
In short, Krosnick’s own personal views of on climate change and what he would like to see happen with regard to energy policy are now projected onto the American public.
Krosnick Using 2006 Polling Public Opinion Data to Draw Conclusions in 2013
Krosnick’s media hyped state-by-state climate survey, relies on a mix of 21 existing surveys (mostly by Stanford) of recent polling data and some very old polling data going back to 2006! According to Stanford’s website, Krosnick relied on 21 surveys “primarily conducted between 2006 and 2013. Data from 19,751 respondents were analyzed.:
Krosnick would have us believe that 2006 polling data is somehow relevant to today’s global warming debate. Is 2006 data relevant to the UN climate summit or EPA regulations in 2013? But don’t worry, we are assured by Stanford University that Krosnick applied his special techniques to massage er — conduct a “secondary analysis” of the data to reach his obviously predetermined results.
More HERE
Early Northern winter -- global cooling?
One half of North America’s largest ski area will open this weekend, thirteen days ahead of schedule.
Whistler Mountain at Whistler Blackcomb will now open on Saturday, thanks to cold temperatures, intensive snowmaking and heavy snowfall.
Five lifts will be in operation and guests will have the option of uploading from the Whistler Village or Creekside gondolas, with three lifts running higher up the mountain. Blackcomb Mountain will open as scheduled on 28 November.
A statement from Whistler said: "Thanks to oodles of snow, Whistler Mountain will open 13 days early this season. Whistler is renowned, season upon season, for being the number one ski resort for guaranteed snow - lots of it - and this winter will be no exception."
A number of resorts are already open in North America and Europe, including Obergurgl in Austria, which opened today, and Cairngorm Mountain in Scotland which opened last weekend, its earliest start since 2008.
SOURCE
It's Not Just Winter, It's a New Ice Age
By Alan Caruba
When you consider that a bunch of global warming propagandists, the 19th Conference of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, to reduce “greenhouse gas” emissions has been meeting in Warsaw this month are still claiming that we are in the midst of global warming, you have a demonstration of how great a hoax has been perpetrating on the peoples of the world. These people and the scientists who supplied the falsified and inaccurate climate models to support the global warming claims have committed a criminal fraud.
Bit by bit, the truth in the form of increasingly cold weather is causing people to wonder whether they are being duped. The media has either buried the stories of extraordinary cold events or continues to tip-toe around the truth.
An example is a recent Wall Street Journal article by Robert Lee Hotz,“Strange Doings on the Sun”, Hotz reported that “Researchers are puzzled. They can’t tell if the lull is temporary or the onset of a decades-long decline, which might ease global warming a bit by altering the sun’s brightness or the wavelengths of its light.”
After describing the fact that the Sun has entered a period of reduced sunspot activity, always a precursor to a cooling cycle and even an ice age, Dr. David Hathaway, head of the solar physics group at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, is quoted as saying “It may give us a brief respite from global warming, but it is not going to stop it.”
Plainly said, you cannot trust what government scientists have to say about global warming. The government’s policy since the late 1980s has been that global warming is real and poses a great threat to the Earth. What Dr. Hathaway and other “warmists” are desperately trying to ignore is the fact that the Earth entered a natural and predictable cooling cycle around 1997 or 1998. It has been cooling ever since!
In 1997 Robert W. Felix authored the definitive book on the coming ice age in his book, “Not by Fire, but by Ice.” It is still widely available. His website,IceAgeNow.info provides updated information on the many weather events around the world that demonstrate an ice age—whether it is a mini-ice age or a full-scale one—is occurring. Felix says that a major Ice Age, when it begins, will come on very swiftly.
One post on Felix’s website is about Victor Emanuel Velasco Herrera, a geophysicist at the University of Mexico, who predicts that the “Earth will enter a ‘Little Ice Age’ which will last from 60 to 80 years and may be caused by the decrease in solar activity.” You don’t have to be a geophysicist to figure out that less solar activity adds up to a colder Earth.
2014 is the year many scientists believe an ice age, “mini” or full-scale will begin. Herrera hedged his prediction saying that “with the mass production of current carbon dioxide (CO2) it is unlikely that we will see a major ice age like the one experienced 12,000 years ago.” Carbon Dioxide plays no role in warming the Earth. It is a very minor element of the Earth’s atmosphere.
The implications of an ice age, no matter how long or short, is its impact on the growing of crops to feed everyone. Dr. Tim Patterson of Canada’s Carleton University’s Department of Earth Sciences, in a May 18, 2007 article in the Calgary Times, wrote that satellite data “shows that by the year 2020 the next solar cycle is going to be solar cycle 25—the weakest one since the Little Ice Age (that started in the 13th century and ended around 1860)…should be a great strategic concern in Canada because nobody is farming north of us. In other words, Canada—the great breadbasket of the world—might not be able to grow grains in much of the prairies.” This prediction applies as well, of course, to the U.S. production of grains.
Other scientists have been sounding the alarm, predicting dramatic cooling to begin in the current decade. Dr. Oleg Sorokhtin, a Fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, has noted that “Earth has passed the peak of its warmer period and a fairly cold spell will set in quite soon, by 2012, real cold will come when solar activity reaches its minimum, by 2041, and will last for 50-60 years or even longer.” While the years cited by scientists may differ, they are in agreement that we are looking at decades of cold.
In the years since the late 1980s when “global warming” was unleashed on the world as the greatest hoax of the modern era, billions have come to believe the Earth was threatened by greater warming cause by man-made “greenhouse gases” resulting from industrial and all other uses of fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas. While carbon dioxide has, indeed, increased in the atmosphere, the truth is that the Earth has entered a cooling cycle and that it is on the cusp of very cold weather for decades. We could even cross over into a full-fledged Ice Age because one is overdue at this point in time.
You cannot depend on what the mass media tells you. They are hardwired to continue the global warming hoax. You can, however, educate yourself with books such as Robert Felix’s. You can use Google to find out more about ice ages. You can and should prepare yourself for changes in the Earth’s climate that will have vast impacts on the global economy and on the ability to grow enough crops to feed the world’s population.
SOURCE
The 52% ‘consensus’
by Judith Curry
A comprehensive survey has been conducted of the American Meteorological Society membership to elicit their views on global warming.
The most interesting finding is this table:
Table 1. Meteorologists’ assessment of human-712 caused global warming by area and level of expertise. Figures are percentages rounded to the nearest whole number. Numbers in the bottom four rows represent percentage of respondents giving each possible response to the follow-up email question, including non-response to the email (labeled “insufficient evidence – unknown”). These responses together add to the same number as displayed in the insufficient evidence (total) row; some differences occur due to rounding. Similarly, columns total to 100% if all numbers except those in the bottom four rows are added, and differences from 100 are due to rounding. Although 1854 people completed some portion of the survey, this table only displays the results for 1821 respondents, since 33 (less than 2% of the sample) did not answer one or more of the questions on expertise and global warming causation.
Look at the views in column 1, then look at the % in the rightmost column: 52% state the the warming since 1850 is mostly anthropogenic. One common categorization would categorize the other 48% as ‘deniers’.
The table seeks to discriminate between those whose expertise is in climate science vs meteorology/atmospheric science. In the context of the AMS membership, I think this distinction is ambiguous. With regards to myself, I would have checked atmospheric science (most of my research is related to physical processes, not to climate change per se). I suspect that those focusing on climate impacts would check the box for climate expertise (note, only 222 checked the box for climate science). The distinction between publishing vs non publishing members probably is meaningful; only 52% of the respondents held Ph.Ds. Non Ph.D. members may be in the private sector or government employees.
JC comments:
This study is an important one, in spite of its methodological flaws and not-quite-adequate list of questions.
Members of the American Meteorological Society generally have better expertise for assessing issues related to climate change detection and attribution than the AGU (with substantial numbers of geophysicists, geochemists, etc), the AAAS, the APS, etc. And this is in spite of the fact that a substantial number of members do not have a Ph.D. We have discussed previously on the Joe Bastardi thread the value of the perspectives of forecast meteorologists, including those without Ph.D.s – they certainly understand limitations of forecasting and general circulation models.
More HERE
Funding Drought Threatens 2015 UN Climate Agreement
A major UN climate change summit opens in Poland today amid warnings talks could collapse because of a lack of financial support from rich nations.
Oxfam says developed countries are giving more to the fossil fuel industry than to projects in poorer regions focused on cutting greenhouse gas emissions, and are way off meeting a collective promise to supply US$ 100 billion a year by 2020.
It calculates as little as US$ 7.6 billion may have been provided in 2013, with some wealthier countries such as Canada and Australia offering nothing at all. That’s around US$ 24 billion less than was delivered in the previous two years.
And the NGO says the ability of developing nations to build ‘green’ economies that can cope with projected impacts from global warming is being put at risk by this funding shortfall.
“Rich countries must make it clear to poor countries what money is available now and in the coming years to help them adapt to climate change and reduce their emissions,” said Oxfam’s Climate spokesperson, Kelly Dent.
“Uncertainty from one year to the next makes it impossible for vulnerable countries to take the action they need to protect their citizens. This murkiness will only heighten distrust around the negotiating table.”
The flow of finance between developed and developing nations is a running sore point between the two sides at UN talks.
After a brief peak between 2010-2012 when US$ 30bn was delivered to help climate-related initiatives in the Global South, contributions have fallen off sharply.
In 2012 the UK committed to doubling its climate finance levels up to 2015, while Germany and France have also offered increases up to 2014.
But elsewhere the picture appears bleak, with the USA’s chief climate diplomat Todd Stern admitting last month that the “hard reality” was funding was unlikely to rise soon.
“The fiscal reality of the United States and other developed countries is not going to allow it,” he said in a speech in London.
“This is not just a matter of the recent financial crisis; it is structural, based on the huge obligations we face from aging populations and other pressing needs for infrastructure, education, health care and the like.”
SOURCE
Australia: Climate tax, aid and fees off table as cabinet toughens stance
The federal cabinet has ruled that Australia will not sign up to any new contributions, taxes or charges at this week's global summit on climate change, in a significant toughening of its stance as it plans to move within days to repeal the carbon tax.
Cabinet ministers have decided to reject any measures of "socialism masquerading as environmentalism" after meeting last week to consider a submission on the position the government would take to the Warsaw conference.
A further document was produced after the meeting that outlines the government's position.
The Australian has seen part of the document and it declares that, while Australia will remain "a good international citizen" and remains "committed to achieving the 5 per cent reduction" by 2020 of the 2000 levels of emissions, it will not sign up to any new agreement that involves spending money or levying taxes.
This rules out Australia playing any role in a wealth transfer from rich countries to developing nations to pay them to decrease their carbon emissions.
The decision hardens the nation's approach to the UN's negotiations amid a renewed push from less-developed countries this week for $100 billion a year in finance to deal with climate change.
Cabinet decided that Australia would consider joining a new scheme after 2015, but only if all the major global economies did likewise.
Senior ministers believe there is absolutely no chance of that happening.
The Abbott government has explicitly decided that it will not agree to any payments or accept any liabilities as part of any carbon agreement.
The government's document also says that Australia "will not support any measures which are socialism masquerading as environmentalism".
The document's commitment that the government "will review its commitment in 2015 in light of the science and international developments" deliberately allows a range of policy outcomes.
In the unlikely event that all major economies move in a concerted way, Australia could join in. However, the language provides that if the science becomes more unclear, and if nations move away from their earlier enthusiasm for action, then Australia also could wind back its efforts.
This explicitly does not mean winding back on the 5 per cent reduction target for 2020, but does mean that after 2020 things are less clear.
The government's document also says Australia's efforts on greenhouse gases will be conditioned by "fiscal circumstances"....
Mr Abbott has been strongly critical of agreements in which Australian funds are used to buy permits that are meant to fund cuts to greenhouse gas reductions in other countries - a key mechanism in the global talks.
The Coalition based its criticism of Labor policy on official forecasts showing Australian emissions would rise over time and that the 5 per cent target was only reached by purchasing overseas permits at an eventual cost of $150bn a year in 2050.
"This is by far the biggest wealth transfer from Australians to foreigners that's ever been contemplated," Mr Abbott said of purchasing offshore carbon permits.
By formalising these concerns in official policy, federal cabinet is preparing to counter any move at the Warsaw talks to accelerate climate change financing deals meant to be worth $100bn a year.
On a per-capita basis, Australia's contribution to the $100bn in global climate change finance would be $2.4bn or more.
More HERE
***************************************
For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.
Preserving the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here
*****************************************
Jim Hansen and his twin
No comments:
Post a Comment