Rasmussen/Heartland poll: viewers of conservative media more likely to get the facts right on climate change
From April 29 to May 3, Rasmussen Reports and The Heartland Institute, a national free-market think tank, conducted a nationwide survey of 2,000 likely voters. Included in the poll was a series of questions asking likely voters how they receive news and information, as well as several questions about climate-change-related topics. The following results from the survey illustrate likely voters’ views on these important issues, as well as how those views are correlated with news media preferences.
You can download the full survey results and all crosstabs by clicking here. (We strongly recommend that in addition to considering our summary bullet points below, you download the full results and view the crosstabs for this survey, because this is where you’ll find the crosstabs about media preferences and other important information.)
Some of The Heartland Institute’s key findings from an analysis of the survey include:
There is a strong correlation between a likely voter’s favorite television news outlet and his or her understanding of basic facts about climate change.
Compared to viewers of Fox News, “another” cable news outlet, and those who don’t watch television news, viewers of CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, and NBC are substantially more likely to believe that if CO2 emissions continue to increase at recent rates, humans will “become completely or nearly extinct due to climate change” within the next 100 years.
For example, 58% of MSNBC viewers and more than half of viewers of ABC, CBS, and NBC said they think humanity could become extinct or nearly extinct within a century.
About one-quarter of CNN and MSNBC viewers believe humanity could become extinct within 50 years due to climate change.
Viewers of CNN and MSNBC are substantially more likely to overestimate the amount of global warming that has occurred since the late 1800s compared to viewers of Fox News or “another” outlet. 65% percent of CNN viewers and 67% of MSNBC viewers overestimated warming by at least 40%, and three in 10 CNN and MSNBC viewers overestimated warming by more than double the real figure.
Viewers of ABC, CBS, and NBC were also substantially more likely to overestimate global warming. Six in 10 viewers of these networks overestimated warming trends.
Respondents who don’t watch cable news and viewers of Fox News or “another” outlet (such as The Blaze TV or Newsmax) were more likely to correctly estimate the amount of warming that has occurred since the late 1800s. More than four in 10 of the respondents in these three categories answered correctly, compared to about three in 10 viewers of CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, and NBC.
55% of likely voters believe climate change is primarily caused by human beings, compared to 45% who believe long-term planetary trends are the main cause.
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UK: These People Are Mad - Rare Earths And Electronics Recycling
Tim Worstall
We’re being told that we must waste resources in order to save resources. This is, of course, mad but then that’s the institutional part of the environmental movement for you. They’ve so reified recycling that they believe it’s a good thing at any cost. Oh, yes, and they’re going to change the law so as to insist that we waste resources in order to save them.
The Guardian takes up the story:
Rare elements such as indium, yttrium, neodymium, cobalt and lithium are vital for the production of low-carbon technology, but many are being thrown away because of the lack of a requirement to recycle them, industry experts have warned.
Concern is growing over the future supply of such elements, as the switch to green technology – including electric vehicles, solar panels and low-carbon heating – will require far greater volumes of rare earths and other critical raw materials.
Industry experts have called for tougher rules on recycling, in a report from Cewaste, a two-year project funded by the EU as part of its Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. The authors examined what happens to such materials currently, and their potential future supply and cost.
Well, OK, let’s just take that first one, indium. Yes, it’s the thing that makes touchscreens work. Lovely stuff. Normally extracted as a by product of getting zinc from spharelite. Usual concentrations in the original mineral are 45 to 500 parts per million.
Now, note something important about a by product material like this. If we recycle indium we don’t in fact save any indium from spharelite. Because we mine spharelite for the zinc, the indium is just a bonus when we do. So, we recycle the indium we’re already using. We don’t process out the indium in our spharelite. We just take the same amount of zinc we always did and dump what we don’t want into the gangue, the waste.
So, note what’s happened. We recycle indium and yet we dig up exactly the same amount of indium we always did. We just don’t use what we’ve dug up – we’re not in fact saving that vital resource of indium at all.
But it gets better than this. The concentration of indium in an iPhone:
Firstly, the screens were manually removed from cell phones…..The results showed that the best experimental conditions enabled extraction of 613mg of indium/kg of LCD powder.
The screens themselves and alone have about the same concentration of indium as the top end of our normal ore (600 ppm) – you know, the ore we’re going to dig up for the zinc anyway. But if we consider the phone as a whole we’ve got an indium concentration worse than the normal ore we regularly use. Plus, of course, we’ve got to collect all those phones, manually disassemble them and so on. At least the normal ore exists in thousands of tonnes at one place rather than being collected in in 500 gramme lots from vast areas of geography.
We’ll not save any indium, end up using a worse ore plus vast transport costs in the name of saving resources?
Hmm, well, do they have any sensible ideas here?
The number of waste fluorescent lamps arising has been declining since 2013. In 2025, it is
estimated there will be 92 tonnes of CRMs in waste fluorescent lamps (Ce: 10 tonnes, Eu: 4
tonnes, La: 13 tonnes, Tb: 4 tonnes and Y: 61 tonnes).
That would be the recovery from all fluorescent lamps in Europe being recycled. In a few – there’s not that much material so therefore only a few plants are needed, meaning considerable geographic spread – plants dotted around.
That’s $50k of cerium, about $100k of europium, $65k of lanthanum, $2.8 million of terbium and 2.2 million of yttrium. To all intents and purposes this is $5 million of material. For which we must have a Europe wide collection system?
They do realise this is insane which is why they insist that this must be made law. Can’t have people not doing stupid things now, can we?
Just to give another example – not one they mention. As some will know I used to supply rare earths to the global lighting industry. One particular type uses scandium. In a quarter milligram quantity per bulb. Meaning that even with perfect recycling you need to collect 4 million bulbs to gain a kilo of scandium – worth $800.
We would save resources by getting the Russians – for Sc – or the Chinese – for the others – to dig up a bit more hillside, wouldn’t we?
The entire idea is dumbfoundingly stupid. So, what’s the actual recommendation here?
CEWASTE recommends that:
• Legislation should require recovery of specific CRMs.
Yep, the law must insist everyone acts as sputum dribbling idiots.
This is, of course, a European Union insistence just coming over the horizon. Thank buggery we left, eh?
https://www.expunct.com/environment/these-people-are-mad-rare-earths-and-electronics-recycling/
****************************************146 Million Acres of Forest Thriving Globally, Soaking up More Carbon Dioxide Than U.S. Emits
Forests so large they could cover all of France have regenerated and thrived since 2000 and benefit the environment by absorbing one billion tons of carbon dioxide — a rate greater than the annual emissions from the United States.
The Thomson Reuters Foundation reported on the analysis conducted by researchers with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) released on Tuesday:
The research looked at forests that have grown back spontaneously or with little human help, such as planting native trees or fencing off land to reduce grazing.
Scientists say that protecting and regenerating forests is a better climate change solution than planting trees, because existing forests absorb more planet warming gasses while also safeguarding wildlife and biodiversity.
The study found the Atlantic Forest in Brazil regained an estimated 4.2 million hectares – an area roughly the size of the Netherlands – since 2000, something it described as a success story. Over the same period, 1.2 million hectares of boreal forests were regenerated in northern Mongolia, with other reforestation hotspots including central Africa and Canada, it said.
But the environmentalists are still not satisfied and pushed back against the strategy of planting trees to fight so-called climate change.
“The data show the enormous potential of natural habitats to recover when given the chance to do so,” John Lotspeich, executive director of Trillion Trees, the coalition of environmental organizations behind the study, said. “But it isn’t an excuse for any of us to wait around for it to happen.”
“We’ve known for a long time that natural forest regeneration is often cheaper, richer in carbon, and better for biodiversity than actively planted forests,” William Baldwin-Cantello, director of nature-based solutions at WWF-UK, said.
“This research tells us where and why regeneration is happening, and how we can recreate those conditions elsewhere,” Baldwin-Cantello said.
“If we give forests the space … to regenerate at scale, and if we create that space, and we ensure that last into the future, then this is going to play a major role in avoiding climate change,” Baldwin-Cantello said.
“It doesn’t mean we don’t need to stop deforestation, we definitely do. It doesn’t mean we don’t need to reduce emissions,” Baldwin-Cantello said. “But we need all of these things combined. And we can do much more to capitalize on that regeneration than we currently are.”
“Still, the authors said such ‘encouraging signs’ could not be taken for granted, warning the world was still losing forests at a ‘terrifying rate,’ much faster than that of restoration,” Reuters reported.
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WATER VAPOR VS. CO2 AS A CLIMATE CONTROL KNOB
By Joe Bastardi
One would have to disregard these principles to accept blindly the introduction of more Co2 to the system now is the prime control of the system.
Let’s start with Occam’s razor.
Occam’s razor is a scientific and philosophical principle that entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily. This is interpreted as requiring that the simplest of competing theories be preferred to the more complex, or that explanations of unknown phenomena be sought first in terms of known quantities
Next let’s look at Le Chatelier’s principle.
Le Chatelier’s principle states that if a dynamic equilibrium is disturbed by changing the conditions, the position of equilibrium shifts to counteract the change to reestablish an equilibrium. If a chemical reaction is at equilibrium and experiences a change in pressure, temperature, or concentration of products or reactants, the equilibrium shifts in the opposite direction to offset the change. …..(This is) why catalysts have no effect on the equilibrium position.
One would have to disregard these principles to accept blindly the introduction of more Co2 to the system now is the prime control of the system. Hence skepticism to weighting attribution is warranted.
Lets look at the temperatures in the arctic where a lot of the warming has taken place. But lets look at WHEN to see if it gives us clues as to the WHY.
The warming is during the winter. There has been virtually no change in the summer. Now what are the reasons for that?
Well one is the ice melting and water freezing processes. When ice melts it takes energy from the air so in effect it retards warming. That would be occurring in the summer season. When there is a refreezing it’s the opposite. One can watch a freezing rainstorm with no wind or temperature advection. If its sleeting (ice pellets) temperatures will remain below freezing, but once the changeover to rain occurs, absent cold advection, temperatures will rise quickly to 32, which is not only the freezing point of water, but the melting point of ice. Many an ice storm in protected valley areas occur with little if any wind going on and the temperature hovering near 32.
But why would the winter arctic temperatures be so much warmer? The answer is water vapor. Slight increases in water vapor produce greater increases in temperature correlation. We can see that by looking at saturation mixing ratios, of grams per kilograms of WV.
(Note: I show this in my book, The Weaponization of Weather in the Phony Climate War, in the chapter on Weaponizing the global temperature)
What this says is if you add more water vapor to the air, temperatures have to go up much more where its cold and dry, than where its warm and wet. Look at the change that correlates from -40 F to -30F. Only.09 grams/kg correlates to 10 degree change. So lets do the same thing centered around the earths temperature. (lets use 60) you need almost 5 grams/kg. So slight increases in WV affect where its cold and dry much more. Hence, the idea that the earth is burning up is nonsense since where human life thrives (lets again center it around the so called average temperature of the planet), the increase is so small in water vapor that it has had much less effect on the global temperature than the contribution from the Arctic and Antarctic winters!
But right off the bat, if we can visibly link water vapor to the temperature and changes in the weather and climate, and we have no such linkage of co2 to temperature, how is it co2 would have the finger pointed at it for what is plainly the domain of water vapor?
You can understand this very easily on a cold morning. You breathe out, you “see” your breath. That is because less water vapor is needed to form that “cloud” at lower temperatures. You are still exhaling the same amount of WV on a hot day, but you do not see it.
Now lets circle back to the principles above. Occams razor: What is the simplest answer to the problem? Is it the complexity of the addition of 1.5 gram/kg of co2 over what is almost century to the atmosphere, that is perfectly capable of adapting, or the dominant forcing mechanism of WV? ( note that same addition of WV at -30F is correlated to a 40 degree rise).
And then circling back to that word, adapting. That is Le Cheteliers. But who knows what the true equilibrium is anyway, just like who knows what the perfect temperature or amount of co2 in the air optimum for plant and animal life? No one. How is it what was a climate optimum in previous years is somehow a climate Crisis now? So why would we spend trillions of dollars chasing something that has not been defined? The old definition of weather and climate simply being nature’s attempt at finding a balance to a chaotic system where balances are impossible to maintain because of the design of the system, says of course there will be ups and downs ranging from hours to centuries. But as in all things in nature, the dominant forcing has the dominant effect
A few practical examples.
Lets just take US Summer temperatures over the last 10 years.
Using the temperatures vs the averages from 1961 to 1990 you can see how much warmer it is.
However, when we look at max temperatures we see the warming is not as great as min temperature, except in the west.
Max’s
Mins
Nightime lows are visibly higher
Now why would this be?
Well lets look at precipitation:
Contrary to all the yelling and screaming about a dust bowl it has been wetter in much of the nation where we grow our food. To refresh your memory, a look at the dust bowl years summer precipitation is in order:
The West has been drier so it is hotter by day. The eastern and southern warmth at night is a product of higher moisture content in the air. The heavier precipitation means the dreaded heat dome that occurred in the 1930s aloft (btw just how did that occur with co2 so low?) has not developed. So, as I mentioned above the higher amounts of WV due to the cyclically warmed oceans, is putting more WV in the air, which affects temperatures more when they are lower.
It also means it can not be warming as fast aloft since if it were, there would not be as much precipitation. If it remains cool enough the condensation processes are such that it rains more. If it warms more in the mid and upper then the increase in WV is offset enough and it dries out.
This was the missive in 2013 after the 3 hot dry summers. Yet no one called the people out that made a forecast that was almost laughable (and I said so at the time given it mimicked almost perfectly the 3-year drought of the early 1950s, including in the way it reversed). But that’s the game agenda driven zealots and their willing partners in the media play. They never get called out on their busts, and this was a spectacular one. In fact, the world is growing more food than ever, the US included. The planet is Greener than its ever been in the satellite era, a true Green New Deal that benefits mankind.
But let us not cherry pick the US. The last 10 years are the “hottest decade” on record correct? Well since when is a degree warmer over as long a period of time and mostly in places cold and dry, hot? Anyone go swimming at 59 degrees? When someone uses terms like hot or it burning up describing the earths temperature it is purposeful deception or ignorance, and no matter which, its simply to push a phony agenda. Its that simple.
But lets look at this
In the past 40 years we have warmed about .14C/decade
So taking a half degree C intervals, where can all of this warming be seen?
Mainly in the arctic (this is the entire year):
But lets look at the details. N hem Winter months.
Wow it’s the arctic. How about that?
What about summer?
Not nearly as much.
Now here is another question Do you really think this is so out of control rapid that we are not adapting to it? And given the nature of heat, the warmer it gets the harder it is to make it warmer, why isn’t that looked at? SST’s have gone up which means both more WV AND CO2 is being released into the air. Yet why do climate alarmists not quantify the increase of WV to where the temperatures are warming, when they are warming, and by how much? Because there is no provable linkage to co2, just a hypothesis that is being accepted in the face of what may be a simple, demonstrative cause and effect, the much larger GHG, WV. It would cast major doubt on their argument and is certainly a reason for skepticism.
Let me state my bias. I will use my chess playing prowess as the example. It is very difficult to beat me in 15 second chess. Its still hard at 30. But people I would clean off the board in short clock games would smoke me once they got to a minute or above. Most of the people I would play in college and beyond were much better students than me. But I could see the simple quicker.
So that is a known bias. I am using basic simple knowledge (Occams razor, Le Chetiliers principle) to provide an answer to a question that if we are going to get back to co2 feedback roles is more complex. The idea they are pushing is that co2’s attribution to the climate is far more important than the larger members of the system, the sun, oceans, stochastic events, (try a couple of well placed volcanoes sending ash into the stratosphere over the tropics) and the very design of the system which is always at odds with itself.
So I admit my bias to what is a 15-30 second clock chess game idea. And of course the simple thwarting the complex means those that live and die by the complex are rendered useless in their mission. Which questions their value. So simple ideas such as Occams razor and Le Chateliers are a big threat, and so are people who try to use them. As the agenda gets more extreme, the canceling of skeptical voices grows. But at least I understand (and admit) my bias as to opposed to a zealot driven intolerant agenda that is a form of tyranny, one that grows harsher daily.
Finally a link for those of you that really want to see more than just my “cherry picked” ( ah but the orchard is so ripe) WV examples. This from Dr Willie Soon and Dr. Sallie Baliunas
https://lweb.cfa.harvard.edu/~wsoon/myownPapers-d/SoonBaliunas17-June8-FINAL-CCTF2017_Ch11_2pp.pdf
A Brief Review of the Sun-Climate Connection, With a New Insight Concerning Water VapourIts well worth your time.
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://snorphty.blogspot.com TONGUE-TIED)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://john-ray.blogspot.com (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC) Saturdays only
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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Jim Hansen and his twin
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