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pueno



Joined: 03 Mar 2007
Posts: 2807

PostPosted: Mon Sep 29, 2014 7:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

.
Here Are The People Most Likely To Be Climate-Change Deniers

Source Randy Olson

It seems that every six months, we see the news light up with reporters quoting the latest public opinion poll results on global climate change.

"Climate change denial is up 7 percentage points this year."

"One in five Americans now deny that climate change is occurring."

I’ve always wondered: Wouldn’t it be much more helpful to provide a historical perspective on the issue? To accomplish just that, I took data from the renowned UT Energy Poll and plotted it below.



The result? Despite the continuous raging debate, the average American’s acceptance of global climate change hasn’t really budged in the past two years. Acceptance of climate change in America has hovered around 70% since at least March 2012.

Why is that? Ninety-seven percent of climate scientists agree that global climate change is occurring. The news was abuzz about climate change and global warming earlier this year. Even US President Barack Obama made an official statement on the topic in June.

So why do these Americans refuse to budge on the issue? In a provocative article earlier this year, Chris Mooney suggested a simple answer: "Conservatives don’t deny climate science because they’re ignorant. They deny it because of who they are."

Could this be true? Do deniers of climate change know all there is to know about climate change and global warming, but they still refuse to accept it because of their beliefs? To get at this question, I dug further into the UT Energy Poll’s most recent poll results.

Household income and educational attainment

First, I wanted to know if a person’s income or educational attainment had anything to do with whether he or she accepted that climate change was occurring. Thankfully, one of the demographic variables the poll collects is each person’s household income. Because of the strong correlation between educational attainment and income, the graph below doubles as a measure of education.



Surprisingly, income and educational attainment have no effect whatsoever on whether someone accepts that climate change is occurring: The "Yes" answers float around 70% regardless of whether the poll respondent brings in $20,000 or $200,000 a year. This finding seems to hint that knowledge has very little to do with whether someone accepts climate change nowadays.

Political affiliation

If knowledge has little to do with climate change acceptance, what does? American conservatives are well-known to deny climate change, so what do the poll results look like when we break the answers down by political affiliation?



That’s not an error with my plotting software. Eighty-six percent of Democrats accept climate change, whereas half of all Republicans are still in denial on the issue. While some Democrats are still in denial about climate change, it’s fair to say that most deniers of climate change today are Republican.

Religiosity

Oddly enough, climate change has also become a religious issue in the past decade. Could a person’s religiosity affect whether he or she accepts that global climate change is occurring?



Sure enough, we see the same trend as with political affiliation: The more religious a person is, the more likely that person is to deny climate change. Whereas 80% of atheists accept climate change, only 56% of all very religious Americans agree.

It’s fairly clear from these graphs that religious, Republican American conservatives make up the majority of today's deniers of climate change. If income, education, and knowledge have little to do with acceptance of climate change, then could it be that this issue has become one of culture, not science, in America? Do conservative Americans deny climate change simply because it conflicts with their identity as a conservative?

If that’s the case, then throwing facts at those why deny climate change is not going to make them budge on the issue. As Prof. Dan Kahan writes:

"Everyone has gotten the memo on what ‘climate scientists believe.'"

and Mooney says:

"If Kahan is right, the implication is that we need to talk about climate science in a way that is entirely devoid of cultural meanings that will antagonize the right."

So what will convince that last 30% of Americans? First off, we should stop talking about "what scientists believe" and instead actually take into consideration who we’re trying to communicate with. Then we need to figure out: How can we discuss climate change without alienating the average American conservative?

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keycocker



Joined: 10 Jul 2005
Posts: 3598

PostPosted: Mon Sep 29, 2014 7:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Good post pueno.
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MalibuGuru



Joined: 11 Nov 1993
Posts: 9293

PostPosted: Mon Sep 29, 2014 8:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I read that 90% of global warming denier's have XL Packages, yet 90% who follow Al Gore's religion, have nothing to brag about.

Currently, there is great volcanic activity around the globe. Japan, Washington, Italy, South Pacific etcetera. These seem to trump human activity. I wonder if we little folks can really effect much in what is a huge massive earth and sun.
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coboardhead



Joined: 26 Oct 2009
Posts: 4303

PostPosted: Mon Sep 29, 2014 9:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yes.

Overgrazing on the reservations has caused increased dust in the spring which causes the snowpack to melt earlier, which dries out the trees, which causes an increases in the fire danger...all that I can see from my house. Your "inconsequential" human activities has had a pretty significant effect on my world.

While you may believe it is arrogance for one assume that we can alter the earth ; it is ignorance to assume we are incapable of such. The argument that we do not understand all of, or the magnitude of, our effects on the planet is valid. To hide behind the guess that "mother nature" will render those effects inconsequential could be dangerous.
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MalibuGuru



Joined: 11 Nov 1993
Posts: 9293

PostPosted: Mon Sep 29, 2014 11:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think conservatives want clean water, air and food. In fact many on the far right are taking on traditionally liberal perspectives on all of the above.

One cannot deny that if you throw a rock into the ocean, the ripple will carry on in an insignificant way throughout the globe. I just feel there are 100 more pressing and life threatening problems we should attack 1st. Which will kill more people? A 100 yard wide asteroid or 1 foot of ocean rise in the next 100 year? That is the question.
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mac



Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17744
Location: Berkeley, California

PostPosted: Tue Sep 30, 2014 1:06 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

CB--prior to European immigration to North America, a rather small population of Native Americans had been manipulating habitat on a landscape scale for hundreds of years. Burning to increase deer populations gets the most attention in scientific study, but there were many ways.

Bard--for the over 40 years that I have worked on environmental issues, conservatives have fought regulations. They have wrung their hands and said the sky was falling. For the most part, those regulations have added wealth. Science has long been lost on the right. Reagan wanted a poorly educated populace; it is easier for the Koch's to lie to.
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MalibuGuru



Joined: 11 Nov 1993
Posts: 9293

PostPosted: Tue Sep 30, 2014 2:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

No one here is denying science. Don't be foolish. Conservatives have a different perspective on priorities. Humans have had great effect on local environments.

But how can you deny the mass of the oceans? The mass of earth? The mass of volcanic and solar activity? CO2 emitted by natural sources such as the permafrost? The mass of 6 billion people is only a fraction of one millionth of one percent of the total mass of the earth. And...where does that all fit in the global warming "models"?
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uwindsurf



Joined: 18 Aug 2012
Posts: 968
Location: Classified

PostPosted: Tue Sep 30, 2014 5:26 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

stevenbard wrote:
No one here is denying science. Don't be foolish. Conservatives have a different perspective on priorities. Humans have had great effect on local environments.

But how can you deny the mass of the oceans? The mass of earth? The mass of volcanic and solar activity? CO2 emitted by natural sources such as the permafrost? The mass of 6 billion people is only a fraction of one millionth of one percent of the total mass of the earth. And...where does that all fit in the global warming "models"?


The earth is too big to fail?
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techno900



Joined: 28 Mar 2001
Posts: 4161

PostPosted: Tue Sep 30, 2014 8:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

More CO2- Man made?

Quote:
Hurricane effect: A big case of ‘burping’ estuaries

By Jared Brumbaugh
Public Radio East
Posted: Sunday, Sep. 28, 2014

B. Van Dam - UNC INSTITUTE OF MARINE SCIENCES

It’s hurricane season, but so far we’ve been spared from the tropical weather that causes wind damage, flooding and storm surge. Beyond the regular dangers that come with big seasonal storms, a new threat has emerged: “burping estuaries.”

Hans Paerl, Kenan Professor of Marine and Environmental Sciences at UNC Chapel Hill’s Institute of Marine Sciences, explained: “When these hurricanes perturb the system and mix everything up and redistribute the sediments from the bottom into the water column, it essentially causes the system to ‘burp’ a huge amount of carbon dioxide into the air.”

Why is this a problem? It comes down to a surge of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide suddenly being released into the environment.

Scientists already knew that large bodies of water such as the Pamlico Sound are great at absorbing CO2 like a sponge and storing it. But Paerl, along with Joey Crosswell, then a doctoral student who did most of the work for his dissertation, discovered that tropical storms and hurricanes cause carbon dioxide that has been building up for years to be released all at one time.


Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2014/09/28/5197106/hurricane-effect-a-big-case-of.html#storylink=cpy
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pueno



Joined: 03 Mar 2007
Posts: 2807

PostPosted: Tue Sep 30, 2014 8:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

stevenbard wrote:
Currently, there is great volcanic activity around the globe. Japan, Washington, Italy, South Pacific etcetera. These seem to trump human activity.

Can you cite your source for that assertion? (I've read the opposite.)


stevenbard wrote:
One cannot deny that if you throw a rock into the ocean, the ripple will carry on in an insignificant way throughout the globe.

Long called "the butterfly effect," and used as a philosophical cornerstone of chaos theory -- that a tiny, remote perturbation may cause a significant response elsewhere due to the nonlinear reactions of some systems.

It is, of course, either Bush's or Obama's fault, maybe both. Wink

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