AP-GfK Poll: Science doubters say world is warming

[garbon]

http://news.yahoo.com/ap-gfk-poll-science-doubters-world-warming-080143113.html

Nearly 4 out of 5 Americans now think temperatures are rising and that global warming will be a serious problem for the United States if nothing is done about it, a new Associated Press-GfK poll finds.

Belief and worry about climate change are inching up among Americans in general, but concern is growing faster among people who don't often trust scientists on the environment. In follow-up interviews, some of those doubters said they believe their own eyes as they've watched thermometers rise, New York City subway tunnels flood, polar ice melt and Midwestern farm fields dry up.

Overall, 78 percent of those surveyed said they thought temperatures were rising and 80 percent called it a serious problem. That's up slightly from 2009, when 75 percent thought global warming was occurring and just 73 percent thought it was a serious problem. In general, U.S. belief in global warming, according to AP-GfK and other polls, has fluctuated over the years but has stayed between about 70 and 85 percent.

The biggest change in the polling is among people who trust scientists only a little or not at all. About 1 in 3 of the people surveyed fell into that category.
Within that highly skeptical group, 61 percent now say temperatures have been rising over the past 100 years. That's a substantial increase from 2009, when the AP-GfK poll found that only 47 percent of those with little or no trust in scientists believed the world was getting warmer.

This is an important development because, often in the past, opinion about climate change doesn't move much in core groups — like those who deny it exists and those who firmly believe it's an alarming problem, said Jon Krosnick, a Stanford University social psychologist and pollster. Krosnick, who consulted with The Associated Press on the poll questions, said the changes the poll shows aren't in the hard-core "anti-warming" deniers, but in the next group, who had serious doubts.

"They don't believe what the scientists say, they believe what the thermometers say," Krosnick said. "Events are helping these people see what scientists thought they had been seeing all along."

Phil Adams, a retired freelance photographer from Washington, N.C., said he was "fairly cynical" about scientists and their theories. But he believes very much in climate change because of what he's seen with his own eyes.

"Having lived for 67 years, we consistently see more and more changes based upon the fact that the weather is warmer," he said. "The seasons are more severe. The climate is definitely getting warmer."

"Storms seem to be more severe," he added. Nearly half, 49 percent, of those surveyed called global warming not just serious but "very serious," up from 42 percent in 2009. More than half, 57 percent, of those surveyed thought the U.S. government should do a great deal or quite a bit about global warming, up from 52 percent three years earlier.

But only 45 percent of those surveyed think President Barack Obama will take major action to fight climate change in his second term, slightly more than the 41 percent who don't think he will act.

Overall, the 78 percent who think temperatures are rising is not the highest percentage of Americans who have believed in climate change, according to AP polling. In 2006, less than a year after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, 85 percent thought temperatures were rising. The lowest point in the past 15 years for belief in warming was in December 2009, after some snowy winters and in the middle of an uproar about climate scientists' emails that later independent investigations found showed no manipulation of data.

Broken down by political party, 83 percent of Democrats and 70 percent of Republicans say the world is getting warmer. And 77 percent of independents say temperatures are rising. Among scientists who write about the issue in peer-reviewed literature, the belief in global warming is about 97 percent, according to a 2010 scientific study.

The AP-GfK poll was conducted Nov. 29-Dec. 3 by GfK Roper Public Affairs and Corporate Communications. It involved landline and cellphone interviews with 1,002 adults nationwide. Results for the full sample have a margin of error of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points; the margin of error is larger for subgroups.
The latest AP-GfK poll jibes with other surveys and more in-depth research on global warming, said Anthony Leiserowitz, director of Yale University's Project on Climate Change Communication. He took no part in the poll.

When climate change belief was at its lowest, concerns about the economy were heightened and the country had gone through some incredible snowstorms and that may have chipped away at some belief in global warming, Leiserowitz said. Now the economy is better and the weather is warmer and worse in ways that seem easier to connect to climate change, he said.

"One extreme event after another after another," Leiserowitz said. "People have noticed. ... They're connecting the dots between climate change and this long bout of extreme weather themselves."

Thomas Coffey, 77, of Houston, said you can't help but notice it.

"We use to have mild temperatures in the fall going into winter months. Now, we have summer temperatures going into winter," Coffey said. "The whole Earth is getting warmer and when it gets warmer, the ice cap is going to melt and the ocean is going to rise."

He also said that's what he thinks is causing recent extreme weather.

"That's why you see New York and New Jersey," he said, referring to Superstorm Sandy and its devastation in late October. "When you have a flood like that, flooding tunnels like that. And look at how long the tunnel has been there."

[The Minsky Moment]

This is what I never understood about this debate.
The skeptic position basically comes down to emphasizing uncertainty in the modelling.  But uncertainty goes both ways.  It could be the model is overestimating human influence and its effects; it could also be understating it.
usually in the presence of risk aversion, greater uncertainty -- if not biased in one direction - should increase the willingness to pay for insurance.  So really we should be spending more not less to stop warming . . .

[The Brain]

I've said it before: underground cities basking in nuclear light.

[Ed Anger]

I've said it before: underground cities basking in nuclear light.

Encase the US and Canada in a giant A/C controlled dome. Watch as everybody else dies.

[mongers]

This is what I never understood about this debate.
The skeptic position basically comes down to emphasizing uncertainty in the modelling.  But uncertainty goes both ways.  It could be the model is overestimating human influence and its effects; it could also be understating it.
usually in the presence of risk aversion, greater uncertainty -- if not biased in one direction - should increase the willingness to pay for insurance.  So really we should be spending more not less to stop warming . . .

JR I think the point of weakness in your argument is you're trying to imagine that librarytarian wing-nuts will engage in a rational debate.

[grumbler]

This is what I never understood about this debate.
The skeptic position basically comes down to emphasizing uncertainty in the modelling.  But uncertainty goes both ways.  It could be the model is overestimating human influence and its effects; it could also be understating it.
usually in the presence of risk aversion, greater uncertainty -- if not biased in one direction - should increase the willingness to pay for insurance.  So really we should be spending more not less to stop warming . . . 

The problem is that no model shows that any reasonable expenditure of effort will make any appreciable difference.  I'd say that the priority should be to spend whatever is needed to validate models, not to "stop warming" (whatever that means).  I'd think that an expenditure equal to, say, a year's US defense spending (over maybe ten years) would be a reasonable sum, and far better spent than actual defense spending. If a radical, federally-funded cut in greenhouse gas emissions over that period turns out to have no meaningful effect, then the money should be spent on meaningful mitigation, not useless avoidance.

[The Minsky Moment]

The problem is that no model shows that any reasonable expenditure of effort will make any appreciable difference.

The models suggest the existence of a causal relationship between greenhouse gas emission and temperature increases.
There are sorts of things that can be done to decrease the quantity of greenhouse gas emission quite significantly.

[Caliga]

This is what I never understood about this debate.
The skeptic position basically comes down to emphasizing uncertainty in the modelling.  But uncertainty goes both ways.  It could be the model is overestimating human influence and its effects; it could also be understating it.
usually in the presence of risk aversion, greater uncertainty -- if not biased in one direction - should increase the willingness to pay for insurance.  So really we should be spending more not less to stop warming . . .

"A scientist said it so it's automatically incorrect, since they're mistaken about evolution as well."

[Neil]

The problem is that no model shows that any reasonable expenditure of effort will make any appreciable difference.

The models suggest the existence of a causal relationship between greenhouse gas emission and temperature increases.
There are sorts of things that can be done to decrease the quantity of greenhouse gas emission quite significantly.

Anything practical?

[The Minsky Moment]

Anything practical?

Sure.
Carbon taxation, nuclear construction, replacing coal with gas, carbon sequestration, energy efficiency.
And a lot of those things carry benefits beyond their effects on warming.

[crazy canuck]

Anything practical?

Sure.
Carbon taxation, nuclear construction, replacing coal with gas, carbon sequestration, energy efficiency.
And a lot of those things carry benefits beyond their effects on warming.

Carbon taxation alone does nothing but increase the price of energy for areas that only have access to carbon based energy.  Sure you might argue that increasing costs to reflect actual enviornmental harm might create a marketplace of alternatives but unless you live in an area with such untapped alternatives this because a expensive policy that accomplishes nothing.  Even in areas were alternatives are available they would be unreliable for constant energy supply (except for hydro and nuclear).

Nuclear construction is probably the way to go but who wants one of those in their back yard?

LNG production is itself energy intensive and fraking has its own enviornmental issues

carbon sequestration is largely theoretical at this point although many companies now claim to be able to do it so we shall see.

energy efficiency is something everyone can agree on both because it will reduce carbon emissions and because it makes good economic sense.  I would add to the drive for energy efficiency the technologies that reduce emissions from burning carbon for energy.

[The Minsky Moment]

Carbon taxation alone does nothing but increase the price of energy for areas that only have access to carbon based energy.

Carbon taxation increases the costs of  carbon-heavy forms of energy and thus causes substitution to other alternatives (including use of less energy). That's just basic micro.

Nuclear construction is probably the way to go but who wants one of those in their back yard?

Most zoning codes provide for setbacks.   
Seriously, it's an issue but not insurmountable.  There is already a significant installed base that is already there and there is a lot of land in places like NAmerica and Asia.

LNG production is itself energy intensive and fraking has its own enviornmental issues

Fracking is happening so we might as well get the advantage of it.  There are gains to be made here just by substituting out coal (thus no LNG issues).

carbon sequestration is largely theoretical at this point although many companies now claim to be able to do it so we shall see.

Put the economic incentives in place and we will find out.

energy efficiency is something everyone can agree on both because it will reduce carbon emissions and because it makes good economic sense.  I would add to the drive for energy efficiency the technologies that reduce emissions from burning carbon for energy.

There you go.  And there is high complementarity between these efforts and the carbon tax.

[Neil]

Using less energy?