Bishop Hill Paul Matthews on sceptics
Feb 11, 2015 Climate: Sceptics Paul Matthews has had a paper published in the journal Environmental Communication looking at global warming sceptics and their backgrounds:
Surveys of public opinion show that a significant minority of the population are skeptical about climate change, and many suggest that doubt is increasing. The Internet, in particular the blogosphere, provides a vast and relatively untapped resource of data on the thinking of climate skeptics. This paper focuses on one particular example where over 150 climate skeptics provide information on their background, opinion on climate change, and reasons for their skepticism. Although these data cannot be regarded as representative of the general public, it provides a useful insight into the reasoning of those who publicly question climate science on the Web. Points of note include the high level of educational background, the significant numbers who appear to have been converted from a position of climate concern to one of skepticism, and the influence of blogs on both sides of the climate debate.
There is a preprint here and Paul's blogpost on the subject is here.
Reader Comments (71)
Another 'study' http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/study-reporters-told-to-stop-covering-irrelevant-climate-change-critics/article/2560039 article discusses this http://jou.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/01/03/1464884914564845.abstract
Yes, basically this paper has just written up the findings of that most perceptive commenter at WUWT.
I wish he had named that commenter and discussed their acknowledged biases.
After all, a British left-winger at WUWT is going to have an outsider’s perspective on their testimonies - which may be simplistic and lacking in detecting nuance.
A valuable contribution to help counter the agit-prop messaging to the effect that sceptics are unhinged loonies who 'deny science' or are paid by or at least in favour of Whatever is Currently Out of Favour with the Anointed (partial list: coal, oil, tobacco, fracking, freedom, affordable food/energy/clothing, fertiliser, pesticide, obesity, democracy, data, and just about anything 'for the masses' like holidays, Walmarts, cars, jobs, and free speech).
MCourtney, indeed I am grateful to that very perceptive commenter! I did not want to draw too much attention to any individual comment, or name individuals, in the paper. In fact I would think that an "outsider" is well placed to do a summary.
The criticism I am anticipating from people here is that the paper doesn't tell you anything you didn't already know, which someone said by email.
Thanks Paul Matthews.
I actually found that the survey and your paper does tell us something we didn't know. Namely that science education aligns better with scepticism than does political worldview.
Which is interesting when you look at the supposed number of comments on the Telegraph's recent Booker article.
And also that people can be converted to scepticism - it is not commonly an innate prejudice.
Amazed to find out there is a journal titled "Environmental Communication".
Even more remarkable to discover that there are people who actually submit papers to it for publication. And earnest fellows eagerly peer-reviewing and editors revising.
Seems utterly pointless to me.
Love this summary of reasons in PM paper:
Never occurs to any of these people that perhaps sceptics are correct and the global warming alarmists are simply ill-informed Chicken Littles extrapolating and arm waving from poor quality data to thermal Armageddon without even a basic, consistent and evidence-based theory on which to support their argument.
And some of us are old enough and sufficiently science literate to spot such nonsense with our BS detectors, having seen similar alarmist nonsense before.
Has anyone done a survey to establish why so many people are so gullible about man's influence on the climate?
A lot of German people thought Mr Hitler was a jolly nice chap. At least the Green Luvvies and their collaborators only resort to gagging their opponents.
SkS page linking Matthews to Mephistopheles in 3...2...1...
ps Kahan eat your heart out!
From PM essay:
Why does my mind start thinking of Victorian Missionaries preaching to the heathen in darkest Africa when I read that? As Golf Charlie notes above, why do these patronising idiots not start wondering why so many ordinary people are taken in by these emotive scare stories?
"...a significant minority of the population are skeptical about climate change..."
A minority is skeptical? I want some of the drugs he is using.
The man cannot even comprehend what "climate change" actually means. That's powerful stuff up/down some orifice.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/climatechange/11375124/Britons-believe-in-climate-change...-but-do-they-care.html
From the Telegraph:-
"The vast majority - 84 per cent - also believe that climate change is either partly or mainly man-made.
Yet the number describing themselves as "very concerned" fell to just 18 per cent, the survey shows. That was down from 44 per cent in 2005.
Overall, those who were either very or fairly concerned were still the majority, at 68 per cent, but much lower than 2005 highs of 82 per cent"
Not sure if this helps or adds to the debate.
Looks a great paper.
An excellent paper, which would have been better if it was explained up front that "climate change" meant "man-made climate change" and did not mean "natural climate change".
Seems utterly pointless to me.
thinkingscientist
Me too. Infact it thoroughly disgusts me.
Stephen Richards BSc Physic MSc Solid State Physics for Paul's benefit and any other would be Lewandonskis.
Nicely done and a respectful nod to the journal for publishing it. Ah but think of all the gnashing of teeth. All that time trying to find out what goes on in the mind of a sceptic and it turns out they'd already said.
How much does it translate to the wider public? Good question. I suspect that they're a paler shade of the sceptic, warmist divide with the majority of the time climate doesn't cross their minds at all. They all get a bit more worried when there's a bit of weather porn on the TV and then they slide back into disinterest. Few recognise that they're paying much for CO2 reduction or that we're merely at the foothills of pain. When it comes to paying, everybody seems to be keen on someone else pcking up the tab.
Glad to see John Daly mentioned in the paper; unlike Professor Phil Jones (... 'oddly cheering news' ...), I was devastated when John Daly died and there were no more updates to his fascinating website 'Still Waiting for Greenhouse'.
He is sadly missed but some of his website is preserved at:
http://www.john-daly.com
Generally politicians know that everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die. Hence the silly scare stories that most of the so-called peasantry ignore but the ruling classes manage to scare themselves silly with. One day the ruling classes will awaken to the knowledge that us peasants have educated ourselves beyond the scares and the fables and are awake to just how venal and dishonest those same ruling classes have become. The will be no bloody revolution as a result, just polite laughter at the ridiculous clothes the King thinks he is wearing.
Maybe they don't understand how it works.
Maybe it will take a sceptic in the form of a Technical Examiner Second Class from a Swiss Patent Office who still thinks logically to show them a better view of the universe and our place in it.
Or would that be too close to history repeating itself.
Some unjustified vitriolic comments in this thread. I'd question if the utterers are genuine or trying to prod confusion and hate
"Definitions! Definitions boy! Get out of my classroom and don't come back until you have defined your terms. What do you think you're writing...A bloody Mills and Boon?"
That is the response I would have expected from Dr Ashcroft had I submitted a paper like that. What is "Climate Change?".
What is "Climate Science?". What is a "Climate sceptic?" What is "Climate concern?" etc. etc.
Well done, Paul!
I see no-one mentioned SkepticalScience as a blog that influenced them...
Ivor Ward - absolutely on the mark. I looked through the Matthews paper searching specifically for a definition of terms, and in particular of 'climate change'. Therein lies the answer. People have twigged that it doesn't mean what looks as though it should mean. They have twigged that it is a political term. As we know, there are in fact a variety of definitions. The UN list them.
Humanity it seems, is the crime. Little wonder that skepticism abounds as dank hands reach into pockets.
Ruth Dixon, the survey was too early. SkS came about after RealClimate debunked itself with Climategate.
It took a couple of years before the RealClimate guys realised the game was up pretending to be experts and left it to the cartoonists.
OT but Norway seems to have discovered a whole new ball game of (North Sea) oil
http://www.norwaypost.no/index.php/business/oil-a-gass/30249
The find is expected to consist of between 30 and 80 billion barrels of extractable oil. (sounds a lot)
They have also just finished a survey of the Barent with promising results.
Tim Spence:
Looks like your source is exaggerating by 3 orders of magnitude. Still useful, but only millions of barrels:
http://www.statoil.com/en/NewsAndMedia/News/2014/Pages/21Oct_Grane.aspx
Good to see Paul's figures that chemists are leading the sceptical way.
Gels exactly with my straw poll in UK where to my knowledge, Barry, the Bish, Jonathan, Ruth, me and at least a couple of regular lurkers here have a chemistry background. There may be more who haven't yet 'come out' as chemists. And apologies to any I've forgotten
MCourtney: SkepticalScience was started in 2007 but I agree it's become more prominent since 2010.
Amazing. This paper looks right at the elephant in the room and pretends there is no elephant.
Ruth Dixon, I stand corrected.
But still think it was too early for SkS to be noticed by many people - RealClimate was the pool that the Alarmists watered at in those days.
Best Regards,
M Courtney
Lowly Chemistry graduate in the 90s.
"Seems utterly pointless to me.
thinkingscientist
Me too. Infact it thoroughly disgusts me.
Stephen Richards BSc Physic MSc Solid State Physics for Paul's benefit and any other would be Lewandonskis."
You're losing me Steve. What's pointless and why do your educational achievements matter in at all?
Climate change is natural. CO2 change has no significant effect.
It is trivially easy, based only on existing CO2 and average global temperature measurement data-sets, to falsify the statement that CO2 (at any level that ever existed) causes significant warming.
Temperature responds gradually to a forcing. If CO2 is a forcing, a scale factor times average CO2 level times the duration divided by the effective thermal capacitance (consistent units) equals the temperature change of the duration. During previous glaciations and interglacials (as so dramatically displayed in An Inconvenient Truth) CO2 and temperature went up and down nearly together. This is impossible if CO2 is a significant forcing so this actually proves CO2 CHANGE DOES NOT CAUSE SIGNIFICANT AVERAGE GLOBAL TEMPERATURE CHANGE.
Application of this analysis methodology to CO2 levels for the entire Phanerozoic (Berner, 2001) proves that CO2 levels up to at least 6 times the present will have no significant effect on average global temperature.
See more on this and discover the two factors that do cause climate change (95% correlation since before 1900) at http://agwunveiled.blogspot.com . The two factors which explain the last 300+ years of climate change are also identified in a peer reviewed paper published in Energy and Environment, vol. 25, No. 8, 1455-1471.
The fundamental assumption is a crock, warming causes CO2 to rise not the other way around, in full colour and in no uncertain terms......... it tells you here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-m09lKtYT4
In "The Great Global Warming Swindle" Ch4 2007.
Human beings, ordinary Joe and Joanna - particularly in the UK have been sold a big fat whopper and the big sell is still sold hard and verging on very, very hard sell - based on the idea that if you tell a lie often enough..............
Propaganda, lies and misdirection.
But when you probe beneath the surface of "why I believe in man made warming" - there's no substance to their mystical belief - all most people do, is go on hearsay and mainly through the appartions manifested from the idiots lantern set in the corner of their front rooms.
Politicians of the Westminster claque [liblabcon] are also to blame for the constant and incessant lies and blurb of global warming this, that and the other. Moreover and unseen goes on, the work of the propagandists of the Met Office, DECC, Defra and EA and countless other taxpayer funded agencies full of Common Purpose apparatchiks reading from a man made warming script.
The only programme ever put out on TV, a sober and cogent defenestration of the glaringly bad, unsatisfactory, half baked second class statistical science backing the great Swindle. It nailed it and bang to rights at that - the MMGW scam in one programme!
Hearken! - unfortunately NOT! The great global warming swindle was left in the sidings all but totally ignored by the great British public.
Britons, they would it seem rather listen to entertainers.
And wouldn't cha know it? That old eco poseur Attenborough is still popular or, David Shukman 'expert' [?] preposterous Iain Stewart and luvvies and pseudo comedians galore! Also, the bbc who by day and night, week in week out, over the years the constant drip, drip of the poisons of man made warming propagandizing. BBC, whether it be on news programmes, post normal documentaries, soaps, reviews and Songs of praise, kids programmes to Countryfile, bird brain watch with eco warriors nonpareil - Chris Packham and Kate not so 'Umble. Then, other professional liars; PotatoeEd, Dave the green to88er and God help us to Miliband the lesser..
It's hard to counter it, the lies - especially when supra national organizations; EU, UN and Obama's clique, Multinationals and corporate banksters and NGOs are telling the same pork pies.
It was ever thus.
Being a realist is a lonely job, it always is standing out and apart from the mob and telling the truth. Not only does it take 'bottle' but it also takes a considerable and sure footed cognizance to go against the received wisdom.
But it must also be noted that, though we know well that, on global warming - is a great lie. In these days of "universal deceits" - on most other things - the weave of politically motivated and mendacious fabrications is so vast it beggars understanding. Tthough all of it, untruths, misdirection and barefaced deception at its basest - is underpinned by our taxes and thus it withers and frays at society and it wears away, tearing if you must at the fabric of western tradition - not only in science but financially and culturally.
We are headed for a calamity and it will be of man's making but the puny bit of CO2 man inputs into the earth's atmosphere - will be nothing to do with it.
"Points of note include the high level of educational background, the significant numbers who appear to have been converted from a position of climate concern to one of skepticism, and the influence of blogs on both sides of the climate debate."
Whilst in no way would I describe myself as an academic having good degree equivalent professional qualifications - the above summary describes my situation accurately.
I would go further and say that most of the zealots of AGW alarmism that I have met and tried to have discussions with have little or no Science Qualifications at all!
A classic example is the UK's one Green Party MP. She used to be presented as "Dr Caroline Lucas - Climate Change expert" - I know I attended one of her early talks and soon realised she was scientifically illiterate and her presentation was total spherical objects.
But she does have a PhD. She earned her PhD from the University of Exeter in 1989 with a thesis entitled:-
"Writing for Women: a study of woman as reader in Elizabethan romance."
Ref:
Lucas, Caroline (1989). Writing for Women: The Example of Woman as Reader in Elizabethan Romance. Open University Press. p. 176. ISBN 0-335-09017-6.
Agreed at first glance seems weak : as @Ivor Ward says : 'define your terms' is the first thing : the loose throwing around of a hot word like "climate change" is not good.
- And the conclusion of the report that - Surprise it's not like deniers are just deniers cos they are Republicans , 95% started off as 'True Believers"' and advanced to become skeptic ..Like duh ! Did anyone really think a naive leftist stereotype of a denier, represents what the debate is ? ..when the top specialist skeptic blogs are magnitudes bigger that the specialist alarmist blogs (in terms of real traffic)
And to not highlight from the beginning that there is an amazing dynamic, that there is a massive pressure for skeptics to hide their beliefs.. is also an error. ie that surveying for true opinions is very difficult
@hunter
(I may regret this, but)
'This paper looks right at the elephant in the room and pretends there is no elephant'
Which 'elephant' do you refer to?
Be honest Climate Change is over hyped and the public are bored of it.
Climate Change is only of interest to Skeptics and Alarmists.
Not good for either side.
Without Global Warming real or not we all have very little left to talk about
Bacteria saved the Mankind from invading Martians and hopefully Apathy and Cynicism will save Mankind from Authoritarian Eco/ Politico Technocrats.
Feb 11, 2015 at 5:27 PM | Registered Commenter M Courtney
"I actually found that the survey and your paper does tell us something we didn't know. Namely that science education aligns better with skepticism than does political worldview."
MC, science awareness increases polarization, i.e. it tends to make skeptics more emphatically skeptical and nominal CAGW supporters into more emphatic believers. See Dan Kahan's work here:
http://www.culturalcognition.net/blog/2014/8/19/what-exactly-is-going-on-in-their-heads-and-in-mine-explaini.html
As a believer in climate orthodoxy himself, Kahan is unfortunately blinded to the explanation for this phenomenon and draws a completely wrong conclusion. For what is really going on, see my Climate Etc post here:
http://judithcurry.com/2015/01/30/climate-psychologys-consensus-bias/
There is such a thing as 'innate skepticism', a generic effect which psychologists are aware of and provides population variable protection against misinformation and cultural takeover (think population variable resistance to disease in biology). None other than Lewandowsky names this effect 'the key to accuracy'. The effect is *not* dependent on the subject matter in question, say WMD or climate science or the creed of some extreme political cult. Likely generic narrative characteristics, such as 'hype' for instance as quoted by Paul Matthews in his paper, help trigger it. Higher awareness (in this case Science awareness), can lift 'innate skepticism' to explicit (and subject detailed) skepticism. On the other side it can lift loose believers to full orthodoxy. Climate Etc post gives full details, but these are normal effects for a culture, so understanding CAGW as a culture lets all the bricks drop into place.
Feb 11, 2015 at 5:27 PM | Registered Commenter M Courtney
"I actually found that the survey and your paper does tell us something we didn't know. Namely that science education aligns better with skepticism than does political worldview."
MC, science awareness increases polarization, i.e. it tends to make skeptics more emphatically skeptical and nominal CAGW supporters into more emphatic believers. See Dan Kahan's work here:
http://www.culturalcognition.net/blog/2014/8/19/what-exactly-is-going-on-in-their-heads-and-in-mine-explaini.html
As a believer in climate orthodoxy himself, Kahan is unfortunately blinded to the explanation for this phenomenon and draws a completely wrong conclusion. For what is really going on, see my Climate Etc post here:
http://judithcurry.com/2015/01/30/climate-psychologys-consensus-bias/
There is such a thing as 'innate skepticism', a generic effect which psychologists are aware of and provides population variable protection against misinformation and cultural takeover (think population variable resistance to disease in biology). None other than Lewandowsky names this effect 'the key to accuracy'. The effect is *not* dependent on the subject matter in question, say WMD or climate science or the creed of some extreme political cult. Likely generic narrative characteristics, such as 'hype' for instance as quoted by Paul Matthews in his paper, help trigger it. Higher awareness (in this case Science awareness), can lift 'innate skepticism' to explicit (and subject detailed) skepticism. On the other side it can lift loose believers to full orthodoxy. Climate Etc post gives full details, but these are normal effects for a culture, so understanding CAGW as a culture lets all the bricks drop into place.
For a second forget the actual detail and look at the actual presentation by alarmists :
- I have seen both types of alarmist proponent :
The systematically deceitful
and the underinformed
(The CO2 effect could suddenly kick in tmw and temperature could leap 4C but speaking of the presentation style I have only noticed those 2 styles on the alarmist side.)
Paul West,
Thank you for your post. I have said for awhile that the "A" in "AGW" is anthropomorphic, not anthropogenic. Your work states that idea much more eloquently than I ever could.
Andy West,
Please accept my apology for managing to get your name wrong. My only excuse is that typing while waking up at 4AM local time does not always produce the best results.
Latimer,
For me, the elephant in the room is the obvious idea the author seems to have over looked:
That skeptics are not merely better educated, but correct.
That the consensus promoters cannot seem to conceive of the notion that they may be wrong is telling of just how non-rational their position is. I hope you don't regret your question either.
I'm astonished at some of the criticisms being aimed at Paul by some of the more excitable commentators here. It is very hard work getting this sort of thing published in an academic journal, and it requires considerable tact from the author(s). To those of you suggesting that Paul should have been much more direct my reply is simple: have a go yourself and see how far you get with your article.
You are, of course, free to argue that academia is utterly corrupt, and that skeptics should not dignify the academic literature by writing in it. I don't think that's a very constructive attitude, but it is a perfectly consistent position. But railing against people who have done the hard work of opening a small chink in the castle of drivel that makes up most "climate communication" by arguing that they should just have blown the bloody doors off really doesn't help anyone.
JonathanJones 11.02am Well said!
Jonathan, thanks for your comment. Yes, if I had tried to blow the bloody doors off by saying that all of the social science research on climate scepticism is a steaming pile of dingo's kidneys (which is not my opinion anyway, some of it is quite good) the paper would not have been accepted.
I don't mind the criticism though. It shows that there is a very wide range of views, and that the often-made claim (most recently from Keith Kloor) that sceptics are not sceptical about other sceptics is not true.
@hunter
Sad tho' it is, Jonathan makes a good point.
And whereas I have absolutely nothing to lose (or gain) by upsetting some uni folks, Paul has to make a future living in the fetid swamp of academe....
'Twould be nice if realpolitik did not intrude....but it does. Let 'softlee softlee catchee monkey' be our watchword......
Latimer, you can add me to your list of those with a chemistry background (PhD from Newcastle, 1998).
First, folk should learn how to think...
And there was me thinking I was a swivel-eyed oil-funded fruitcake...
(Thanks - I didn't actually ask you all to take a vote on the matter...)
Related - as I expounded to my good lady wife this morning, who was reading up on the 'Butter is now good for you' news items - that 'global warming' will go the same way as all these 'low-fat spreads' - because all of this is due to vested interests...
You do not have to have a degree in physics or chemistry to be a qualified sceptic.
As a retired airline pilot who held an ALTP and Flight Navigators Licence, which required an in depth study of Meteorology, I have reason to be sceptical.
Tramping the world over many years you see the weather at its wildest and accept it as natural phenomena.
Climate change is an annual event no matter where you are in the world. Assessing what is an abnormal climate change is difficult as IPCC reports have shown.
It is accepted that 'greenhouse gas theory' is responsible for keeping the earths atmosphere warm at the surface.
Super computers calculating Carbon emissions from fossil fuel burnt have been unable to make the mathematical connection with the observed changes in surface temperature.
The fact that NGO's and technically ignorant Politicians of all colours are prepared to accept and believe Cook et al '97% of Scientists believe.......' is cause to be sceptical.