April 3, 2013

"37% of voters believe global warming is a hoax, 51% do not."

According to a PPP poll, which also found:
28% of voters believe secretive power elite with a globalist agenda is conspiring to eventually rule the world through an authoritarian world government, or New World Order....

Voters are split 44%-45% on whether Bush intentionally misled about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq....

15% of voters say the government or the media adds mind-controlling technology to TV broadcast signals....

11% of voters believe the US government allowed 9/11 to happen....
So take that into account as you assess the significance of 37% of voters believing global warming is a hoax. On the other hand, the question uses the word "hoax," and that would require a "no" answer from people who disbelieve in global warming, but don't think anyone is deliberately tricking us. That is, if you think that existing science isn't good enough to predict what will happen to climate in the future or if you think the science is skewed by policy preferences or the politics of grant money, the word "hoax" doesn't express what you think. And obviously the whole poll is nudging you with the overarching question: Hey, are you some kind of conspiracy kook? If you understand questions by the company they keep, you get the idea that the answer to everything is "no."

133 comments:

William said...

The global warming poll is a hoax.

jrberg3 said...

And we allow those idiots the power to elect our government officials. The kooks, crazies and conspiracy theorists...and we wonder why our government is so dysfunctional.

Anonymous said...

The discussion about the global warming poll being a hoax is a hoax.

DCS said...

The predictions of global catastrophe by CO2 induced warming are exaggerated and the result of over reliance on computer models that reflect the biases of the programmers. It's not a hoax. It's bad science and that is far worse.

Sorun said...

"...if you think the science is skewed by policy preferences or the politics of grant money, the word "hoax" doesn't express what you think."

I wouldn't personally use the word "hoax," but these are some of the motives for a hoax, if you use the word very loosely.

garage mahal said...

Republicans say global warming is a hoax by a 58-25 margin, Democrats disagree 11-77

Shocka!

MadisonMan said...

Construct a Venn Diagram. I suspect there is considerable overlap between People who believe Global Warming is a Hoax and People who believe a secretive power elite with a globalist agenda is conspiring to eventually rule the world through an authoritarian world government, or New World Order.

Palladian said...

Silly poll. First, even the most ardent (verdant?) of Greenies don't use the term "global warming" anymore; it's "climate change". Second, even if you "believe" in climate change (and "believe" is a silly word to use in a scientific context), you may not agree with the political subtext yoked to the act of "believing" in global warming or climate change: that such changes are caused totally or primarily by the actions of human beings and/or that they can be remedied by human action. Third, the phrase "global warming", as it is used in a popular context, is generally understood as having negative connotations, so "belief" in such an idea also suggests that one also believes climate change to be a negative development.

I wouldn't be able to answer most of these PPP poll questions, because they're stupid.

Nathan Alexander said...

@chrisnavin,
Those Responsible for Sacking the People Who Have Just Been Sacked, Have Been Sacked

Palladian said...

garage mahal said: GO TEAM GO TEAM RAH RAH RAH

Shocka!

Basta! said...

The poll summary also says this:

"Just 5% of voters believe that Paul McCartney actually died in 1966"

Huh??

Darrell said...

Scientists always destroy raw data when things are going as planned. They also send notes to each other chiding the other for not manipulating the data enough to stiffle dissent once and for all.

JPS said...

DCS: Well said.

It's not a hoax. There's probably something to it. But it is studied by people who've started in the field, or crossed over to it, convinced that there's a problem and we're causing it. Their results, their expertise and occasionally their integrity are being picked apart by a few of their peers, but mostly by interested amateurs (some very sharp, some clueless) - who, politically, they tend to find repugnant.

If you set out to design a field in which an overwhelming number of professionals will use all their expertise and logic to "prove" their theory correct, and to dismiss any problems as either trivial or fraudulent, you couldn't do much better than modern climate science.

We hear a lot of talk about feedback mechanisms in global climate. My own guess (as a scientist but not a climate scientist) is that the most powerful feedback loop in global warming is confirmation bias.

Darrell said...

PPP conducts polls only for Democratic campaigns and progressive organizations.

Shocka!

Palladian said...

28% of voters believe secretive power elite with a globalist agenda is conspiring to eventually rule the world through an authoritarian world government, or New World Order....

I wonder what percentage of that 28% believe that the "secretive power elite" is Jewish.

Palladian said...

I believe that any number of non-secretive power elites with globalist agendas are conspiring to eventually rule the world through an authoritarian world government.

Fairly hard to dispute that one.

garage mahal said...

garage mahal said: GO TEAM GO TEAM RAH RAH RAH

If you meant I tend to side with scientists over someone like Rush Limbaugh, then yes. Happy to be on that team.

JPS said...

Oh, and this struck me:

"Voters are split 44%-45% on whether Bush intentionally misled about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq...."

I have a hunch CAGW will turn out to be the left's Iraq WMDs: There was a problem, all right, but the arguments that we had to act, drastically, NOW, to prevent a catastrophe will turn out to be less compelling in hindsight than they looked at the time.

Basta! said...

I would dispute these numbers, if they were to be extrapolated to the population as a whole:

"20% of voters believe there is a link between childhood vaccines and autism, 51% do not"

I know people with kids with severe autism, they all believe this, and they're hooked into on-line networks where this is taken as fact. And they get quite aggressive if anyone expresses doubts.

JPS said...

garage mahal:

"I tend to side with scientists over someone like Rush Limbaugh...."

So you're siding with me now? Well, glad to have your support!

Sorun said...

Think that's shocking? 51% of voters think Joe Biden is smart enough to be vice president! (And they're mostly Democrats).

MadisonMan said...

Why are pollsters asking whether Bush misled people on WMD?

How, at this point, does it matter?

Or is this is just something that is asked so pollsters can understand what flavor of crazy the respondent is?

Shanna said...

First, even the most ardent (verdant?) of Greenies don't use the term "global warming" anymore; it's "climate change".

Yeah, and 'climate change' means almost nothing.

I had a conversation with a family member one day and he was like 'do you believe in climate change' and I said 'um, of course. We used to have an ice age and now we're in a long warm period and we've had a bunch of changes along the way including colder (little ice age, etc) and warmer periods (like the MWP and the roman times). So climate change is a fact of life but it [i]means[/i] nothing but that the climate is variable. Which is not exactly news.

Darrell said...

garage mahal is on the team that has Al "The Earth's core is a million degrees F!: Gore as its frontman.

Sucka!

MadisonMan said...

Was this poll taken on April 1st?

SteveR said...

Yeah so you frame a question such that the answer many believe to be correct (bad science) is not available. So people choose the next best answer (hoax). Then garage extrapolates that to come up with an invalid portrayal of republicans. Garage thinks he made a clever point when once again he's proven to be stupid. Shocka!

Alex said...

AGW is good because it opens up farmland in Greenland, Canada and Russia.

Anonymous said...

Construct a Venn diagram of the people who believe wholeheartedly in global warming, enough to that their identities and paychecks are dependent upon it in a permanent form of activism, and you'll find a lot of overlap with the people who believe in one-world government conveniently led, perhaps, one day, by themselves or people they are sympathetic to.

There's a lot of overlap with the high-speed rail people as well, new urbanists, and various others.

Not much room for individual liberty in many green quarters, but plenty of room for collectivists, activists, secret authoritarians, displaced religious believers looking for the apocalypse, anti-corportatists, anti-technology, population control nuts.

And then you have semi-charlatan politicians and people making money of the whole sad train, and twisted incentives for poor countries to extort rich ones.

Scientists, take note.

Palladian said...

Garage mahal, honey, "scientists" are not a monolithic political group (at least not yet, until your people get through with them). Which "scientists", specifically, do you "side" with?

MadisonMan said...

Ah, having clicked the link, I see they were deliberately asking about things that are sometimes perceived to be Conspiracy Theories. I still think it was done on 4/1.

I'm trying to imagine my reaction is they'd called me and started asking these questions. At some point I would have hung up the phone. Who needs to waste time considering this kind of nonsense?

Alex said...

Palladian - 90% of climate scientists and 100% of the ones that matter subscribe to AGW. But keep on the side of the crackpots.

MadisonMan said...

4% of voters say they believe “lizard people” control our societies by gaining political power

Good God. They even asked about Chemtrails.

Drago said...

garage: "If you meant I tend to side with scientists over someone like Rush Limbaugh, then yes. Happy to be on that team."

LOL

Care to explain the 20 year hiatus in increasing temperatures that have been documented and now have the climate "scientists" perplexed?

A result that is absolutely not predicted by ANY global warming/climate change/purple elephant computer model dreamed up by the climate "scientists"?

LOL

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/twenty-year-hiatus-in-rising-temperatures-has-climate-scientists-puzzled/story-e6frg6z6-1226609140980

Maybe garage should have taken a science class or 2. Even in a modular classroom he might have learned something.

Basta! said...

No question about the Anunaki space aliens who came from planet X and did DNA experiments on earth hominids, thereby creating the first humans, the Sumerians?

I'm disappointed.

jrberg3 said...

I have a hunch CAGW will turn out to be the left's Iraq WMDs: There was a problem, all right, but the arguments that we had to act, drastically, NOW, to prevent a catastrophe will turn out to be less compelling in hindsight than they looked at the time.

We are already there.

MadisonMan said...

15% of voters think the medical industry and the pharmaceutical industry “invent” new diseases to make money

(laugh) Is there a reason to take anything about this poll seriously, other than to note that some people are cray-cray?

Palladian said...

Actually, all the monolithic scientists are geologists.

Drago said...

Alex: "90% of climate scientists and 100% of the ones that matter subscribe to AGW."

Please provide the criteria that must be met in order to be a climate scientist "that matters"

Thanks. We'll wait.....

Joe said...

Science is never be done "by consensus."

I've seen complaints and worries that the so-called soft sciences have been corrupted, bought and paid for by big business and big government for decades now. It looks very much that the "hard sciences" have been too.

How is it that physics and astronomy (of which climatology is a bastard child) should be subject to political and economic pressures? Simple. It takes money to build the Hubble Space Telescope and a Superconducting Super Collider.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

The lizard people have got just about every one of you completely fooled.

Darrell said...

Didn't Clinton sign an order in 1993 banning US government funding for any project not accepting the AGW premise (or, conversely, attempting to refute that premise)?
What do you expect climate "scientists" to say--assuming that they want to pay the rent?

MadisonMan said...

Who, among the commenters here, is a Lizard Person?

I vote that Cedarford is. Here is his picture.

jrberg3 said...

Alex said...
Palladian - 90% of climate scientists and 100% of the ones that matter subscribe to AGW. But keep on the side of the crackpots.


So who gets to decide which ones matter?? The ones who believe in AGW?? nice closed feedback loop!

Real American said...

the hoax is that we need to waste trillions of dollars to alter the weather based on dubious, politicized science, and if you question the science you are akin to Holocaust deniers.

Drago said...

Madisonman: "Who needs to waste time considering this kind of nonsense?"

The leftists who see their global warming / climate change gambit for increased government power wilting away under the withering "heat" of scrutiny due to their data bastardization and "lost homework" ("accidently deleted the raw data from the database!!!" lol) and inability to accurately predict ANYTHING with their "models" (even in reverse!!).

Too funny.

But garage still believes in them, so they've got that going for them.....which is nice....

MadisonMan said...

Is this Ann Althouse's true identity?

Palladian said...

Madison Man, I have acquaintances who teach college-level courses who believe some of the "theories" in this poll, most notably the vaccine/autism link and the manufactured diseases stuff.

Sometimes I wish I didn't teach art & humanities.

SteveR said...

Alex, you're really not very good at the little game you play. Especially since you are so impressed with how you play it that you have to talk about playing it.

Sorun said...

"Please provide the criteria that must be met in order to be a climate scientist "that matters""

Consensus member in good standing.

Anonymous said...

We should do a Venn diagram of the tinfoil crowd, and see what they agree upon, and make public policy out of that.

American can then ship her best conspiracy theories to the rest of the world.

One world conspiracy gov't.

Drago said...

Palladian: "Madison Man, I have acquaintances who teach college-level courses who believe some of the "theories" in this poll, most notably the vaccine/autism link and the manufactured diseases stuff."

Lefties are also big on opposition to GMO. The last thing lefties want is for poor people in other countries to have greater access to food. God forbid that Monsanto or someone makes a profit on the side for developing technology that could double our food production and make the food last longer for transit to areas that need it.

What would you need the UN for then?

That's what scares the lefties.

Henry said...

15% of voters say the government or the media adds mind-controlling technology to TV broadcast signals....

This is true. The "mind-controlling technology" is called "imagery".

MadisonMan said...

I should show my own picture! Meet your NEW LIZARD OVERLORD!

Shanna said...

Is this Ann Althouse's true identity?

Was that a Doctor Who lizard?

I wonder what percentage of that 28% believe that the "secretive power elite" is Jewish.

100% of commenters named Cedeford do!

Darrell said...

scientist "that matters"

Not only obeys Dear Leader, but loves him.

Anonymous said...

Palladian, there are some nuts in the sciences too. Being brilliant at one thing isn't always a sign of a healthy, reasonable mind.

Arts/humanities just sets the bar on logic so low it catches all the 'creative' types.

Chip Ahoy said...

The question "do you believe in global warming" is just so flatly stupid it sounds like "thud."

If you are asking me do I notice icebergs calving and an apparent general disruption in global climate patterns, as far as I can tell with my own eyeballs, and through all your crap statistics, the answer is, yes,

but if you are asking if I believe the cause is cO2 and that cO2 is entirely caused by man's pollution, and that cO2 pollution is bad bad bad and has a greater effect than the sun has, or that there would be interglacial stability forever without it, or that a massive redistribution of wealth is necessary to curb it, or that I believe a single word that slides out of Al Gore's mouth or slithers out of his pen or creeps across his keyboard, then the answer is no.

Mitch H. said...

Good God. They even asked about Chemtrails.

The smartest man I ever met - a guy who worked with Borlaug back in the Mexican dwarf wheat days - was a firm believer in chemtrails. Scientists can be as crazy and credulous outside of their area of expertise as the goofiest Art Bell listener.

We have two meteo PhDs in the office these days, both of them coincidentally named Joe. One is a doctrinaire AGW warmist type, the other thinks that most modern warming is due to UHI expansion rather than runaway greenhouse effect.

Drago said...

And speaking of conspiracies, wasn't it robert cook who recently very casually sauntered into the "Reagan coordinated with the Ayatollah to keep the American hostages until Reagan was inaugurated" arena?

And then "backed it up" by saying that there was no ironclad or concrete proof etc while forgetting to mention that gee, there really isn't ANY proof whatsoever that occurred?

And don't get me started on the 9-11 Bush MIHOP/LIHOP tangent.

MadisonMan said...

The term is Silurian.

So psyched for the new season!

Drago said...

Alex and garage also believe that Kim Jong Un is a terrific golfer as evidenced by N Korean News Agency reports of all the holes in one that Jong Un makes......

Drago said...

BTW, the mexican people by overwhelming margins in the 1970's believed that their droughts were caused by the US efforts to seed clouds for rain.

The lefties are always looking for the next boogie man they can blame for their failures.

Shanna said...

So psyched for the new season!

I'm a couple seasons behind and can't bring myself to catch up on netflix yet.

traditionalguy said...

The myth that CO2 trace gas as a driver of warming is a hoax that was created by intentionally fraudulent and well paid faked science using faked data.

Blaming it now on THE COMPUTERS is also smoke and mirrors. The well paid false science guys created the faked data and fed it into programs that used fantasy feed back assumptions.

Rob said...

Most arresting crosstab from the PPP poll: 5% of people who say they voted for Obama think he's the Anti-Christ, and 8% of Obama voters say they don't know if he is or not. Talk about your yellow-dog Democrats!

MadisonMan said...

My favorite episode is still the Tom Baker one with the Mona Lisa. Even though a lot of it is just him and Leela running around Paris.

Basta! said...

I was in Russia the year after the Soviets collapsed and there was a popular TV show, where you would put a glass of water on top of the TV and the guy on screen would send out his magic rays to cure your problems, be they physical or psychological --- but not, I think, alcohol-derived.

OK, so he wasn't government per se, just a very very powerful individual.

Brian Brown said...

Since there is no evidence, anywhere at all, the globe is warming, why would you believe hat "global warming" as commonly described, isn't a hoax?

Robert Cook said...

"28% of voters believe secretive power elite with a globalist agenda is conspiring to eventually rule the world through an authoritarian world government, or New World Order...."

They're not really so secretive. They operate pretty much in the open, though the media work assiduously in disseminating misleading information and cheer-leading propaganda so the inattentive and slow don't catch on.

You can find them in their corner offices on Wall Street and their corporate headquarters whereever they may be, and their paid factota constitute a human anthill in Washington D.C., (with other such anthills in centers of government and halls of power and military bases around the world).

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Poll questions are like the media: Biased and written for the consumption of stupid people.

MadisonMan said...

Poll questions are like the media

Maybe it's just my cold-blooded nature and scaly skin, but I find the questions they asked pretty hilarious.

If you're not laughing at them, you're crying, and reptiles don't cry.

Palladian is about to snack in this picture. Us reptilian overlords are everywhere.

Robert Cook said...

See? Not so secret, but apparent for all who can see.

Anonymous said...

51% follow whoever scream the loudest.

Basta! said...

I'm still stumped over this one:

"Just 5% of voters believe that Paul McCartney actually died in 1966"

You mean he's NOT dead?! (haha)

And what, some body-double or reanimated zombie has been running around using his name?

I thought this theory might have to do with the Abby Road cover, but that wasn't til 1969.

I don't get it (clearly)

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

28% of voters believe secretive power elite with a globalist agenda is conspiring to eventually rule the world through an authoritarian world government, or New World Order....

Voters are split 44%-45% on whether Bush intentionally misled about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq....

15% of voters say the government or the media adds mind-controlling technology to TV broadcast signals....

11% of voters believe the US government allowed 9/11 to happen..


Remarkable that the pollsters found garage and Ritmo at home on the same evening.

Dante said...

This is probably the Lewandowsky poll. The has come under criticism by skeptics. The primary reason is that it only showed up on strongly pro AGW sites.

You can read about the criticisms here.

Peter said...

"15% of voters say the government or the media adds mind-controlling technology to TV broadcast signals."

But, they didn't ask how many of those who believe this also continue to watch TV broadcasts?

ricpic said...

For a while the earth was actually warming and carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere were rising and so a connection was made, not proven, theorized. Carbon dioxide levels continue to rise to this day while global climate has flattened. Which doesn't disprove the theory of a connection between higher CO2 and global warming. All it tells us is that what makes the earth warm and cool is, at present, beyond the grasp of science.

ricpic said...

Paul McCartney has been dead to one legged women since 2008.

Astro said...

I don't think climate science started out trying to create a hoax about global warming, but I do think over the past 15 years, as the data increasingly failed to support their hypothesis, that they've taken desperate measures to promote what they've learned is an invalid claim. So it essentially evolved into a hoax.

Tank said...

What global warming?

edutcher said...

This is the Koskidz poll, so we shouldn't be toooo surprised, but this question tells you the kind of people they asked:

Believe in Lizard People?

Robert Cook said...

"I thought this theory might have to do with the Abby Road cover, but that wasn't til 1969.

"I don't get it (clearly)"


Back around the time of SGT. PEPPER, a rumor flew around the world that Paul McCartney had died. Not too many people took it seriously, but apparently there were those who believed it. John Lennon made a humorous allusion to it in his lyric "the Walrus was Paul," (I can't recall which song this is from), as somehow the song "I Am The Walrus" was seen by some as a "clue" to the truth of Paul's death.

Nomennovum said...

The proof that global warming is a hoax is that its proponants have ceased calling it global warming, due mainly to the fact of its absence.

Crimso said...

"Actually, all the monolithic scientists are geologists."

With the exception of Dr. Heywood Floyd.

Seeing Red said...

Global warming or man-made global warming?

The Norweigans, Japanese & Russians all say temps are not going to where the models say they will & I thought I just read the oceans aren't warming like the models said either.

It seems it's the soot. So do we keep the soot or not?

ErnieG said...

In surveys of this type, how does one account for the 11% who believe that Elvis is alive?

AllenS said...

You can't go wrong with climate change. Every day is different. Today will be warmer than yesterday, but not by much, and still below normal, which means...

AllenS said...

Oh, I forgot, Shockass!

SteveR said...

"the Walrus was Paul,"

Glass Onion from the White Album

Seeing Red said...

Insty recently posted this via Pirate's Cove:

Like I’ve said many times, I’ll believe it when I see it. Eventually the Earth’s climate will flip back into a cool period (like it’s been doing back and forth since the end of the last glacial age), and, yes, there is the potential for going back into a true glacial age. Doesn’t mean that this current warm period, which is primarily caused by natural processes, will end shortly. Or, it might. Anyhow


(No Tricks Zone) Mentioning the lethal “100-year, record-smashing” spring cold and snow spreading across Europe over the past month has for the most part been avoided like the plague by Germany’s mainstream media. The silence over the record cold and frost, which has killed thousands and cost billions, has been ear-ringing.

Yet some leading dailies are breaking ranks, and have begun to examine the phenomenon critically and openly.

For example veteran journalist Ulli Kulke at German flagship daily Die Welt today has stunned the rest of the German mainstream media with a piece titled Scientists warn of ice age.

The information in the article is based on a peer-reviewed paper from two Russian scientists, who looked at the real world data and trends, as well as the solar processes, and say that this could lead to a climate similar to the Little Ice Age (PS for Warmists: it’s not just about sun spots, but the overall activity of the Sun along with its magnetism).

Again, to be clear, until it happens, it’s all conjecture. Just like the notion that this current warm period is caused by Mankind. Well, except that the climate does switch between warm and cool.

ErnieG said...

"86% of statistics are made up on the spot. Only 14% of the people know that." - Homer Simpson

Seeing Red said...

At this point my response is just likely to be,"Wake me when palm trees appear in England again."

Original Mike said...

Where is Heywood? I haven't seen him since 2001.

Crimso said...

"I can't recall which song this is from"

"Glass Onion," IIRC. Great song.

Sam L. said...

If not for global warming, I would have grown up near a glacier. Anthropogenic (or AlGorebull) GW--that's pretty clearly a scam, or they wouldn't have lied to us as much as they did.

Crimso said...

Heywood, who bore a striking resemblance to the actor Roy Scheider, went to Jupiter a few years ago. Not sure what he's been up to since.

And "White Album?" Please. "The Beatles"

tiger said...

'So take that into account as you assess the significance of 51% of voters believing global warming is real.'

FTFY.

Drago said...

Cookie: "You can find them in their corner offices on Wall Street and their corporate headquarters whereever they may be, and their paid factota constitute a human anthill in Washington D.C., (with other such anthills in centers of government and halls of power and military bases around the world)."


LOL

You are much more likely to find them at the UN building.

Shanna said...

Palladian is about to snack in this picture. Us reptilian overlords are everywhere.

I believe this weekend you can see Palladian in 3D!

hombre said...

MM wrote: " I suspect there is considerable overlap between People who believe Global Warming is a Hoax and People who believe a secretive power elite with a globalist agenda is conspiring to eventually rule the world through an authoritarian world government, or New World Order."

You may be right, but if you are, it is a recent phenomenon. Historically, the lefties of the climate change hook-line-and-sinker variety were promoting the power elite NWO stuff. Now they just focus on the Koch Brothers and evil Republicans.

stengle said...

I want to know what proportion believed in the Mayan Prophecies in December?

More tellingly, do they still believe in them?

We need to know.

Phunctor said...

I recently re-subscribed to The Economist, on the occasion of their backing off from the APGW Full Hockey Stick. In a year or so they will never have been one of the credulous suckers.

hawkeyedjb said...

A scientific inquiry is an inappropriate subject for a poll using the term "believe" or "belief." The goal of a scientific inquiry should be to find facts and truth.

But this particular inquiry is tainted by the "solutions" proferred by those who "believe" in AGW: me have to wreck the economy, RIGHT NOW! Poverty and misery seem to be their goals, which has little to do with the notion of a fact-based scientific theory.

It should also be noted that the strongest "believers" in AGW are very strongly opposed to the use of the scientific method, which is based on doubt, skepticism and constant testing of observed results. Some "believers" think that the scientific method should be illegal, and those who follow it should be ostracized. There was the delightful chap who recently called for the death penalty for those who "deny" (that is, express skepticism) about AGW. And further evidence that AGW has become a religion rather than a subject of scientific inquiry comes from the fellow who has proposed an 11th Commandment: "Thou shalt not emit greenhouse gases."

hombre said...

"Voters are split 44%-45% on whether Bush intentionally misled about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq...."

Several thousand Iraqi Kurds from Halabja wanted to weigh in on this issue, but were denied the opportunity.

We have truly become a nation dominated by morons.

Cedarford said...

Broomhandle said...
28% of voters believe secretive power elite with a globalist agenda is conspiring to eventually rule the world through an authoritarian world government, or New World Order....

=======================
After all the splashy get-togethers of Global Elites at places like Bohemian Grove, Davos and Copenhagen to instruct the rest of the world how it will be in short order - they are not exactly secretive.

Nor were they able to remain well hidden - when they were flushed out in the open with the European and American finacial meltdowns. Where they magically got trillion dollar bailouts and no one went to jail.

And many of their agendas just move along arrogantly with voters having no real say in America, Europe, Russia......
Despite the masses wishes - the Elites decided that carbon taxes, Free Market Globalism to move creation of goods and services to the low bid labor pool anywhere on the planet would occur - the wishes of the people impacted being irrelevant. Agendas ending the death penalty globally, getting small arms out of the hands of non-government employee rabble was to happen. And mass 3rd World immigration to the developed world would happen to better suppress workers wage bargaining power. And Europe would be run by the bankers and elite bureaucrats in EU ofices, not European parliaments. And hundreds of billions in unsecured promissary note loans would be sent to the 3rd World knowing they would divert most money to the corrupt Elites there - and the money would never be repaid to the masses in the 1st World that efectively underwrote it.

And all along the way, these changes would be exploited to funnel more money, profits from 3rd World factories, and transaction fees - into the hands of the financiers, lawyers, and bought and paid for pols that furthered the Elites interests. Many Jewish, many not Jewish..A Global Elite with as many agendas as they have - could not manage it if membership was restricted to a small population pool of wealthy Jews and their paid tools.

Again - the Elites poison financial paper has cost America 4 trillion to "make the Elites whole again"...Europe might be even more when that is done..Oligarchs looted trillions from Russia. And outside Russia, none of them have gone to jail, let alone been stood up against a wall and shot.
Why did not a single Wall Street scammer end up in jail?
Power!
That's why.
Even at the worst point - few in the banks and on Wall Street worried they would face consequences.

hombre said...

These polls are no big deal. Apparently (leaving wiggle room for fraud), more than half the voters think Obama is fit to be President.

Now that's absurd!

Phunctor said...

"Fact" is a legal concept, I suppose. "Truth" definitely doesn't exist usefully outside of maths.

Scientific investigation produces explanations of phenomena based on falsifiable hypotheses supported by valid observations.

Generally the more parsimonious (turtles all the way) explanation is preferred over the less (sharks with frickin lasers, then turtles, then Aliens..).

Rusty said...

garage mahal said...
garage mahal said: GO TEAM GO TEAM RAH RAH RAH

If you meant I tend to side with scientists over someone like Rush Limbaugh, then yes. Happy to be on that


Then you'll agree that the planet hasn't warmed in the last 20 years. In fact we are entering a new cooling period.
The science shows that people have nothing to do with it.
Solar climate has everything to do with it.

Robert Cook said...

"I want to know what proportion believed in the Mayan Prophecies in December?

"More tellingly, do they still believe in them?"


Of course! The world did end in December 2012...we're residing in Hell right now. The joke is on us, as we always were!

Basta! said...

Thanks, Robert Cook.

ricpic said: "Paul McCartney has been dead to one legged women since 2008."

Good one!

Revenant said...

If you think human activity is warming the planet but all the "solutions" proposed to date (a) are useless and (b) conveniently coincide with pre-existing agendas of the people suggesting them...

Do you answer "yes", or "no", to that poll question?

MadisonMan said...

Apparently (leaving wiggle room for fraud), more than half the voters think Obama is fit to be President.

I don't recall seeing that on the ballot.

One could vote for Obama, or for Romney, or for others. Of the choices given, Obama was selected. Not much in that result about fitness.

SteveR said...

And "White Album?" Please. "The Beatles"

Sorry Crimso, you are right. A distinction without a difference to me but not insignificant.

John henry said...

The existing science is not only not good enough to predict the future, it is not even good enough to predict the past.

Really, a 0.8 degree temperature rise over a century with uncalibrated, imprecise, inaccurate, constantly relocated, spotilly situuated and slopily read instruments? We were really supposed to ever believe that?

Or that the Arctic ice cap was going to completely disappear by 2000. Oops, we mean 2006. Oops, 2012 and we really mean it this time. No? Would you believe 2019?

These assholes have not been right on a single prediction that have made yet. They can't even get the direction of the warming right. CO2 and warming are supposed to be closely linked. Yet while CO2 has risen, temperatures have either remained stable over the past 20 years or dropped over the past 15.

Why should we believe anything that these charlatans say about climate or anything else?

I vote for hoax. I'd vote for criminal fraud if that were an option.

If anyone has a single prediction that these knaves have made that has turned out to be true, I'd be interested in hearing what it is.

John Henry

John henry said...

Add "claimed" to my note above. As in a CLAIMED 0.8 degree rise.

I don't believe they have any real idea what it is. I don't believe they can, given the great variability of temps over the course of a day and over the course of a year combined with the imprecision of the measurement.

John Henry

Drago said...

John: "CO2 and warming are supposed to be closely linked. Yet while CO2 has risen, temperatures have either remained stable over the past 20 years or dropped over the past 15."

Oops.

You just lost garage and alex.

The science is SETTLED man!!!

Bruce Hayden said...

John Henry - interesting discussions recently about a recent paper that spliced yearly instrument data (with all the problems you bring up) to 11,000+ years of smoothed proxy data, where the periods utilized in the smoothing were apparently 100 and 300 years. Interestingly, if the instrument readings over the last century were simiarly smoothed, there would appparetly be no global warming. Authors seem to being slowly walking back any conclusions about modern trends. Funniest part, I think, was Michael Mann approving of their paper which essentially reinvents his "hockey stick".

Crimso said...

"Really, a 0.8 degree temperature rise over a century with uncalibrated, imprecise, inaccurate, constantly relocated, spotilly situuated and slopily read instruments? We were really supposed to ever believe that?"

What's funny (in a not-funny way) are the number of commenters (some who are apparently scientists) I've seen on climate science blogs who keep insisting that the temperature record of the 20th century is rock-solid. Because we had thermometers. And people read them. And wrote down the temperatures. And that, apparently, is rock-solid. One of my colleagues (an analytical chemist) can hilariously poke huge holes in the idea that it is easy to measure temperature in a given room. Don't even get him started on global temperatures.

Bruce Hayden said...

Why am i not surprised that anything having to do with AGW has quickly generated over 100 comments. Ann could probably save herself the effort of finding a relevant article, and just post "AGW" once a week or so.

Except that our resident leftists, etc. seem to have given up defending AGW "science" any more. Not sure if it is because they know that the science is probably hokum, or just know that they won't win the debate in this forum.

SGT Ted said...

Its called "Manufacturing Consent".

cold pizza said...

Lizard people? Really? Oh, wait... I am NOT my avatar. -CP

John henry said...

Two stories from my personal experience:

Most of the ocean temperature data comes from the sea water condenser inlet on Navy ships. When I was in the Navy, standing engineroom messenger watches I was the one of the guys who collected that data.

Well, most of the time I collected it. Sometimes I would not feel like climbing up to look at it and would just write in a number that looked right. Even when I did read it, there were 2 degree graduations so any reading would have been +/- at least a degree or two.

But that assumes that the thermometer was accurate and that may not be a good assumption. It was a bimetal dial thermometer and, to the best of my knowledge, had never been calibrated.

I would trust it to tell us whether the water was cool or warm but not much more than that.

Bruce mentioned his friend and measuring temp in a room: Back in the 80's I was engineering manager in a pharmaceutical plant. We had a room, perhaps 20' X 40' that was kept at 110 degrees F for degassing bottles.

For the plant qualification by the FDA we had to prove that the room temperature was consistent (always 110) and uniform.

This was a major project that took us most of a month. As Bruce notes, it is very tricky.

Yet we are supposed to believe global warming based on uncalibrated thermometers hung outside firehouse windows and read (or not read) by untrained people?

Not in this lifetime.

And as someone else mentioned, we don't even have the raw, original, data from the firehouse window. It was thrown away. All we have is data that has been "adjusted" from the raw data by a computer algorythm that is known to be bad.

And people like Garage who believe it.

I am not a global warming denier. For all I know, the Earth has been warming. Or, just as likely, cooling. Or, also just as likely, staying the same. We have no reliable data to give us any indication of direction much less amount of temp change.

John Henry

John henry said...

I was guilty of sloppiness myself in the above note. I said that the room had to be consistent and said 110 degrees.

Anytime anyone tells you a temperature, you really need to know the degree of precision.

So I should have said that the consistency requirement was "110 +/- 2 degrees" (or +/- 1 degree or whatever it was we were claiming)

So what is the +/- on the 0.8 degrees of global warming we are supposed to have had, Garage? Anyone?

Bueller?

Bueller?

John Henry

MadisonMan said...

Or that the Arctic ice cap was going to completely disappear by 2000.

I have never seen a prediction that said this. Every prediction I've seen was more like 2100. And it's been moved closer to present as the observed ice loss has accelerated.

(Link)

John henry said...

Madison Man:

See this video. I think it is from 2009 and Gore is saying "Completely ice free" in 5-7 years. http://youtu.be/MsioIw4bvzI

About 2 minutes in.

I recall that in Earth In the Balance, Gore said ice free by 2000 but would have to dig out my copy to check.

Don't know when the video was made but here is NASA saying ice free by Summer 2012.

http://youtu.be/c7cYGDdXQjg


Here it has been pushed back to 2020.

"Researchers belonging to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) say that the Arctic ice caps are melting at a rate much faster than that predicted by computer models previously reported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and that the ice could be gone sometime near year 2020."

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Study:_Arctic_ice_could_be_gone_by_2020

And so on.

Pretty much every 6 years, they move it 6 years into the future.

John Henry

garage mahal said...

"I'm not sure, but I think Al Gore said something".

Well, that settles it.

ampersand said...

Walter Cronkite power elite with a globalist agenda or the most trusted man in America?

mariner said...

ricpic,
All it tells us is that what makes the earth warm and cool is, at present, beyond the grasp of science.

Right, because "climate scientists" can't grasp the possibility that the SUN might have a little to do with it?

John henry said...

Garage said:

"Well, that settles it."

Weak, Garage. Very weak even for you.

Perhaps you could share some predictions that the climate scientists got right.

Perhaps one?

John Henry

jim said...

Oh goody! More online-genius input on AGW!

PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE BEHIND THE CURTAIN!

THAT VANISHING ICE CAP WILL GROW BACK ANY SECOND NOW!

YOU'RE JUST IMAGINING ALL THESE RECORD HEAT WAVES & SUPER-STORMS!

GREENLAND IS ACTUALLY A HOLLYWOOD SET FINANCED BY GEORGE SOROS!

ALL THOSE INUIT & PACIFIC ISLANDERS ARE FAKING IT TO GET THAT SWEET SWEET GLOBAL WARMING WELFARE!

THIS WEBLINK PROVES THAT IT'S ACTUALLY GETTING COOLER, STOOPID LIBTARDS!

IGNORE YOUR LYING EYES: BANGLADESH WILL STAND FOR A THOUSAND YEARS!

CLIMATEGATE IS REAL!

AL GORE IS FAT & LIVES IN A REALLY BIG HOUSE!


TEACH TEH CONTROVERSY!

John henry said...

And here I thought Garage's response was weak. His looks like steel compared to yours, Jim.

Re the Northwest Passage:

You seem unaware that the NW Passage has been open for a long time. So long that back in the mid-60s, when oil was discovered in Prudhoe Bay Alaska, the original plan was to transport it via tanker to the east coast. Via the NW Passage, natch.

A fleet of tankers was planned, one, the SS Manhattan was built. It made a successful round trip voyage to Alaska and back to the east coast. (You could look it up)

In the event, the pipeline won out and the tanker plan was abandoned. In some ways the tankers would have been better. We wound up selling most of the Alaska oil to Japan because it was not needed on the west coast.

As for glaciers generally around the world and Greenland specifically, some are shrinking, others are growing. It was ever thus.

You are aware that there were farming communities in Greenland for several hundred years before the cooling started around 1600? There is a reason it is called "Green Land". Think about it. You might be able to figure it out.

If not, let me know and I'll explain it to you.

John Henry

virgil xenophon said...

All I know is, is that John Henry speak HEAP big medicine about data collection/analysis & monitoring--and he hasn't even scratched the surface..