Why dont the general public believe in climate change?
Reading in time this week, i saw that richard muller, a well funded skeptic of climate change completely changed his mind on the impact of climate change and anthropogenic global warming. it seemed to me that at first he was skeptical about it because of a knee-jerk reaction to the issue, based on selfish reasons, political beliefs etc. After he began actually studying climate change he changed tack completely and realised that he was wrong.
The vast majority of lay people dont accept climate change, based on the same knee jerk reaction, without actually considering the debate or actually reading anything. With the majority of scientists in absolute agreement that man made global warming is occuring (though unsure of the severity of the impact) why are people still disagreeing with it. Is it the media, or just self serving parasites like the Koch brothers, who are responsible?
All in all, wake up!
2011-12-16T07:04:52Z
I dont really understand JCs comment, because ive clearly said that I believe in man made climate change. please read more intently
2011-12-16T07:24:38Z
BTW im not saying I know that much about climate change, but i do know that most scientists(whos job it is to study global warming) are in agreement
JimZ2011-12-16T09:33:09Z
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I got to give Moe and CO2 expeller kudos on there answers. They nailed them. I couldn't add much to their answers!!
I would say that I am a scientist whose job isn't about studying global warming. I am a geologist and as such I have knowledge of natural climate change far in excess of anything that humans might cause. It is the norm in the last couple million years. I frankly am suspicious of those who study climate whose jobs depend on it, whose funds depend on their shrill claims. The funding actually weeds out the skeptical voices. If you actually take the time to read the emails from climate gate(s), it reveals a cabal of scientists who collude on how to restrict skepticism, use outdated data series, etc etc.
You think these people are so smart. They used trees that were injured or damaged called strip bark trees. These trees compensated for the damage by increased growth on the other side. The bozo who did the search looked for these kinds of trees because he thought it would be better representative of the climate and reduce CO2 fertilization (one of their theories). The incompetence of some of these people is breathtaking but after discovering that the series were useless and bogus, they still used them. Mann's 1998 climate reconstruction depended on this sort of thing, as well as questionable centring of data which selected for hockey sticks. His future reconstructions (I think inventions would be closer to the truth) were little better. It was all about getting rid of the medieval warming period and Little Ice Age. Those climate scientists who were incompetent or dishonest enough to come up with a way to rid the record of those inconvenient data was rewarded with funding, power, and fame. You can trust them if you want. I will trust in the science I learned as well as my common sense.
The public does believe In changing climate,It just can't open It's own eye's to the fact that the pole's are melting and we are In a masiive change since we can't catch up with the true goal's so get yo fact's straight.
You need to read a little more deeply. Dr. Muller was *never* a skeptic...he always accepted anthropogenic climate change; he just did not accept that the Hockey Stick graph created by Mann et al was valid (it wasn't...it was terrible science).
Why do most people not accept the AGW hypothesis? Because the AGW crowd blew their credibility. You told us that 'the science is settled'; it's not. You told us that 'virtually all' scientist accept the AGW hypothesis; but 31,000+ have signed the Oregon Petition; the 2010 study that 'found' that 97% agreed was so hopelessly rigged it was laughable; so also was Oserkes 2004 meta-analysis of published research. Then there is the continuing stream of ad hominem attacks on anyone who questions the AGW position; the climate scientists hiding the data, refusing to release it (Jones et al). Then there was the matter that the IPCC's climate models turned out to have *no* predictive validity. The correlation between CO2 and temperature is just barely statistically significant, and weaker than that for solar radiance, or the PDO.
Then you had one of the top guys at the IPCC telling us that it was 'immoral...even to question...' the findings of the IPCC. Are you nuts?
And all those statements that the science was 'incontrovertible'? *Nothing* in science is incontrovertible.
"A scientist is never certain" --Dr. Richard Feynman
"The important thing is to never stop questioning" --Dr. Albert Einstein
And, in the words of Dr. Hal Lewis, Professor Emeritus of Physics, UC Santa Barbara, who resigned from the American Physical Society because they refused to come of their stance that the AGW thing was 'incontrobertible', as stated in his letter of resignation:
"[Anthropogenic global warming is] ...the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life.”
Bad grammar is for deniers. Spell/grammar check your question next time before posting.
Most of the general public is relatively uninformed and somewhat confused about human-caused global climate change, and the issue is a complicated one. Even scientists weren't really sure about it until about 20 years ago, and that was after a great deal of research. 20 years ago is also roughly when the fossil fuel industry funded campaign of lies, confusion, and disinformation really got going. Now the kooks and con artists are running the anti-science denial movement, and some of their more junior dupe trainees practice their illiteracy on Yahoo Answers Global Warming.
Hi Joe, your last statement amazed me. You say you know that all those scientists whose job it is to study it all agree with AGW. How do you know that? I suspect it is because you read it in the news paper or heard it on the news. Don't believe it, a lot of them have objected to this claim. The ones that go along with it rely on it for their livelihood. As for sceptic's, If you are not sceptical you are practising religion not science, scepticism is the essence of science. They may even have read the bible. Mathew 24 says the time of the end will be wars rumour of wars and earthquakes in diverse places. No mention of global warming, not even a hint. If it was going to happen we would have been told. Have faith.