Belief in man made climate change declining in the UK
Posted by daydreamer at 03:53, 06 Feb 2010New BBC UK poll finds peoples belief in man made climate change dropped markedly over the recent climate stories.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8500...
Personally i think that figure might go back up once all the stories this will trigger are over.
I think this shows something more interesting though.
The rapid decrease shows that people do not want it to be true. Myself included, though i do think it is. It would be great to think that we're not doing enough harm to affect the climate, not forgetting that this isn't just about CO2. I think the sudden swing shows that the majority of people, while not wanting it to be true, were convinced by the reputation of the evidence bringers as much as by the evidence they understood (which is possibly the smaller component compared to the reputation of those supporting the evidence).
This might show to those trying to convince people of man made climate change that convincing people, as was previously believed to have been done in the UK, is only temporary against the background of what people want to be true. If this is the case the battle to save much more than just the atmosphere may always be uphill.
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Comments
22 November 2004
4 days 23 hours
Another factor is that using the justification of saving the atmosphere, much more is bring proposed and being done, having nothing to do with the atmosphere.
It is not just belief in authority that causes people to be convinced in cases like this. It is a constant, repeated message at many levels. Good old fashioned propaganda. This works even when people know it is being done.
To this we have to add that there is no direct evidence in every day life, for the vast majority of people. A few people observe the retreat of glaciers in the Alps, but how many of them live in the UK?
And if winters have actually been milder in the UK (I don't know if they have or not), that actually is not a bad thing.
Propaganda works better if people can find anecdotal evidence that agrees with it. That's hard for global warming, and it is even harder for the level of CO2. How would anyone know how much CO2 is in the air?
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No amount of cursing at the round earth will make it flat.
21 February 2009
16 hours 58 min
Very true.
I've studied it and i still have no 'feeling' that it is true. Maybe that means i'm not an environmentalist. I don't get passionate about these sort of things; I suppose, unless I think my children’s future is threatened, but then we could just add CO2 to a million other things.
The winters in the UK can be considered a funny thing. It is not so much that they have become milder (which they seem to have done) as that they have moved. We get winter in Jan/Feb/March now, not in November and December like I idyllically remember as a kid. November is just a downcast autumn, as is half of December.
26 June 2005
7 hours 53 min
Do you ever sleep, Daydreamer? If you are in the UK then your posts are often made in the middle of the night.
Speaking of the UK - I wonder how much influence the likes of the TV show "Top Gear" has on the populace here? It is very popular and they usually have some anti-green message for the cheering audience. If so, we are in a sad state if the opinions of Clarkson carry so much weight.
http://www.davidsmuse.co.uk
21 February 2009
16 hours 58 min
Am i the grails first vampiric commenter? Well no; though that would be an assumption.
I am lucky to have a job that allows me plenty of time to think. I am unlucky in that it takes me away from home and slaps me on the night shift - I guess that explains a lot to many of you here.
I'm not sure about Top Gear. I think it's one of the best things on telly, naturally. I haven’t laughed so hard as seeing them trying to cross South American jungle in knackered 4x4's or felt so much fear as when JC drove down that Pass of Death and had to pass another car as the ground stated to give way next to the 1000ft drop. And as subjective as TV preference is, we are comparing this to a background of reality TV.
(i also wish that, just occasionally, I wouldn't feel like I was committing linguistic heresy by stating a sentence with And)
As for JC's views, I’m not sure. Obviously he is anti-green, but even as someone that is quite pro-green i still find his views a little refreshing. Perhaps that's because he surrounds them in humour allowing me to laugh along. Perhaps if the Pope had a laugh at himself occasionally i would warm to him a little more, sort of how i can look at Boris Johnson without screaming.
I think that like political differences Clarksons opinions will only carry weight if they already resonate with you. He's a small piece of the much larger puzzle of human psychology and culture. Perhaps whatever is hidden in the phrase 'to be taken seriously' is important. To affect people and culture is a long term process (short of something 'shocking'); for it to work you must be 'taken seriously', he isn’t.
Funny how so much important psychology, and very difficult psychology to describe/understand, is contained, simply and in plain sight, in words and phrases like those.
26 June 2005
7 hours 53 min
Just to complete the Top Gear sidetrack ... don't get me wrong, I never miss a show and I laugh as much as anyone. Great entertainment. I just get a bit concerned when their views are taken seriously instead of with the bucket of salt intended.
http://www.davidsmuse.co.uk
21 February 2009
16 hours 58 min
Couldn't agree with you more.
By the way, I've been busy reading your website; in part thats what spurred my inquiry as to where the boundaries might lie between science and philosophy. I want to try and find where any boundaries might lie within scientific philosophy as well.
26 June 2005
7 hours 53 min
I stopped writing there because I became increasingly aware that I had so much to learn and that I couldn't be sure that I was still in tune with everything I had already written. With every paragraph came more questions. So I troll around here hoping to bounce some thoughts off the resident clever people and see how my ideas stand the test of open debate.
I guess I could say that proves I am still open to a change of mind. Or I might be too lazy to finish the job. :)
One day.
http://www.davidsmuse.co.uk
22 November 2004
4 days 23 hours
I stopped writing stuff on my blog when I got reliable numbers on how many people read it.
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No amount of cursing at the round earth will make it flat.
21 February 2009
16 hours 58 min
Ha, yeah. Me to, perhaps.
I like the idea of underlying consciousness being the 'construct'; so to speak. Perhaps it captures my imagination because it just can't help being profound. Anyway, i am mulling it over.
In the vein of Chris Morris, Have a good One Day, Today.
1 May 2004
3 hours 14 min
is what I've been doing since GW started years back. Ice core samples, tree core's and soil layers don't lie.
Core sample from those funny looking coral things that are like 20,000 years old, they don't lie.
They all tell us that we have nothing to do with warming periods and cooling periods. These happen and we are a very new kid on the block. BUT, we do need to look after our home a bit more. You can only sh*t in your own nest for so long before you will have to move out for obvious reasons.
"Life can be whatever you want it to be, as long as you do what your told."
LRF.
21 February 2009
16 hours 58 min
Surely none of these data can say we are not causing it, just that it has happened naturally in the past.
The planet is not a static system, so most changes that are possible have happened in the past. Most changes that we are theoretically capable of inducing if we really wanted to try have also happened naturally in the past. This doesn't mean that we are not capable of making them happen again, if we put the effort in.
The only way to tell if we are doing something that we haven't set out to is to try and check off all the possible natural causes from correlations we see with previous events.
There have been many climate changes over human history. We do not think that Neolithic man caused an ice age, or that the small (relative to today) spread of farming caused a cooling here, or a warming there. However, we are coming up short on explanations as to why the climate is changing now as quickly as it is, globally, which is a shame as it would be very nice to think it was due to something completely uncontrollable like sun activity or volcanic outgassing.
Short of no natural explanation maybe it is the 6 billion people consuming massive amounts of energy, burning huge quantities of oil and gas that should be (as far as biospheric equilibrium is concerned) geologically trapped, chopping down half the planets rainforest etc. It is a shame there are is no physics or chemistry to help understand these reactions or geology to explain the prior affects of similar changes in atmospheric composition ratios. Oh, wait a minute...
I guess that’s why I'm more than a little suspicious that those scientists are right, unfortunately. Its a difficult and wide subject, and i hope they're wrong. In a sense the climategate stories give me hope, but i find it a funny sort of hope. This planet is undergoing a widescale change, if we can do nothing about it then surely that’s more scary.
Please don't jump too quickly on fear as motivation though.
1 May 2004
3 hours 14 min
interpreting soil samples and core samples leave very little to the imagination. It's the way in which this data is released that needs a good look at. Also all the data should be released not just the convenient pieces.
CO2 is an essential part of our atmosphere and has been much higher then now many times in the past. To even think of using this as a means of GW is an insult to our inteligents. But this is something that sounds good and to average Joe who looks no further then what he hears on the media, it's plausable. But it allows an open cheque. We pay and the polluters gain. Bring big money into the equation and you have to be suspicious.
"Life can be whatever you want it to be, as long as you do what your told."
LRF.
22 November 2004
4 days 23 hours
A couple of notes about all this.
First, going back to the original post, consider that people are fickle. Look at the popularity of Toyota automobiles in the last few weeks.
Another is the subject of whether we (humans) are responsible for climate change, and what to do about it.
Especially the "what to do about it" part. Controlling a system requires that you have some inputs into it, and you know what those inputs do to the system's behaviour, and when they do it.
If you have ever steered a bit boat, you know that the steering input does not give you immediate reaction. You steer a little, and then wait. You have to know how much to steer way before you see the effects.
Climate is really complicated, and we don't have any of those three capabilities. To suggest that we can control climate is at best naive, more likely dishonest.
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No amount of cursing at the round earth will make it flat.
1 May 2004
3 hours 14 min
I have not noticed the climate changing in any great rate of nots. What has happened in the last few weeks is on record as happening before. Some 25 years and 30 odd years ago. their just not common. The variations in climate are much longer then our personal life spans.
"Life can be whatever you want it to be, as long as you do what your told."
LRF.