In my experience with some conservatives, it seems that they believe global warming is happening but they are skeptical of how effective left-leaning politicians can be in combating climate change. Therefore it is not worth conceding political turf on other issues if they will see little change in the rate of global warming.
Interesting once you start to take into account other countries contributions to global warming. The United States is relatively low among developed economies when it comes to emissions per GDP : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_ratio_of_... .
I am really not impressed by any sides efforts to combat global warming.
Of course this will be met by criticism from HN, but I would love to see more discussion beyond conservatives are anti-science radicals who want to kill the earth.
The messaging coming from Republican politicians is either that climate change is not happening, or that it is a natural cycle and nothing to do with humans. Both of these hypothesis are objectively false.
Setting that aside, emissions per GDP is an interesting and useful statistic, but it doesn't paint a complete picture. If you were to entirely eliminate the top three highest emissions per GDP countries from your list, you will have done nothing to combat climate change. If you sort that list by total emissions, the US ranks #2 a short distance behind China. China is actually fifth from the very bottom of that list.
It's a complex situation and will have an impact on the global economy no matter what. We can decide to do something now and take short-term losses to prevent massive devastation in the long term from doing nothing.
> I am really not impressed by any sides efforts to combat global warming.
Hmm. What would impress you? I honestly think climate change is the most important issue in the world right now, and I would love to know what we can do to get you on our side.
I think you are reading this table wrong. The table does not list "emissions per GDP" but "GDP per emissions", which is actually the inverse.
So to get the "emissions per GDP", you have to read the table backwards, which means the United States is (among Australia, Israel, Canada) emitting more CO2 than most other developed countries, in particular Western European ones. For example, Germany produces roughly 60% more economic output (3,612 USD / ton of emissions) per CO2 emitted than the United States (2,291 USD / ton) and the United Kingdom (4,284 USD / ton) almost twice as much.
[Update: Of course, all of these figures are not that helpful because they ignore how much CO2 emissions one "outsources" by buying products manufactured elsewhere. If you are primarily a service-driven economy, you will have much lower CO2 emissions in your country, but you will most likely still buy a lot of stuff from China etc. which will produce CO2 emissions there. That's e.g. why Switzerland is not as green as it would seem from this table.]
Emissions per GDP is a bit of a weird metric, don't you think? It disguises major variations within individual nations' economies.
It's hardly surprising that a developed-world, service economy would produce fewer emissions per GDP than a developing economy that is geared toward mining and manufacturing.
It's also worth noting that the likely benefactors of those developing-world emissions are the people in developed countries. So even regional estimates of emissions, let alone emissions per GDP, probably miss the point.
> I am really not impressed by any sides efforts to combat global warming.
The reality today is that no efforts are made whatsoever by any political movement on the planet to combat global warming, in the entire planet (except perhaps the CPC of China, against all odds). American Republicans do not even have the hint of honesty of admitting the issue at stake. They denied it 10 years ago, now they want to turn their audience into believing that it may not be human-caused.
> I would love to see more discussion beyond conservatives are anti-science radicals who want to kill the earth.
The discussion was over dozens of years ago, there is no debate. Human activity (intensive farming, petroleum and coal burning, cement production, ...) is causing climate change, period. And the changes are already past the point of being reversible. The data is plentiful and everywhere for the world to see.
My experience is that "conservatives" will pick whatever argument they can get away with when it comes to climate change. Depending on the context the same person might argue:
1. Climate change is a hoax.
2. Climate change is real, but natural.
3. Climate change is real, caused by humans, but beneficial.
4. Climate change is real, caused by humans, harmful, but attempts to fight it don't help.
5. Climate change is real, caused by humans, harmful, can be fought successfully, but the cost isn't worth it.
I too would like to see more productive discussion, but it's hard when every discussion on the subject is flooded with people arguing in opposition to the facts.
No offense, but what kind of crazy metric is that? "Wealthy people get to pollute more?" "It's OK to ignore emissions until everyone is as wealthy as we are?" I mean, I could spend hours and hours churning out moral hazards based on that analysis.
It would never fly with other subjects: "handgun injuries per taxable income" shows that only the poor get shot, so it's not really as much a problem as you think.
My vague guess is that you're trying to use "GDP" as some kind of proxy for "industrial output", and saying that while the US emits a ton of CO2, that's OK because we actually need to do that to produce all the wonderful thigns we do. Except that's not what GDP means at all, and industrial production stopped being a dominant fraction of that number like a century ago.
Having lots of web developers and Starbucks franchises in our economy doesn't give us a license to pollute.
(Edit: literally minutes after I posted this, there's a WaPo story up saying that the Trump administration is floating the possibility of a carbon tax of some sort. So maybe there's some hope for conservatives after all.)
As a conservative, I can tell you that left-leaning politicians will not be effective at combatting climate change so long as they are up against a right wing obstruction machine.
(For the record, I am stuck between supporting crooks and hacks who claim to be conservative, and supporting liberals, and so I'm backing liberals for the duration.)
I am also very unimpressed by anyone party's effort to combat it, but as this map exemplifies, we aren't even at that stage f the conversation yet with many folks. We NEED to be talking about how to combat it, but instead we're spending all of our time arguing about whether it exists. Which is insane! We're frogs sitting in a pot of water that's about to boil and arguing about whether it's getting hotter, instead of talking about how to jump out.
I'd love to be having policy conversations about solutions instead of doing that.
> In my experience with some conservatives, it seems that they believe global warming is happening but they are skeptical of how effective left-leaning politicians can be in combating climate change.
This is a major point. It's not that conservatives (in general) don't think it's happening, but believe that the solutions provided won't yield results to how expensive or "sacrificing" they are. Especially when you have big lobbies involved and especially when you consider China and how they have no real plan on cutting emissions.
> In my experience with some conservatives, it seems that they believe global warming is happening but they are skeptical of how effective left-leaning politicians can be in combating climate change.
Interesting, I was under the impression that most conservatives were climate change deniers (or at least mild deniers as in it may be real but not a big deal).
That being said, a conservative friend of mine argues that what we need to solve environmental issues (and GW in particular) is more growth, more production and consumption. In his opinion, a side effect of this will be more investment in research and eventually new solutions to the environmental problems (as it has happened many times in history, for instance, think of horses being a nuisance in NYC). I would call that a serious leap of faith, but at least there's some logic in the reasoning!!
> Of course this will be met by criticism from HN, but I would love to see more discussion beyond conservatives are anti-science radicals who want to kill the earth.
+1
I noticed that even in the Yale study, the options on solutions were limited to those with broad left of center options.
Other options, include some that have been pushed by people right of center to address climate change, were not listed. E.g., nuclear power.
Then start insisting that right-leaning politicians take action on climate change. Left-leaning politicians don't have a natural monopoly on combating climate.
(1) For most of the country, 40-70% of the folks in sample say they are concerned about global warming (GW); (2) Areas of widespread (70-90%) concern are limited to the west and northeast coasts; (3) Many people believe that scientists doubt GW too; (4) That all notwithstanding, many folks across the land believe that we should reduce CO2 and take other green steps; and (5) Nearly everybody thinks that this issue has been over-talked – that the talk is way ahead of the science.
Note to opinion-makers: talk about cleaning up more and GW less. You are turning off your audience and volume won't change that.
The most interesting thing I found was that a strong majority, everywhere, claims to trust climate scientists about global warming. But huge areas of the country disbelieve the fact that most scientists think global warming is happening! I'm not sure whether this reflects widespread cognitive dissonance, or merely demonstrates the effectiveness of propaganda.
> Note to opinion-makers: talk about cleaning up more and GW less. You are turning off your audience and volume won't change that.
I think some people are also just burnt out on the overemphasised message and wildly off-base predictions from the early days.
I don't know about anyone else, but when I was in school in the 90's and 00's we were told half of the landmass would be underwater by 2010. Now I know climate science is more subtle than that but I'd not be surprised if some people came away with the message that Scientists are just foaming at the mouth for no reason.
I'm curious about who they surveyed and the methods they used to reach the survey takers.
I have to think that there is some bias in the surveying methods themselves. I don't think that strongly conservative southern voters would be thumbing through a Nature publication in their free time like a liberal intellectual might.
Overall though, I'm with you. Around here its become a foregone conclusion that this is happening but I don't necessarily see many steps taken by the populace to alleviate the symptoms.
> Note to opinion-makers: talk about cleaning up more and GW less. You are turning off your audience and volume won't change that.
I think what turned off a lot of people is the transition made by opinion makers from the straight and falsifiable hypothesis "Global Warming" towards the weaselly worded "Climate Change".
Wording matters when it comes to mass communication. Words that were bold and scientific have been replaced by words that are indistinguishable from politics.
Fascinating: 71% say they trust climate scientists regarding climate change, yet only 49% say they think "most scientists think global warming is happening". This would imply it is not necessary to convince people anthropogenic climate change is real, only that most climate scientists think it is real. Very different message.
For most of the population their only daily contact with a STEM person is the TV weatherman who typically goes to great wishy washy lengths to explain that tonights snow fall or last weeks record high are not the sole or most significant primary proof of the truth or falsehood of global warming. Meanwhile clickbait and disaster pr0n movies for generations have implied we all gonna die due to climate change yet for generations life has gone on, and in fact will continue to go on, and the alarmists are looked with contempt similar to pseudo-Christian preachers and cult leaders announcing the end of the world, admittedly for differing strategies but identical reasons, gaining money and power (edited)
So everyone knows most STEM people are honest and that honesty results in our admittedly pretty awesome modern world, while simultaneously their personal daily experience of a climate expert is at best extremely wishy washy and the scam of begging for money and control via the impending apocalypse goes back millennia before modern "climate change" and most people very wisely scoff at it.
The results make sense that most scientists are technically trustworthy, as opinion leaders their politics are less influential than your average plumber's opinions, and apocalyptic preachers have always been full of it and always will be.
For political reasons and tribal reasons, many will have to pretend to be surprised to signal that they're in the in group and the out group suxs, but we all know the above is how the world really works.
> Half of the participants got a future-focused message, like “Looking forward to our nation’s future, there is increasing traffic on the road.” The other half were given a past-focused message, such as “Looking back to our nation’s past, there was less traffic on the road.”
> After reading the message, the participants took a survey about it and their opinions on climate change and the environment. Participants who reported that they were conservative rated the past-focused message more positively and showed more pro-environmental attitudes in the survey.
Also my main take-away. You could think people are misinformed, and scientists speaking up louder could help, but I think ignorance might be an excuse people use to explain their inaction, otherwise you have to recognize that although climate change worries you, you prefer to keep it at the back of your head because it complicates your daily life too much.
People have been trained to be individual consumers of both products and information. They'll believe something so long as it's easy to fit in with their other opinions. There is very little way of me understanding climate change science myself, but I'm willing to believe climate scientists, but this is actually an act of faith, I can't independently confirm that climate change is caused by humans, just say that it's very likely.
My Dad is a little bit like Donald Trump in how he searches the Internet for things which support his already well held views; he thinks that climate change is a hoax. When I quote him this brilliant tweet from Scott Westerfeld:
"Plot idea: 97% of the world's scientists contrive an environmental crisis, but are exposed by a plucky band of billionaires & oil companies."
He just laughs and tell's me about fake news sites he's read as a counter point.
This is a great piece of research anyway; I love that people largely are willing to hedge their bets/beliefs and agree that investing in renewables is massively important, even though a lot of those people don't believe in climate change!
> There is very little way of me understanding climate change science myself, but I'm willing to believe climate scientists, but this is actually an act of faith, I can't independently confirm that climate change is caused by humans, just say that it's very likely.
That's exactly how I feel. I tend to roll my eyes at people that deny global warming is happening, but I equally roll them at people that talk about it happening as if they've done the calculations themselves. It's refreshing to see this sort of humility on HN. Thanks.
Interesting to note in this map, the people generally more concerned about climate change are in several types of places:
1) Near coasts. The traditional boring stereotype about the coasts having higher levels of education overall.
The point to notice here is that a some people will see this map, see that obvious fact, and then stop thinking. For example one commenter here said:
>Areas of widespread (70-90%) concern are limited to the west and northeast coasts.
"Limited to." Quite a brushoff. But some of the other hotspots are interesting too:
2) Near mountains. The Rocky Mountains stand out in particular. Because of steep altitude changes, people who live there get exposed in their daily life to many different microclimates in the short span of a few miles as they travel around their locality -- if not by actually changing altitude as they move around, then at least by being able to see from a distance things like the changing leaf colors in the fall, having it essentially in their face what changes are happening and when, each year. Some of these areas have also seen an influx of new pests damaging tree populations in a highly noticable manner, which are suspected to be related to changing temperatures.
3) Near rivers. See the Mississippi for example. I take it the impact of changing water flow patterns raises awareness in nearby communities.
4) For different reasons, North and South Dakota. I would guess the opinions there are influenced by the fact that the states have heavy involvement in energy-related mining activities starting with coal but also with shale and fracking, as well as alternative energy activities like wind power.
Slightly concerning to see so much skepticism. I do wonder if it's a personal choice. By being in denial you do not have to make any changes to the way you live.
Locally they wanted to increase recycling. The answer is to provide offical small bins (140l) that are collected only every two weeks, but collect recycling waste weekly. We've gone beyond the carrot and are now using the stick because many people simply do not want to change.
>It concludes that climate scepticism is largely an Anglo-Saxon phenomenon, found most frequently in the US and British newspapers, and explores the reasons why this is so.
How is it that everyone (82% Nationally) seems to agree that the most critical step forward (Funding Research in Renewable Energy) is a good thing BUT we spend all of our time arguing about whether or not global warming is happening??
This reminds me of a failing, early-stage start up. Rather than just getting to the grind and finding a way to make money, it is so easy to just spend time dreaming and argue about the way forward and spending your time ignoring complaining customers while I'm sitting around pondering how to change the world.
Incredible... the most eye-opening difference was the majority of Americans believe global warming will harm people in the US, but very few people believe it will harm them personally. And this isn't limited to west/northeast coasts-- it covers the entire country. What would cause people to think GW will harm others but not themselves?
To be extremely blunt, yet honest, poverty harms a lot of Americans but its not going to harm my socioeconomic group very much. Ditto heroin, meth... Its an admission of the death of class mobility. Most people will never be economically mobile enough to hang with me and it would be virtually impossible with my social support net to fall into extreme poverty. It could happen. Due to lack of social mobility its very unlikely however.
You can either model the effects of climate change as a parallel argument or merely a cloaked poverty argument. A parallel argument is Hurricane Katrina only hurt people on the south coast but the entire country saw Americans being hurt. The cloaked poverty argument is me and my descendants are in a socioeconomic group that was mildly inconvenienced by the hurricane whereas poor people, and we'll never be members of that group, literally died on TV. Either way Hurricane Katrina is a great example of people being harmed in the USA that could never in a geographic or socioeconomic sense hurt me and my family, or frankly anyone I work with or hang out with.
The general rule of thumb is the farther north the better, although you probably want to be south of melting permafrost. Europe is in for a rough ride, as it will be faced with hundreds of millions if not billions of refugees from Africa, the Middle East, and southern Asia in the not-that-distant future.
So, Alaska, northern Canada, or New Zealand if you can afford to buy citizenship.
It's D3 according to the source file; the type of map is called a 'choropleth'.
Here is a tutorial that might be useful. (I haven't done this specific one but I've made similar stuff before.)
http://www.cartographicperspectives.org/index.php/journal/ar...
Many times survey does not matter (that much). People will say they are concerned, but their action may reflect they do not really care at all.
Are people at east and west coast really concerned about global warming? Let's don't simply ask them, but check their action instead. Are they selling beach houses? Are we seeing price dropping in beach houses?
I have said this in the past (to climate scientists as well as others) and I'll say it again. Check the energy equations for the climate science predictions. It is easy enough to do, especially if you have a calculator or spreadsheet.
The interesting thing is that the required energy for the predictions is the bugbear and it cannot simply be gotten around. Even the analysis papers that look at the last 50 odd years show a major discrepancy between the energy required and the climate science predictions.
This leads me to believe that the climate science models in use are very problematic (that is screwed badly).
It is also interesting to note that every technology that is posited to be used to replace the current coal based or nuclear based has a high pollution index for the creation of the base elements for these technologies - this is something that is not discussed.
There is also some very interesting biological research that strongly indicates a higher ecological benefit for increased CO2 levels (up to 1000 to 1500 ppm from the current levels) including increased plant growth and lower water usage.
A recent study also indicates that in greenhouse environments, increased CO2 levels has a higher energy transference, that is the greenhouse environment get colder quicker.
So what do we get from all this, as individuals, we can do some investigation into the reasonableness of the climate science predictions and we can come to our own conclusions as to whether or not climate science is sound science. We don't actually have to take the word of either side, we can check the veracity of both sides.
My own investigations have lead me to believe that climate scientists have less an idea of what is causing climate change that do people who have observed the world for 60, 70 or 80 years.
When the models give credible predictions for short, medium and longer term periods then we can start to give credence to what climate scientists might say.
Does waiting for this increase credibility mean we do nothing now. No. We have various infrastructure problems now that need to be solved, some environmental, some energy related, some populations related, etc. Unfortunately, even though there are positive things we can do to mitigate specific problems in the infrastructure realm, the political situation will ensure that these are not done.
Even though the rightists have some good ideas, the leftists will object. Even though the leftists have some good ideas the rightists will object. Any ideas from the middle-of-the-roadists will get shot down by both sides.
So it is up to each of us as individuals to make changes that positively effect our surrounding situations.
[+] [-] sceew|9 years ago|reply
Interesting once you start to take into account other countries contributions to global warming. The United States is relatively low among developed economies when it comes to emissions per GDP : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_ratio_of_... .
I am really not impressed by any sides efforts to combat global warming.
Of course this will be met by criticism from HN, but I would love to see more discussion beyond conservatives are anti-science radicals who want to kill the earth.
[+] [-] coldpie|9 years ago|reply
Setting that aside, emissions per GDP is an interesting and useful statistic, but it doesn't paint a complete picture. If you were to entirely eliminate the top three highest emissions per GDP countries from your list, you will have done nothing to combat climate change. If you sort that list by total emissions, the US ranks #2 a short distance behind China. China is actually fifth from the very bottom of that list.
It's a complex situation and will have an impact on the global economy no matter what. We can decide to do something now and take short-term losses to prevent massive devastation in the long term from doing nothing.
> I am really not impressed by any sides efforts to combat global warming.
Hmm. What would impress you? I honestly think climate change is the most important issue in the world right now, and I would love to know what we can do to get you on our side.
[+] [-] ar0|9 years ago|reply
So to get the "emissions per GDP", you have to read the table backwards, which means the United States is (among Australia, Israel, Canada) emitting more CO2 than most other developed countries, in particular Western European ones. For example, Germany produces roughly 60% more economic output (3,612 USD / ton of emissions) per CO2 emitted than the United States (2,291 USD / ton) and the United Kingdom (4,284 USD / ton) almost twice as much.
In any case, maybe a better figure would be "emissions per capita", which paints a similar picture: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_greenhous...
[Update: Of course, all of these figures are not that helpful because they ignore how much CO2 emissions one "outsources" by buying products manufactured elsewhere. If you are primarily a service-driven economy, you will have much lower CO2 emissions in your country, but you will most likely still buy a lot of stuff from China etc. which will produce CO2 emissions there. That's e.g. why Switzerland is not as green as it would seem from this table.]
[+] [-] soVeryTired|9 years ago|reply
It's hardly surprising that a developed-world, service economy would produce fewer emissions per GDP than a developing economy that is geared toward mining and manufacturing.
It's also worth noting that the likely benefactors of those developing-world emissions are the people in developed countries. So even regional estimates of emissions, let alone emissions per GDP, probably miss the point.
[+] [-] mrpopo|9 years ago|reply
The reality today is that no efforts are made whatsoever by any political movement on the planet to combat global warming, in the entire planet (except perhaps the CPC of China, against all odds). American Republicans do not even have the hint of honesty of admitting the issue at stake. They denied it 10 years ago, now they want to turn their audience into believing that it may not be human-caused.
> I would love to see more discussion beyond conservatives are anti-science radicals who want to kill the earth.
The discussion was over dozens of years ago, there is no debate. Human activity (intensive farming, petroleum and coal burning, cement production, ...) is causing climate change, period. And the changes are already past the point of being reversible. The data is plentiful and everywhere for the world to see.
[+] [-] mikeash|9 years ago|reply
1. Climate change is a hoax.
2. Climate change is real, but natural.
3. Climate change is real, caused by humans, but beneficial.
4. Climate change is real, caused by humans, harmful, but attempts to fight it don't help.
5. Climate change is real, caused by humans, harmful, can be fought successfully, but the cost isn't worth it.
I too would like to see more productive discussion, but it's hard when every discussion on the subject is flooded with people arguing in opposition to the facts.
[+] [-] ajross|9 years ago|reply
It would never fly with other subjects: "handgun injuries per taxable income" shows that only the poor get shot, so it's not really as much a problem as you think.
My vague guess is that you're trying to use "GDP" as some kind of proxy for "industrial output", and saying that while the US emits a ton of CO2, that's OK because we actually need to do that to produce all the wonderful thigns we do. Except that's not what GDP means at all, and industrial production stopped being a dominant fraction of that number like a century ago.
Having lots of web developers and Starbucks franchises in our economy doesn't give us a license to pollute.
(Edit: literally minutes after I posted this, there's a WaPo story up saying that the Trump administration is floating the possibility of a carbon tax of some sort. So maybe there's some hope for conservatives after all.)
[+] [-] ocschwar|9 years ago|reply
(For the record, I am stuck between supporting crooks and hacks who claim to be conservative, and supporting liberals, and so I'm backing liberals for the duration.)
[+] [-] zaphod12|9 years ago|reply
I'd love to be having policy conversations about solutions instead of doing that.
[+] [-] Corristowolf|9 years ago|reply
This is a major point. It's not that conservatives (in general) don't think it's happening, but believe that the solutions provided won't yield results to how expensive or "sacrificing" they are. Especially when you have big lobbies involved and especially when you consider China and how they have no real plan on cutting emissions.
[+] [-] yodsanklai|9 years ago|reply
Interesting, I was under the impression that most conservatives were climate change deniers (or at least mild deniers as in it may be real but not a big deal).
That being said, a conservative friend of mine argues that what we need to solve environmental issues (and GW in particular) is more growth, more production and consumption. In his opinion, a side effect of this will be more investment in research and eventually new solutions to the environmental problems (as it has happened many times in history, for instance, think of horses being a nuisance in NYC). I would call that a serious leap of faith, but at least there's some logic in the reasoning!!
[+] [-] wdr1|9 years ago|reply
+1
I noticed that even in the Yale study, the options on solutions were limited to those with broad left of center options.
Other options, include some that have been pushed by people right of center to address climate change, were not listed. E.g., nuclear power.
[+] [-] mannykannot|9 years ago|reply
If you are at all interested in why things are as they are, you might start with the time-honored practice of following the money.
[+] [-] TheCoelacanth|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] untangle|9 years ago|reply
(1) For most of the country, 40-70% of the folks in sample say they are concerned about global warming (GW); (2) Areas of widespread (70-90%) concern are limited to the west and northeast coasts; (3) Many people believe that scientists doubt GW too; (4) That all notwithstanding, many folks across the land believe that we should reduce CO2 and take other green steps; and (5) Nearly everybody thinks that this issue has been over-talked – that the talk is way ahead of the science.
Note to opinion-makers: talk about cleaning up more and GW less. You are turning off your audience and volume won't change that.
edit: formatting
[+] [-] NoGravitas|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] s_kilk|9 years ago|reply
I think some people are also just burnt out on the overemphasised message and wildly off-base predictions from the early days.
I don't know about anyone else, but when I was in school in the 90's and 00's we were told half of the landmass would be underwater by 2010. Now I know climate science is more subtle than that but I'd not be surprised if some people came away with the message that Scientists are just foaming at the mouth for no reason.
[+] [-] zebrafish|9 years ago|reply
I have to think that there is some bias in the surveying methods themselves. I don't think that strongly conservative southern voters would be thumbing through a Nature publication in their free time like a liberal intellectual might.
Overall though, I'm with you. Around here its become a foregone conclusion that this is happening but I don't necessarily see many steps taken by the populace to alleviate the symptoms.
[+] [-] bergoid|9 years ago|reply
I think what turned off a lot of people is the transition made by opinion makers from the straight and falsifiable hypothesis "Global Warming" towards the weaselly worded "Climate Change".
Wording matters when it comes to mass communication. Words that were bold and scientific have been replaced by words that are indistinguishable from politics.
[+] [-] jeroen94704|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] VLM|9 years ago|reply
For most of the population their only daily contact with a STEM person is the TV weatherman who typically goes to great wishy washy lengths to explain that tonights snow fall or last weeks record high are not the sole or most significant primary proof of the truth or falsehood of global warming. Meanwhile clickbait and disaster pr0n movies for generations have implied we all gonna die due to climate change yet for generations life has gone on, and in fact will continue to go on, and the alarmists are looked with contempt similar to pseudo-Christian preachers and cult leaders announcing the end of the world, admittedly for differing strategies but identical reasons, gaining money and power (edited)
So everyone knows most STEM people are honest and that honesty results in our admittedly pretty awesome modern world, while simultaneously their personal daily experience of a climate expert is at best extremely wishy washy and the scam of begging for money and control via the impending apocalypse goes back millennia before modern "climate change" and most people very wisely scoff at it.
The results make sense that most scientists are technically trustworthy, as opinion leaders their politics are less influential than your average plumber's opinions, and apocalyptic preachers have always been full of it and always will be.
For political reasons and tribal reasons, many will have to pretend to be surprised to signal that they're in the in group and the out group suxs, but we all know the above is how the world really works.
[+] [-] minikites|9 years ago|reply
> Half of the participants got a future-focused message, like “Looking forward to our nation’s future, there is increasing traffic on the road.” The other half were given a past-focused message, such as “Looking back to our nation’s past, there was less traffic on the road.”
> After reading the message, the participants took a survey about it and their opinions on climate change and the environment. Participants who reported that they were conservative rated the past-focused message more positively and showed more pro-environmental attitudes in the survey.
[+] [-] bwindels|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] peteretep|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andy_ppp|9 years ago|reply
My Dad is a little bit like Donald Trump in how he searches the Internet for things which support his already well held views; he thinks that climate change is a hoax. When I quote him this brilliant tweet from Scott Westerfeld:
"Plot idea: 97% of the world's scientists contrive an environmental crisis, but are exposed by a plucky band of billionaires & oil companies."
He just laughs and tell's me about fake news sites he's read as a counter point.
This is a great piece of research anyway; I love that people largely are willing to hedge their bets/beliefs and agree that investing in renewables is massively important, even though a lot of those people don't believe in climate change!
[+] [-] ysavir|9 years ago|reply
That's exactly how I feel. I tend to roll my eyes at people that deny global warming is happening, but I equally roll them at people that talk about it happening as if they've done the calculations themselves. It's refreshing to see this sort of humility on HN. Thanks.
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] natch|9 years ago|reply
1) Near coasts. The traditional boring stereotype about the coasts having higher levels of education overall.
The point to notice here is that a some people will see this map, see that obvious fact, and then stop thinking. For example one commenter here said:
>Areas of widespread (70-90%) concern are limited to the west and northeast coasts.
"Limited to." Quite a brushoff. But some of the other hotspots are interesting too:
2) Near mountains. The Rocky Mountains stand out in particular. Because of steep altitude changes, people who live there get exposed in their daily life to many different microclimates in the short span of a few miles as they travel around their locality -- if not by actually changing altitude as they move around, then at least by being able to see from a distance things like the changing leaf colors in the fall, having it essentially in their face what changes are happening and when, each year. Some of these areas have also seen an influx of new pests damaging tree populations in a highly noticable manner, which are suspected to be related to changing temperatures.
3) Near rivers. See the Mississippi for example. I take it the impact of changing water flow patterns raises awareness in nearby communities.
4) For different reasons, North and South Dakota. I would guess the opinions there are influenced by the fact that the states have heavy involvement in energy-related mining activities starting with coal but also with shale and fracking, as well as alternative energy activities like wind power.
[+] [-] eduren|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] awjr|9 years ago|reply
Locally they wanted to increase recycling. The answer is to provide offical small bins (140l) that are collected only every two weeks, but collect recycling waste weekly. We've gone beyond the carrot and are now using the stick because many people simply do not want to change.
[+] [-] nabla9|9 years ago|reply
Poles Apart - The international reporting of climate scepticism http://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/publication/poles-...
>It concludes that climate scepticism is largely an Anglo-Saxon phenomenon, found most frequently in the US and British newspapers, and explores the reasons why this is so.
[+] [-] bradfordarner|9 years ago|reply
This reminds me of a failing, early-stage start up. Rather than just getting to the grind and finding a way to make money, it is so easy to just spend time dreaming and argue about the way forward and spending your time ignoring complaining customers while I'm sitting around pondering how to change the world.
[+] [-] charlesdenault|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] VLM|9 years ago|reply
You can either model the effects of climate change as a parallel argument or merely a cloaked poverty argument. A parallel argument is Hurricane Katrina only hurt people on the south coast but the entire country saw Americans being hurt. The cloaked poverty argument is me and my descendants are in a socioeconomic group that was mildly inconvenienced by the hurricane whereas poor people, and we'll never be members of that group, literally died on TV. Either way Hurricane Katrina is a great example of people being harmed in the USA that could never in a geographic or socioeconomic sense hurt me and my family, or frankly anyone I work with or hang out with.
[+] [-] rubyfan|9 years ago|reply
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimism_bias
[+] [-] golergka|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TorKlingberg|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fierarul|9 years ago|reply
Seems a bit late to wait to become a climate migrant. So, which is the best place to move to (in Europe)?
I'm actually kinda surprised capitalists aren't investing in large tracts of land.
[+] [-] earthtolazlo|9 years ago|reply
So, Alaska, northern Canada, or New Zealand if you can afford to buy citizenship.
[+] [-] fooballs99|9 years ago|reply
The world population has doubled in the last 30 years.
Instead, we argue over the symptoms, spend billions on things that won't make any difference, rather than understanding the cause.
[+] [-] mikeash|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Insanity|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wuschel|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ropeladder|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xname2|9 years ago|reply
Are people at east and west coast really concerned about global warming? Let's don't simply ask them, but check their action instead. Are they selling beach houses? Are we seeing price dropping in beach houses?
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] oldandtired|9 years ago|reply
The interesting thing is that the required energy for the predictions is the bugbear and it cannot simply be gotten around. Even the analysis papers that look at the last 50 odd years show a major discrepancy between the energy required and the climate science predictions.
This leads me to believe that the climate science models in use are very problematic (that is screwed badly).
It is also interesting to note that every technology that is posited to be used to replace the current coal based or nuclear based has a high pollution index for the creation of the base elements for these technologies - this is something that is not discussed.
There is also some very interesting biological research that strongly indicates a higher ecological benefit for increased CO2 levels (up to 1000 to 1500 ppm from the current levels) including increased plant growth and lower water usage.
A recent study also indicates that in greenhouse environments, increased CO2 levels has a higher energy transference, that is the greenhouse environment get colder quicker.
So what do we get from all this, as individuals, we can do some investigation into the reasonableness of the climate science predictions and we can come to our own conclusions as to whether or not climate science is sound science. We don't actually have to take the word of either side, we can check the veracity of both sides.
My own investigations have lead me to believe that climate scientists have less an idea of what is causing climate change that do people who have observed the world for 60, 70 or 80 years.
When the models give credible predictions for short, medium and longer term periods then we can start to give credence to what climate scientists might say.
Does waiting for this increase credibility mean we do nothing now. No. We have various infrastructure problems now that need to be solved, some environmental, some energy related, some populations related, etc. Unfortunately, even though there are positive things we can do to mitigate specific problems in the infrastructure realm, the political situation will ensure that these are not done.
Even though the rightists have some good ideas, the leftists will object. Even though the leftists have some good ideas the rightists will object. Any ideas from the middle-of-the-roadists will get shot down by both sides.
So it is up to each of us as individuals to make changes that positively effect our surrounding situations.
[+] [-] gavinpc|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oldandtired|9 years ago|reply
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