Bye bye climate change consensus?
Welcome to 'Letters From A Tory', covering British politics from a conservative perspective. Please leave a comment if you have any thoughts about today's letter, and don't forget that you can CLICK HERE to get my letters sent to you by RSS every morning.
From the BBC:
There has been an increase in the number of British people who are sceptical about climate change, a poll commissioned by BBC News has suggested. It showed that 25% of those questioned did not think global warming was happening, an increase of 10% since a similar poll was conducted in November. The percentage of respondents who said climate change was a reality had fallen from 83% in November to 75%. The poll, based on a sample group of 1,001 adults, was conducted by Populus.
The findings, based on interviews carried out on 3-4 February, show that only 26% of people think “climate change is happening and is now established as largely man-made”, only 1% more than those who think there is no global warming. In November 2009, a similar poll by Populus – commissioned by the Times newspaper – showed that 41% agreed that climate change was happening and it was largely the result of human activities.
“It is very unusual indeed to see such a dramatic shift in opinion in such a short period,” Populus managing director Michael Simmonds told BBC News. “The British public are sceptical about man’s contribution to climate change – and becoming more so,” he added. “More people are now doubters than firm believers.” The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ (Defra) chief scientific adviser, Professor Bob Watson, called the findings “very disappointing”. “The fact that there has been a very significant drop in the number of people that believe that we humans are changing the Earth’s climate is serious,” he told BBC News. “Action is urgently needed,” Professor Watson warned. “We need the public to understand that climate change is serious so they will change their habits and help us move towards a low carbon economy.”
Of the 75% of respondents who agreed that climate change was happening, one-in-three people felt that the potential consequences of living in a warming world had been exaggerated, up from one-in-five people in November. The number of people who felt the risks of climate change had been understated dropped from 38% in November to 25% in the latest poll. During the intervening period between the two polls, there was a series of high profile climate-related stories, some of which made grim reading for climate scientists and policymakers. In November, the contents of emails stolen from a leading climate science unit led to accusations that a number of researchers had manipulated data. And in January, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) admitted that it had made a mistake in asserting that Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035. All of this happened against the backdrop of many parts of the northern hemisphere being gripped by a prolonged period of sub-zero temperatures. However, 73% of the people who said that they were aware of the “science flaws” stories stated that the media coverage had not changed their views about the risks of climate change.
Well well well, what a surprise. Rajendra Pachauri’s arrogance and indignation when the IPCC come under fire plus the steady drip-drip-drip of new revelations from Climategate are starting to hurt the climate change lobby. There is, of course, far from terminal but it looks as though the public are getting more and more apathetic to politicians telling them to change their lifestyles (often at considerable expense) when the evidence behind the politicians’ claims looks increasingly vulnerable. Mind you, for 25% of people to say that climate change isn’t even happening seems pretty bizarre. While global temperature rises in recent years have levelled off, there has clearly been some considerable variation in the climate over recent decades – whether or not humans are responsible for this change is a different matter.
I hope the Conservative Party are watching these polls closely. If an increasingly large percentage of the public think climate change is either not happening at all or is not proven to be man-made (currently at 74%), I think green policies and green taxes are likely to bomb with the electorate. I’d expect Labour to keep ploughing along their current eco lines at the election and the Lib Dems may well follow suit in an attempt to recapture their environmental mantle from David Cameron, but this could work out rather well for the Conservatives if they say, well, nothing.
Witanagemot Blogs
Even the civil servants looking into energy are beginning to have doubts.
http://cityunslicker.blogspot.com/2010/02/that-ofgem-report-in-full.html
People have very short term memories and may say they are not influenced by what has been happening in the media but they are certainly affected by day to day weather variations. The first poll was conducted when there was major flooding in the UK and Workington had been split in half. Increased flooding is a suggested outcome of a warming world so people have the well this is wierd weather it must be climate change. However, the latest poll is taken during/just after the big freeze – obviously not a consequence of a warming world.
All this is just a consequence of our brains having evolved when we lived small communities and lived for several decades. Our brains struggle to cope with long term data as we cannot picture the time scales – the difference between 100,000 years and 400,000 years is huge but our brains lump it all into long time as we cannot perceive that time scale.
And any skeptics who say we have had a cold winter and this disproves climate change are in this camp. I just hope they use that logic when there is a Summer heatwave – well that must prove climate change?!
Candid, a cold winter does not “disprove climate change”, it “disproves global warming”. Climate change can also mean we are getting colder. Anyway, if you are a “skeptic” the best thing you can hope for is another freezing snowy winter.
@Candid – some of those recently flood places in the UK, which were touted as being evidence of GW, have flooded regularly since the dawn of time. Cockermouth for one, and down near my part of the world, Tewkesbury and the Severn Plain.
Oddly, five hundred years ago, large parts of West Somerset were under water; and no, no coastal defences, Dutch style, have been built – some storm work in coastal towns – but one might almost imagine that the seal level there has gone done…
Very few people are denying that the climate is changing. The climate has always changed. As proof of this, 80m years ago, the air was warmer and thicker allowing for insects the size of dogs, larger arachnids and all sorts of other creatures we don’t see today.
However, that’s quite different from saying man is driving it.
My concern is that AGW and associated expenditure is an exercise in solipsism that King Canute sought to warn us about; rather than spending our money and effort to turn back the tide, we’d be wiser, potentially, investing in scrabbling further up the beach.
Jeremy: I wasn’t saying that I THINK the latest flooding episode in this country was related to global warming. Flooding is a completely natural event made much worse by our building on floodplains! I was suggesting that flooding has become associated with global warming and is therefore likely to produce higher percentages for agreeing with man-made climate change in the poll A.Tory has reproduced here.
BM: One cold winter does not disprove global warming. It is too short a time scale. We work in months, years and decades. the planet works in millenia and higher numbers that we haven’t attached common words to.
Shaun: I agree that it is difficult to decide whether to spend money on preventative measures or through adaptation as no-one can accurately predict the economic and climate futures precisely enough. But we still need greater investment in alternative energy technology becuase with or without anthropogenic climate change fossil fuels are still finite!
XX “It is very unusual indeed to see such a dramatic shift in opinion in such a short period,” Populus managing director Michael Simmonds told BBC News.XX
What does the stupid bastard expect when the question is asked right in the middle of one of the coldest, longest winters for decades?
@Furor Teutonicus – Terribly inconvenient of the
climateweather not to play ball with all those painstakingly researched, ’settled’, climate models, isn’t it?Don’t bet against iDave snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, LfaT..!
The “warmists” have been well and truly exposed. Inconvenient data suppressed. Requests under the freedom of information act ignored. This is not about science it’s about political dogma – with – lots and lots of taxpayers hard earned dosh up for grabs. Expect these guys to fight back. It’s getting dirty. Elsewhere in the blogosphere I read that many of the science based reports which underpin the whole argument, have been written by people with no scientific credentials at all. Now there’s a surprise.
As a person with a real apprieciation and love of the ironic, if only the cold weather had started a week or two BEFORE the Copenhagen farce.
)
So, some people are thick. It’s not exactly surprising that a large number of people who have never made any attempt to study the data or the issue in any detail have a retarded view on the issue.
January was the hottest month globally for many, many years, so I guess we’ll find out in time what the truth is.
It is an amazing shift, I dont Think I have ever seen anything like it in such a short period. Think is the Tories are going to have a problem with this because even if they say nothing, if they win power they will be going to COP events and they will have to make agreements then sale this to the rest of the party. that is not going to be easy, and they dont want to look like the bad boys and girls on the international scene. Big problems for the Future, I think this could become the new EU for the tories
Sorry should of added this blatant link in my above post Does the Tory PArty have its own Green House Effect http://bracknellblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/does-tory-party-have-its-own-green_16.html
Whenever trying to comprehend or rationalise the understanding/intelligence of ‘the public’, the impossibility of the exercise is reinforced when you realise that 30% of the same public would appear to be content with, and happy to vote for, New Labour.
You don’t understand quotation marks do you?
Whether AGW is happening or not, a cold winter no more proves or disproves it than a successful qualifying round indicates World Cup glory for England…
The problem with climate change is, as I’ve said before, that it’s so horrifically complex that the process behind it cannot be adequately explained in laymans terms. When even the climate models cannot accurately deal with the data inputs, what chance is there of getting it across to the general public?
So we’re left with how people act to guide us, and the CRU have been outright shifty, dishonest, underhand and breached scientific principles, whilst the IPCC have been snotty, condescending and been found wanting when it comes to professionalism.
So yeah, I can see public opinion shifting away from it, and understandably so. The Beebies and Guardianistas are so out of touch all they can do babble in horror that the great unwashed aren’t trotting after them.
The ironic bit is the anti-AGW camp haven’t been that honest either, they’re just not as condescending.
I have posted this one on other blogs. The past tells us that climate can and does change and within general climatic conditions weather patterns might shift and vary. It is a very complex set of interactions and difficult enough to work out what really did happen and how in the past. Now we are trying to second guess what the planet and the solar system might do in the immediate future. Of necessity disagreements and conflicts of opinion will occur. Those of us on volcano watch and other geophysical lurches will know that it could happen fast at any time. One interesting item this week was the melting of the Iceland glaciers as a result of any warming might release immense volcanic powers that will end in global cooling. Two for the price of one. I am not either taking or making bets.
Demetrius,
Interested in your comments that release of volcanic powers in Iceland could halt global cooling. I am sure that one of the explainations the AGW lobby has put out for declining tempatures in the last 10 years was a volcanic eruption in Indonesia I believe.
So:
1. Volcanos cause global warming
And
2. Volcanos cause global cooling.
Am I the only one to be confused here?
Shaun Pilkington wrote: 80m years ago, the air was warmer and thicker allowing for insects the size of dogs, larger arachnids and all sorts of other creatures
Really? I think there was a lot more CO2 in the atmosphere back then, but did that make it ‘thicker’? Is CO2 ‘thicker’ than nitrogen?
I’ve heard of ‘thin air’, but ‘thick air’ is a totally new one on me.
I think, for the “Thikys” out there you mdean DENSITY.
And yes. Any most anything can be more dense or less dence, depending on temperature.
I would rather hit my head against ten pound of steam than against ten pounds of ice, but they are BOTH H2O.
It is also why mountain climbers carry oxygen. What did you think it was for? Because climbing with twenty pounds of extra and useless weight is more fun?
And gasses DO have different densitys at equivalent temperatures.
I have blogged because of your interesting post about using science and the IPCC http://bracknellblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/climate-change-ipcc-must-use-science.html