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Thursday, December 19, 2019

What are climate change polls really telling us? And can we trust the polls ?

SUMMARY:
The evidence 
is growing that 
climate alarmists 
are losing their
popular support.

That's not obvious
with a quick glance
at survey results,
but keep reading.

Measuring 
popular support 
is not simple for 
any controversial
subject  

The coming climate
change crisis belief
is controversial.

Alarmists have been
getting more radical
in recent years, 
making people afraid 
to admit they don't 
believe in a coming 
climate crisis.

So there is support 
for the belief in 
a coming climate
crisis, at some time 
off in the future.

But how deep 
is that "support" ?

One way to find out 
is to ask people 
how much
of their own money
they'd be willing 
to spend for CO2
emission reductions.

That's not simple either !

Because I would expect 
answers to be biased
by virtue signaling.

Some people will SAY
they're willing to spend 
lots of money.

They'll present 
themselves as 
"good people",
who care about 
the planet.

But talk is cheap !

How many 
would  change 
their minds 
when the first 
high priced 
electricity bill 
showed up ?

Even with that 
potential bias 
in mind, the 
survey results 
were surprising
to me.

Opinion surveys
in recent years 
consistently show 
the public is not
even willing to SAY
they would sacrifice 
very much money 
to reduce CO2
emissions !

And that's surprising ! 



DETAILS:
The United Nations says 
to keep temperatures 
within supposedly safe limits, 
based on their wild guess 
junk science, governments 
must CUT global emissions 
by a minimum of 7.6% 
each year, between 
2020 and 2030.

But the United Nation’s
2019 "Emissions Gap" 
report  says that
global greenhouse 
gas emissions 
have grown 
+1.5% every year 
over the past decade, 
despite government 
promises to reduce 
emissions.

To persuade people
the 2019 UN CO2 
"emissions gap"
needs to be closed, 
the UN allowed 
Greta Thunberg 
to attack adults,
who she thinks 
are letting the 
'world end 
in 12 years' ?

Some climate 
alarmists are now 
proclaiming that
the world only has 
one year, 18 months, 
or 10 years left
 ... to substantially reduce 
fossil-fuel consumption, 
or else it will be too late 
to prevent a global disaster.

That's complete nonsense,
but I like hearing nonsense:
 Ridiculous claims
will eventually make
the climate alarmists 
appear to be fools !

Climate alarmists 
are now working on 
getting a consensus on
a new term to scare people, 
perhaps “global meltdown”, 
or “climate collapse.” 

Writing for AdAge, 
Aaron Hall argues 
that to get people to 
“take action” 
against climate change, 
“rebranding” 
is crucial, since 
“people … need to 
be shocked into the notion 
that the world as we know it 
is ending.”



We should be enjoying 
the current climate, 
because we are living in
the best climate for humans 
in 800 to 1,000 years 
( since the Little Ice Age
cool centuries began ).

But climate alarmists 
won't let us enjoy the 
wonderful climate 
( which has 
been getting 
slightly warmer 
for 325 years, 
but is still too cold, 
in my opinion ...
It's 17 degrees F. 
right now, 
at 4pm on Wednesday, 
December 18, 2019, 
about five miles north 
of Detroit, as I write
this article ).



The coming climate 
change crisis
is a fairy tale belief,
not supported by 
real science, 
so we can't use 
real science 
to refute 
that belief !

But we can encourage 
the climate alarmists 
to make more radical 
claims ... and that's 
easy to do.

Because climate alarmists 
are unbelievably gullible. 

Tell them the climate 
is going to be worse than 
previously thought, and 
they LOVE hearing 
that bad (fake) news.

Even better,
next year tell them 
the climate is going
to be even worse than,
worse than we thought !




Some examples 
of bias in polls
of controversial
subjects:

Voting for Trump
Some people will not 
admit they plan to 
vote for Donald Trump,
because Democrats 
act like vicious animals
when they hear that,
especially if they see 
a red Trump MAGA cap.


Owning a gun:
Many U.S. 
gun owners 
will not admit to 
owning a gun. 


Belief in God: 
I've been an atheist since 
roughly age six, when I could 
first understand the word. 

But when asked if 
I believe in God,
I don't say "no", 
because that could 
lead to a debate. 

So I'll toss out 
a silly answer, 
such as: 
"I believe 
in 246 gods", 
which usually 
avoids a debate.



Belief in extraterrestrial craft:
The U.S. Air Force 
required written reports 
on UFOs from their pilots, 
from the late1940s 
to late 1960s -- over 
12,600 reports were filed. 

Thousands of commercial 
pilots have reported seeing 
UFOs since the 1940s, 
with some of the UFOs
tracked on radar. 

This year a new TV show
 -- "Unidentified" -- 
featured US Navy 
videos of UFOs, 
along with interviews 
of Navy pilots and Navy 
radar operators 
who tracked them. 
( see Episode 1 first )

The U.S. Navy 
publicly 
admitted
the videos 
were real, 
and unaltered. 

So, are 100% 
of all those 
professional 
pilots mistaken? 

Of course not. 

Yet most pilots 
who see a UFO 
won't talk about it 
... because they know 
people with weak minds 
would ridicule them.


Belief in a coming 
climate change crisis:
There's a lot of 
peer pressure 
to "believe" 
in this. 

And a lot of ridicule 
for a skeptic, or for 
a climate science 
blog like mine. 

Not that I care. 

Leftist character attacks 
get louder, and harsher, 
when you are doing 
a good job refuting 
their climate change 
fairy tales.



Asking people 
if they believe
in "climate change" 
should get a 100% 
yes response. 

But the phrase 
"climate change" 
can be confusing.

"Climate change", 
when used by
climate alarmists, 
actually means
"a coming climate
change crisis" -- 
a different meaning.

Asking people 
if they believe
climate change 
is a coming crisis, 
or that future 
climate change 
will be bad news, 
may not get 
much useful 
information. 

First of all, 
no one knows
what the future 
climate will be ! 

I've been reading 
climate science 
articles and studies, 
as a hobby, 
since 1997, 
and I have no idea 
what the future 
climate will be.

There's peer pressure 
to say you're a believer 
in "climate change", 
or a coming climate 
crisis, or that future
climate change will be 
bad news.

Strong peer pressure,
if you are a Democrat, 
socialist or marxist 
( groups that
I usually combine,
and call "leftists" ).



So how do you find out 
what people really think 
about climate change ?

One way is with 
indirect questions, 
about how much 
money people 
are personally 
willing to spend
on CO2 emissions 
reductions.

That gets 
more information,
because talk is cheap,
but actual spending
means something.



An August 2019 survey,
by The Washington Post
and  Kaiser Family 
Foundation, found 
more than 60% 
of survey respondents 
said they believed the world 
had fewer than 10 years 
to prevent the worst effects 
of climate change ( with most 
respondents claiming the world 
has two years, or fewer, to act, 
believe it or not ! ).

That's a disappointing result 
... until you keep reading:

-- 51% of those 
surveyed were
“somewhat” opposed,  or
“strongly” opposed, 
to paying only a 
$2 monthly tax on U.S. 
residential electric bills,
to pay for the fight 
against climate change !

-- 61% would reject 
only a 10 cents per gallon 
gasoline tax increase, 
to fight climate change !




A November 2019 survey, 
of 1,000 likely voters, 
conducted by The Heartland 
Institute and Rasmussen 
Reports, found slightly less 
than half of those surveyed 
believed “Human Activity”  
is the primary cause 
of climate change. 

One in three Democrats 
surveyed rejected the idea 
that humans are causing 
a climate crisis.

-- 63% said 
they believed 
it was very likely, 
or somewhat likely, 
that climate change 
“will be catastrophic 
for humans, plants, 
and animals”.

-- But only 34% 
of those 
who believed 
climate change 
was primarily 
caused by humans, 
said federal or 
state governments 
should limit air travel 
to help prevent 
climate change.

--  But only 24% 
said governments 
should require 
people to limit 
their consumption 
of meat to fight 
climate change.



More important 
than surveys 
are actions:

Governments in 
France and Chile 
pushed fossil 
fuel price hikes
to cut energy use, 
in their effort to fight 
climate change.

People rioted in the streets, 
forcing their governments 
to back off the proposed 
fossil fuel price hikes. 

Voters elsewhere have
replaced government 
leaders, or parties, 
who were pushing 
policies to meet 
their country’s 
CO2 emission 
reduction targets, 
under the 
Paris climate 
agreement.

Instead, people
favored politicians 
promising to rescind 
energy taxes, and
focus on making 
energy cheaper, 
and more abundant !



A majority
of the public 
believes 
that humans 
are affecting 
the climate.

I do too -- 
although 
how much 
is a mystery.

Humans are 
causing CO2 
enrichment
of the atmosphere,
which accelerates 
plant growth, and is
'greening' the planet.

Humans are likely to be
causing mild, beneficial 
global warming too ...
but global warming could
have 100% natural causes 
-- no one knows for sure.

There have been 
over 60 years 
of global warming 
scaremongering, 
especially loud
after the IPCC 
formed in 1988.

Scary claims 
ramped up 
about five 
years ago
-- the wilder
than ever
climate 
predictions 
offended me 
so much, 
that I launched 
this blog, as a 
public service.


In 2018, scary,
always wrong, 
wild guesses
about the 
future climate,
morphed into 
delusional claims.

Climate change 
is being sold using
a marketing campaign, 
completely unrelated 
to real science, and 
human prosperity.

The truth is that the 
coming climate change 
crisis was ALWAYS 
a marketing campaign, 
with a political goal:
  Much more powerful 
socialist governments, 
falsely claimed 
to be needed to 
"save the planet 
for the children".

The new way 
to sell socialism, 
and marxism, 
was the creation 
of a new false
boogeyman: 
 Carbon dioxide, 
which is actually
a harmless gas,
and the staff 
of life for our
planet.

They can't claim 
that socialism
will bring us
faster economic
growth, and a lower
unemployment rate,
because the opposite
is true.

So it's now "Save the 
planet socialism" !

And guess what -- 
slower economic
growth can 
be claimed
to be good news,
because slower 
economic growth 
means slower growth
of CO2 emissions !

And of course,
we always have 
the usual leftist
character attacks 
on all people 
who do not 
believe in 
a coming 
climate crisis.


Earth's climate 
has gradually 
been getting better,
for over 300 years,
as global warming 
continues, and
our planet gets
greener !

Enjoy it please --
because Earth
only has 
12 years left,
    or is that 
18 months left ?

I forget which --
hold on, I'll call
"thundering" 
Greta Thunberg
for the right answer !