Beam me to Planet Gore !
[excerpt from deep inside it]
The Yale study implicitly accepts the “consensus” that climate change poses substantial dangers to humanity. But what about the cultural values held by climate scientists themselves? Could they be subject to confirmation bias too? A study [PDF] published in 2009 in the journal Climatic Change sheds some light on the policy views of climate scientists. Although the cultural cognition typology is more subtle, the Climatic Change study survey of over 400 climate scientists found that 67 percent identified as liberal, 20 percent moderate, and 13 percent conservative. Around 90 percent agreed that man-made global warming is now happening and that immediate policy decisions need to be made to address it.
According to the survey 96 percent support market incentives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; 85 percent favor a tax on industry to discourage practices that contribute to global warming; 89 percent favor higher prices for energy supplies and consumer goods that are not environmentally friendly; 99 percent favor developing no-carbon renewable energy supplies like hydro and solar; and 81 percent want to increase the price of fossil fuels. The few conservative climate scientists surveyed were somewhat less eager to adopt these policies except for the ambiguous “use market incentives” policy, which 96 percent favored. However, only 61 percent of politically conservative climate scientists favor a tax on industry; 65 percent support higher energy and consumer products prices; 92 percent back developing renewable fuels; and only 41 percent want to increase the price of fossil fuels. Could it be that Egalitarian/Communitarian biases against industry and commerce are informing the policy prescriptions of climate scientists? (No Shi'te, Little Beaver!)
The Pew Research Center conducted a 2009 survey comparing the political ideologies of scientists and the general public. Only 9 percent of scientists identified as conservative, 35 percent as moderate, and 52 percent as liberal, with 14 percent claiming to be very liberal. In contrast, the general public identifies as 37 percent conservative, 38 percent moderate, and 20 percent liberal, and 5 percent very liberal. Slicing the data another way, the survey finds that 81 percent of scientists lean Democrat whereas 52 percent of the general public does. Another telling division between the beliefs of the general public versus scientists is their responses to this statement: "When something is run by the government, it is usually inefficient and wasteful." Fifty-eight percent of scientists disagreed, whereas 57 percent of the public agreed with it.
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