Study: climate skeptics are winning the public opinion war

wattsupwiththat.com ^ | Dec. 2, 2015 | Anthony Watts

[PROCON]

From MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY:

Climate-change foes winning public opinion war

EAST LANSING, Mich. — As world leaders meet this week and next at a historic climate change summit in Paris, a new study by Michigan State University environmental scientists suggests opponents of climate change appear to be winning the war of words.

"It's extremely difficult to change people's minds on climate change, in part because they are entrenched in their views," says Aaron M. McCright, a Michigan State University environmental scientist. “It’s extremely difficult to change people’s minds on climate change, in part because they are entrenched in their views,” says Aaron M. McCright, a Michigan State University environmental scientist.

The research, funded by the National Science Foundation, finds that climate-change advocates are largely failing to influence public opinion. Climate-change foes, on the other hand, are successfully changing people’s minds — Republicans and Democrats alike — with messages denying the existence of global warming.

“This is the first experiment of its kind to examine the influence of the denial messages on American adults,” said Aaron M. McCright, a sociologist and lead investigator on the study. “Until now, most people just assumed climate change deniers were having an influence on public opinion. Our experiment confirms this.”

The findings come as leaders from 150 nations attempt to forge a treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. During a speech Monday at the Paris summit, President Barack Obama said the “growing threat of climate change could define the contours of this century more dramatically than any other.”

Nearly 1,600 U.S. adults took part in the MSU study. Participants read fabricated news articles about climate change and then completed a survey gauging their beliefs on the issue. The articles contained either positive or negative real-world messages about climate change, or both.

The positive messages framed the topic of climate change around one of four major issues: economic opportunity, national security, Christian stewardship and public health. According to the article addressing public health, for example:

“Medical experts argue that dealing with climate change will improve our public health by reducing the likelihood of extreme weather events, reducing air quality and allergen problems, and limiting the spread of pests that carry infectious diseases.”

In half of the articles, participants were presented a negative message that read, in part: “However, most conservative leaders and Republican politicians believe that so-called climate change is vastly exaggerated by environmentalists, liberal scientists seeking government funding for their research and Democratic politicians who want to regulate business.”

Surprisingly, none of the four major positive messages changed participants’ core beliefs about climate change. Further, when the negative messages were presented, people were more apt to doubt the existence of climate change – and this was true of both conservatives and liberals.

“That’s the power of the denial message,” said McCright, associate professor in MSU’s Lyman Briggs College and Department of Sociology. “It’s extremely difficult to change people’s minds on climate change, in part because they are entrenched in their views.”

###

The study appears online in the journal Topics in Cognitive Science. McCright’s co-authors are fellow MSU researchers Meghan Charters, Katherine Dentzman and Thomas Dietz.

[PROCON]

Some good news despite the propaganda from COP21 and the warmunists.

Reported by ABCNBCCBSCNNMSLSDNYTLATNPR in 3....2....1....*crickets*

[Jewbacca]

You can’t fool all of the people all of the time.

If Al Gore was right, we’d all be dead last month.

[Jim W N]

As long as the public still recognizes Loony Tunes characters like Al Gore as cartoon characters, we should be OK.

[arthurus]

The spread of skepticism is making raising the urgency level higher and the people who are set to grab off a sizable proportion of the world’s wealth through Climate Change and its attendant totalitarian measures and confiscations are working faster and are much more determined to see the project through to their own fabulous enrichment and the impoverishment and famine that they decree for the rest of the world’s people.

[grobdriver]

in part because they are entrenched in their views

And in part because you have no evidence for your view.

[gspurlock]

LOL and it’s not possible that these people have memories and have not observed any notable climate change? When pollution filled the air in U.S. cities, the population didn’t need to be notified or prompted to action by the news media, scientists or politicians. They demanded and got results.

I’m not so sure that the deniers are winning the war on words, but happen to concur with simply observing the obvious.

The most interesting thing about liberals is that they believe that convincing someone of something makes it true. When they successfully repeal the law of gravity, maybe I’ll start to respect them.

[VRWCarea51]

I am entrenched in my views based on my personal Experiences, history and Scientific FACT.

Not what some nutjob with an agenda tries to sell me.

[Uncle Miltie]

Climate skeptics are winning the public opinion AND DATA WAR:

[Obadiah]

No, everyone simply hasn’t abandoned reality like the psychopathic Left has.

[pepsionice]

700-odd sciences in existence....only one settled? Then you suggest that kids in some college-path ought to find another science other than environmental science because it’s settled and therefore no future jobs....they jabber away that it’s too difficult for you to understand but we still need future environmental scientists.

Then you kinda remind them that there are hundreds of scientists still trying to debunk Einstein’s theory....and no one seems to be disturbed about that.

[Sgt_Schultze]

There's nothing scientific about man-made climate change. Science requires a hypothesis to be defended - always. In fact the scientific method requires that any hypothesis is to be open to rigorous challenge. A scientist must provide his data and he must describe his experiment/test methodology. That is to permit the hypothesis to be tested and the methodology validated through repeated similar results.

But the warming alchemists refuse to provide their raw numbers and they refuse to provide the special sauce and methodology they apply, citing proprietary concerns. So they aren't even pretending to behave very scientific-y. But cashing the government checks to keep the "proof" coming makes the butthurt go away.

Here's the thing, If there was any validity to their claims, there would be a single, verifiable proof-positive, repeatable experiment they could point to. But there isn't.

[butlerweave]

Our neighbor would go on about Global Warming and all I’d do was laugh , now she never talks to us so I WIN . She’s a University Professor

[AppyPappy]

It’s not the skeptics. It’s that people have been hearing about Global Warming but aren’t SEEING Global warming. After hearing 10 years of imminent doom, we haven’t seen any doom.

It’s not getting any hotter in our world. It’s always getting hotter somewhere that no one ever goes.

[PROCON]

The clincher to me is that, despite numerous FOI requests to NOAA, they have not released their raw climate data for corroboration by others.

Now, why would that be......Hmmmm?

[Daveinyork]

“You can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”

But, you can fool enough of them to run a good sized nation.

[Amendment10]

I do not know if it is a war on words or the fact that if you do not wear your jacket in winter then you are still going to freeze your arse off.

In fact, I have noticed that instead of making five year predictions that humanity will be wiped out because of global warming, years which come and go proving the alarmists wrong, alarmists are now at least making 100 year predictions.

In the USA I think that ”global warming” was an accepted buzzword for universities and federal agencies to secure unconstitutional and unaccountable federal funding.

[centurion316]

Aaron M. McCright, a Michigan State University environmental scientist.

Aaron M. McCright, a sociologist and lead investigator on the study.

What in the Wild Wild World of Sports is a sociologist doing masquerading as an environmental scientist? There is so much money flowing into climate studies that everyone is jumping on the cash cow band wagon and claiming to be an environmental scientist. This is why no one is buying this nonsense, it's not science it's political policy.

[factoryrat]

The moment that I realized that the whole global warming/climate change/AGW meme was an epic shakedown racket wealth confiscation scheme of biblical proportions came to me with the mention of two words:

CARBON CRDITS.

At the mention of those two words, it became perfectly clear that all of this had absolutely nothing to do protecting the environment, and everything to do with gaining absolute control over the energy sector to profit those who have hatched this scheme.

[SuzyQue]

Sometimes, the truth will out.

[dhs12345]

Not according to Obama who claims that 2/3 of Americans support him on Global Warming/Climate Change. He said so earlier this week.