Climate Change Skepticism Stems from Recession, UConn Study Finds

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://today.uconn.edu/blog/2012/03/climate-change-skepticism-stems-from-recession-uconn-study-finds/

[font face=Times, Times New Roman, Serif][font size=5]Climate Change Skepticism Stems from Recession, UConn Study Finds[/font]

March 8, 2012 | By: Christine Buckley, CLAS Today

[font size=3]In recent years, the American public has grown increasingly skeptical of the existence of man-made climate change. Although pundits and scholars have suggested several reasons for this trend, a new study shows that the recent Great Recession has been a major factor.

Lyle Scruggs, associate professor of political science in UConn’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, suggests that this shift in opinion is related primarily to the public’s concern about the economy.

“That the economy impacts the way people prioritize the problem of climate change is uncontroversial,” says Scruggs. “What is more puzzling is why support for basic climate science has declined dramatically during this period.

“Many people believe that part of the solution to climate change is suppression of economic activity,” which is an unpopular viewpoint when the economy is bad, Scruggs continues. “So it’s easier for people to disbelieve in climate change, than to accept that it is real but that little should be done about it right now.”

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2012.01.002

[Viking12]

1. Not all of it. Some is just plain, old insanity.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/rick-santorum-dangers-carbon-dioxide-tell-plant-152230291.html

[Nihil]

2. Yeah yeah yeah ...

... and it has *NOTHING* to do with the millions of dollars of propaganda being sprayed
all over the (largely science-ignorant) public day-in, day-out has it?

After all, everyone knows that mass-marketing & advertising doesn't work ...

[guardian]

3. Or maybe

people are finally getting tired hearing how "THE EARTH IS DOOOOOOOOOOMED".

Hansen has been saying for 30 years that NYC will be underwater in 30 years. Sounds like his message hasn't changed. In 30 years the chicken little doomers will still be saying something must be done or we will be doomed in 30 years hence. And send more grant money...the researchers need a new hot tub and money to fly B-class to COP49 in Tahiti.

[caraher]

4. Nonsense

Hansen's ballyhooed "forecast" was a hypothetical about 40 years in the future under the assumption of doubled CO2. It is neither 40 years later, nor has CO2 doubled.

All of which is beside the point - perhaps Hansen is too pessimistic. Whether we get flooding in Manhattan is not really the issue; it's a thousand other less spectacular yet important changes that disrupt the systems we rely upon for our way of life that really matter. Picking at one researcher's remarks in an interview doesn't change that. And whether people are tired of hearing something or not has no bearing on its truth.

[Nihil]

5. Oh hello ... I thought you'd gone.

Guess you've had to be quieter recently for some reason.

> In 30 years the chicken little doomers will still be saying something must be
> done or we will be doomed in 30 years hence. And send more grant money...
> the researchers need a new hot tub and money to fly B-class to COP49 in Tahiti.

[OKIsItJustMe]

6. I'd sure like to see your source for that

(I'd like to see it in context.)

[guardian]

9. Some examples of Hansen's fear mongering

Dr. Hansen predicted in 1988, now in 2011, 23 years later, we’re a bit over halfway there … so the sea level rise should be about halfway up the side of Manhattan Island by now.

Salon interview.
http://www.salon.com/2001/10/23/weather/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/10/22/a-little-known-but-failed-20-year-old-climate-change-prediction-by-dr-james-hansen/


Hansen said the average U.S. temperature had risen from one to two degrees since 1958 and is predicted to increase an additional 3 or 4 degrees sometime between 2010 and 2020.

The Press-Courier (Milwaukee) June 11 1986
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=llJeAAAAIBAJ&sjid=AWENAAAAIBAJ&pg=5501,1378938&dq=james-hansen&hl=en


“Within 15 years,” said Goddard Space Flight Honcho James Hansen, “global temperatures will rise to a level which hasn’t existed on earth for 100,000 years”.

The News and Courier, June 17th 1986
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=n39JAAAAIBAJ&sjid=pgsNAAAAIBAJ&pg=4671,5141658&dq=james-hansen+desert&hl=en


Going back to 1982, we find Hansen arguing that if fossil fuel use was restricted, England might be a tropical paradise by 2050. If we carried on as normal, the world would be back in the sort of heat last seen in the age of the dinosaurs. Hansen presented results of studies which indicated likely climate changes under different energy policies. If there were slow growth in the use of hydrocarbon fuels, the world in the middle of the next century would be as warm as it was 125,000 years ago, when lions, elephants and other tropical animals roamed a balmy southern England.

Pursuing present plans for coal and oil, Hansen found, the climate in the middle of the 21st century “would approach the warmth of the age of the dinosaurs”

The Leader-Post, January 9th, 1982.
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=CZJVAAAAIBAJ&sjid=9z8NAAAAIBAJ&pg=1156,1812228&dq=james-hansen&hl=en



By 1989, far from toning it down, Hansen was starting to really turn up the heat, predicting totally unprecedented warming so far as mankind was concerned:

“By the year 2050 we’re going to have tremendous climate changes, far outside what man has ever experienced” said James Hansen, Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City.

Computer models by Hansen and others suggest that by the middle of the next century earth’s average temperature may rise 4 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit, possibly altering storm patterns, making crops fail, and raising sea levels to flood low-lying coastal areas.

Observer-Reporter, December 7th, 1989
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=aKxdAAAAIBAJ&sjid=bl0NAAAAIBAJ&pg=2794,1289946&dq=james-hansen+flood&hl=en


And in 2006, he was still going strong. Unabashed by the failure of the world to warm significantly, Hansen was still predicting massive temperature increases. Remember that in the interview below, with a British newspaper, he is talking in degrees Celsius for temperature, and in metres (one metre = 3 feet) for sea level rise:

“The last time the world was three degrees warmer than today – which is what we expect later this century – sea levels were 25m higher. So that is what we can look forward to if we don’t act soon. None of the current climate and ice models predict this. But I prefer the evidence from the Earth’s history and my own eyes. I think sea-level rise is going to be the big issue soon, more even than warming itself.”

The Independent, 17th February, 2006
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change-on-the-edge-466818.html


That’s a 25 metre – 75 feet – rise in sea level by the end of the century. So far, this prediction by Hansen won't fare any better than the rest.

[OKIsItJustMe]

11. Yeah, not what I'm looking for

For example, the Salon item, in an interview, someone quotes what they remember from an interview several years before:
http://www.salon.com/2001/10/23/weather/singleton/

[font face=Times, Times New Roman, Serif][font size=3]…

Extreme weather means more terrifying hurricanes and tornadoes and fires than we usually see. But what can we expect such conditions to do to our daily life?

While doing research 12 or 13 years ago, I met Jim Hansen, the scientist who in 1988 predicted the greenhouse effect before Congress. I went over to the window with him and looked out on Broadway in New York City and said, “If what you’re saying about the greenhouse effect is true, is anything going to look different down there in 20 years?” He looked for a while and was quiet and didn’t say anything for a couple seconds. Then he said, “Well, there will be more traffic.” I, of course, didn’t think he heard the question right. Then he explained, “The West Side Highway [which runs along the Hudson River] will be under water. And there will be tape across the windows across the street because of high winds. And the same birds won’t be there. The trees in the median strip will change.” Then he said, “There will be more police cars.” Why? “Well, you know what happens to crime when the heat goes up.”

…

When did he say this will happen?

Within 20 or 30 years. And remember we had this conversation in 1988 or 1989.

…[/font][/font]

OK, so… 2008-2019 (somewhere in there.) Or, maybe not…

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/10/22/a-little-known-but-failed-20-year-old-climate-change-prediction-by-dr-james-hansen/

[font face=Times, Times New Roman, Serif][font size=3]UPDATE: Thanks to a tip from Willis Eschenbach, there’s some developing news in that story from Dr. James Hansen. The Salon interviewee and book author, Rob Reiss that I quoted, now admits he somehow conflated 40 years with 20 years, and concedes that Dr. Hansen actually said 40 years for his prediction. However, as the newest analysis shows, it doesn’t make any difference, and we still aren’t seeing the magnitude of sea level rise predicted, now 23 years into it.

See the relevant excerpt below:

Michaels also has the facts wrong about a 1988 interview of me by Bob Reiss, in which Reiss asked me to speculate on changes that might happen in New York City in 40 years assuming CO2 doubled in amount. Michaels has it as 20 years, not 40 years, with no mention of doubled CO2. Reiss verified this fact to me, but he later sent the message:

“I went back to my book and re-read the interview I had with you. I am embarrassed to say that although the book text is correct, in remembering our original conversation, during a casual phone interview with a Salon magazine reporter in 2001 I was off in years. What I asked you originally at your office window was for a prediction of what Broadway would look like in 40 years, not 20. But when I spoke to the Salon reporter 10 years later probably because I’d been watching the predictions come true, I remembered it as a 20 year question.“

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It seems the suggestion that Hansen was exaggerating is… well… exaggerated.

[OKIsItJustMe]

7. Rising Sea Levels Seen as Threat to Coastal U.S.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/14/science/earth/study-rising-sea-levels-a-risk-to-coastal-states.html?_r=1

[font face=Times, Times New Roman, Serif][font size=5]Rising Sea Levels Seen as Threat to Coastal U.S.[/font]

By JUSTIN GILLIS
Published: March 13, 2012

[font size=3]About 3.7 million Americans live within a few feet of high tide and risk being hit by more frequent coastal flooding in coming decades because of the sea level rise caused by global warming, according to new research.

If the pace of the rise accelerates as much as expected, researchers found, coastal flooding at levels that were once exceedingly rare could become an every-few-years occurrence by the middle of this century.

By far the most vulnerable state is Florida, the new analysis found, with roughly half of the nation’s at-risk population living near the coast on the porous, low-lying limestone shelf that constitutes much of that state. But Louisiana, California, New York and New Jersey are also particularly vulnerable, researchers found, and virtually the entire American coastline is at some degree of risk.

“Sea level rise is like an invisible tsunami, building force while we do almost nothing,” said Benjamin H. Strauss, an author, with other scientists, of two new papers outlining the research. “We have a closing window of time to prevent the worst by preparing for higher seas.”

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[guardian]

10. That article is just another example

of mindless fear mongering. You could substitute "asteroid impact" or "super volcano" or "mega tsunami" or "ebola pandemic" or "high cholesterol" as the subject of the article because the article is so vague to be ridiculous. Doomers love idiot article like this because they say nothing, scare people, and promote their orthodoxy.

Be scared. You are "at risk" of xxxxxxxxx. Send grant money now.

[OKIsItJustMe]

12. Or, maybe we are at risk

https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/88367/arctic-ice-melt-2011-executivesummary.pdf/

[font face=Times, Times New Roman, Serif][font size=5]Snow, Water, Ice and Permafrost in the arctic[/font]

…

[font size=4]Large bodies of ice are melting faster[/font]

[font size=3]Net loss of mass from the Greenland Ice Sheet has increased from an estimated 50 Gt per year (50 000 000 000 metric tonnes per year) in the period 1995–2000 to ~200 Gt per year in the period 2004–2008. The current loss (~200 Gt per year) represents enough water to supply more than one billion city-dwellers.

Nearly all glaciers and ice caps in the Arctic have shrunk over the past 100 years. The rate of ice loss increased over the past decade in most regions, but especially in Arctic Canada and southern Alaska. Total loss of ice from glaciers and smaller ice caps in the Arctic probably exceeded 150 Gt per year in the past decade, similar to the estimated amount being lost from the Greenland Ice Sheet.

Arctic sea-ice decline has been faster during the past ten years than in the previous 20 years. This decline in sea-ice extent is faster than projected by the models used in the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report in 2007. The area of sea ice persisting in summer (polar pack ice) has been at or near record low levels every year since 2001. It is now about one third smaller than the average summer sea-ice cover from 1979 to 2000. New observations reveal that average sea-ice thickness is decreasing and the sea-ice cover is now dominated by younger, thinner ice.

…

Melting glaciers and ice sheets worldwide have become the biggest contributor to global sea level rise. Arctic glaciers, ice caps, and the Greenland Ice Sheet contributed 1.3 mm – over 40% – of the total 3.1 mm global sea level rise observed every year between 2003 and 2008. These contributions from the Arctic to global sea level rise are much greater than previously measured.

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[OKIsItJustMe]

8. He may be right

http://sealevel.climatecentral.org/surgingseas/place/cities/NY/New_York