Global Warming? Settled.

What people don't know about science would fill even the unfillable Internet.  For those global climate change skeptics out there, a simple video below explains how some wingnuts manage to get it all so wrong.  Be helpful if this ran on Fox News.

What People Think They Know

As interesting as actual knowledge can be as a topic of research (or a blog), even more interesting are perceptions of knowledge -- not only what people know, but what people think they know.  In this case, let's talk global warming/climate change.

The fine folks at Gallup have asked: "Next, thinking about the issue of global warming, how well do you feel you understand this issue -- would you say very well, fairly well, not very well, or not at all?"  The bold face emphasis is mine.  How much do they think they know.  The results?

From 2006 to 2010, the numbers remain largely unchanged, but there is a tick upward in 2010 compared to previous years in what people think they know. See below:

              Understand

              Very Well

2006            21%

2007            22%

2008            21%

2010            26%

Now you might find this bump heartening, but I suggest it's actually a bad thing.  Let me explain.  We've seen a drop in the proportion of people with a clue about science and who doubt global climate change -- sometimes for good reasons, sometimes because for silly partisan ones.  But I suspect this has bumped up the perception that people are knowledgeable when, more likely, they confuse strong feelings about a topic with knowledge about that topic.

I know of what I speak. I've done many studies looking at actual knowledge and how it compares with perceived knowledge.  The two are correlated, but imperfectly.  And often emotion gets in the way and makes people feel informed when, instead, they only think of themselves as informed.  While I don't have data here to explore this further, my educated hunch is this bump in 2010 of perceived knowledge about global climate change masks the role of ideological silliness, partisan pettiness, and a sense of being informed through emotion than really being informed. 

It'd be a fascinating topic.  Hmmmm.  Maybe time to go there.  Off to search for good, solid data.

Who Do Ya Trust?

There's an interesting story here about who youth trust when it comes to science and climate change.  There's good news, there's bad news, and there's scary news.

Looking at respondents under the age of 35:

• Only about a third trust the news media when it comes to information about climate change.  That's the bad news from a journalism standpoint.
• But -- here's the good news -- fewer (about 27 percent) -- trust Sarah Palin on this issue.  So that's something.
• Eight out of ten in this age group trust scientists.  If there is an important number in this survey, this be the one.  Heartening, especially since this 82 percent is higher than any other age group.
• But there is scary bad news.  Among Evangelicals under 35, religious leaders are the most trusted source of information about climate change.  Huh?  Are these also the guys you go to for surgery?  For a wisdom tooth?  

A pdf of the entire report is here.  I may mine it for more blogs later, but as I'm on spring break, motivation is not high.

Knowing When It's Warm, or Not

The Pew Center tries to tease out why there has been a significant drop in the sense of danger people feel about climate change.  In the report, one graph stands out:

Why do fewer Americans believe the earth is warming? No single factor emerges from Pew Research Center surveys, but rather a range of possible explanations, including a sour economy and, perhaps, a cooler than normal summer in parts of the United States.

Makes sense.  People know based in a large part on personal experience, so a cooler-than-normal summer means you'd have more doubts about global warming, at least enough of a doubt to say so in a survey.

And people engage in interesting mental calculus.  If the economy sucks, and global warming is going to cost us more to fix, then we can put off global warming until the economy improves.  Do the math and you're less concerned about global warming.  Bingo!

The table below includes the "intriguing finding" that maybe weather played a factor.  Decide for yourself, but there seems to be some small association here.  You'd have to track this over time to really tap into it.  An interesting idea.

What Global Warming?

Fewer people see "global warming" as a serious problem, according to a new Pew study, down from 44 percent last year to 35 percent this year.

To me, part of the problem is the lousy label "global warming" versus "climate change."  Come winter you get all these comedians who, on a cold day, wonder "where's all the global warming, yuk yuk," misunderstanding that it's more about how warming in some parts of the world screw up the climates elsewhere. 

Plus given the economy, I suspect what qualifies as a "serious problem" has changed in the minds of many.

And it's not so much a partisan thing when tapping what people know about science.  The graph to the right shows that regardless of partisan attachment, seeing "global warming" as a serious problem has decreased.  Heck, even those tree-hugging Dems have gone down from 2006 to 2009.  Do they lose their membership card to the Democratic Party?

I always look to the Independents.  They don't see it as important either.  That suggests the trend is less political and more (1) a response to real-world problems of war and economic disaster or (2) a complete misunderstanding of the science.