Part 1 of this post (here) dealt with an opinion poll published by Ipsos MORI last summer. This showed a surprising level of global warming scepticism among the UK public and also indicated a high degree of confusion among the respondents.Before moving on to discuss a couple of more recent polls, I want to look at some more results from the July ‘07 poll. These seem to confirm the impression that public opinion on this very important subject may be shaped more by a failure to understand the issues than by informed judgements. Here is an example:
Q2 Which of the actions on this list, if any, do you think will do the most to help reduce climate change?
%
Recycling 40 Developing cleaner engines for cars 34 Avoiding creating waste in the first place 22 Making fewer car journeys 17 Using less electricity 16 Taking fewer foreign holidays 11 Using public transport 10 Walking or cycling 10 Buying locally-grown food 7 Using water sparingly 4 Reusing bottles/containers 4 People having fewer children 4 Buying organic produce 1 None of these 2 Don’t know 3
More recycling seems a very strange choice to head this list. Although reprocessing waste may lead to a minor reduction in CO2 emissions, it is unlikely that a scientist would seriously claim that this could have a really dramatic effect; cuts in emissions from electricity generation, industry, and transport would be far more relevant. So why do so many people seem to hold this view?
At the time of the Ipsos-MORI research last June, the Government and local authorities were running major campaigns to persuade people to recycle more. The cost of refuse collection and disposal is a major factor in rising Council Tax, and I doubt whether a proposal that we should try to reduce the amount of waste going to landfill would find many opponents. However both local authorities and central government were enlisting ‘environmental’ issues as a way of selling the idea to the public. It would seem that this term has become synonymous in many people’s minds with global warming, to the extent that it is assumed that more recycling must have something to do with climate change.
Developing cleaner car engines comes a fairly close second in the list. Again there are signs of real confusion here. Green activists have long blamed the motorcar for the appalling air quality in many of our towns and cities; with good reason. They have also used the prospect of alleviating this problem as a very effective means of persuading the public to support a campaign to prevent climate change. The mantra goes something like this: even if human activity is not causing climate change, at least trying to reduce emissions will make urban areas pleasanter places, so why worry if we are trying to solve a problem with the climate that my not exist? Here is a very good example of this extraordinary logic, from a leading climate scientist: When Science and Politics Mix.
A major report called The Urban Environment, published last year by the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, presented a startling piece of information. It claims that four out of five of the UK population now live in urban areas. This report also identifies air quality as a major concern among residents of urban areas. So it is not surprising that the idea of developing cleaner car engines would have wide popular support among a very large proportion of the population. There is no doubt that cars pollute, but CO2 is a colourless and odourless gas which is not perceptible to humans, so if vehicles in towns no longer emitted any at all, no one would notice. The pollution that they find so objectionable is not carbon dioxide, and making the air in towns sweeter smelling is a quite different problem. The question that Ipsos MORI asked was, ‘Which of the actions on this list, if any, do you think will do the most to help reduce climate change?’, but it seems likely that the respondents have been influenced by considerations that have no direct connection with climate change at all. Another question seems to confirm this. Respondents were asked, ‘Which, if any, of the following do you think will have the most impact on you personally if climate change is successfully tackled? The highest score by a wide margin went to ‘A cleaner atmosphere’. See table for Question 4 here.
Another option on the list was ‘Greater variety / quality of wildlife or countryside’, which also had quite a high score. If we refrain from asking what ‘greater quality of wildlife’ might mean, and consider what effect ‘tackling climate change’ is having on the countryside, this is startling. The most conspicuous sign of climate change in the landscape is vast industrial wind generation plants that are now being built in areas that were formally protected against such developments. Thousands more are in the pipeline for no other reason than to create the impression that the government is tackling the problem of climate change. Link to Downing Street petition against wind farms.
So far we have been considering the results of a type of poll that seeks responses to specific propositions; the respondents were asked to express a degree of agreement or disagreement, or select a response from a list. But there is another way of gauging public opinion, and that is to invite unprompted answers. An email from Robin Guenier, who has considerable first hand experience of polling, makes the following very interesting point:
I hope you’re going to refer to the Ipsos MORI and Gallup (US) polls that showed that, when respondents are not prompted, they give very different answers about anthropogenic global warming.
In 1999, I was the founding chairman of an online polling business – Medix (specialising in healthcare research). We have learned from experience that, wherever possible, we get more reliable results if we don’t provide categories of potential answers. Thus, when Ipsos MORI and Gallup asked respondents what they considered were the biggest problems facing the country (or words to that effect) without a list of problems to choose from, hardly any mentioned global warming. That, I’m pretty sure, is the best indicator of how people really think.
In February this year, Ipsos MORI conducted an unprompted poll that simply asked, ‘What would you say was the most important issue facing Britain today?’ Environment and Pollution only managed twelfth place on the list with 3%, a very long way behind Immigration (28%) and Crime (21%). Even when respondents were asked to suggest other important issues the score was only 7%, and ‘Environment / pollution’ failed to rise any higher up the list. See table for Questions 7 and 8 here.
It would seem that the very considerable efforts that are being made to shape public opinion on global warming are encountering considerable resistance. In spite of the apocalyptic warnings that have become a daily feature of government statements and news stories in the media, the level of concern among the public is very low.
In America, where doubts about global warming are supposed to be far more general, Gallup conducted a similar poll about the same time asking ‘What do you think is the most important problem facing this country today?’ Here too, only 3% put ‘environment / pollution’ at the top of their list. Surprisingly, this periodic survey has shown a figure as high as 5% in the past, suggesting that concern in this area has declined. The current results are here and the historical numbers are here.
It is quite clear from these surveys that those who want to persuade the public to accept radical policies to combat climate change are still a long way from creating a groundswell of public opinion that will allow them to do so without having to pay a very high political price. The increasingly strident and exaggerated arguments with which they are bombarding the public are causing confusion and scepticism without having the intended effect.
I’m grateful to Robin Guenier for drawing my attention to the most recent Ipsos-MORI and Gallup polls.
Update 15/04/2008: Ipsos MORI have just published the results of their March survey of ‘most important issues’. The figures for ‘environment / pollution’ have changed very slightly to 4% and 6% respectively, showing a slight increase for the question about primary concerns, but a commensurate decrease for the one about other concerns.
Yes it is sometimes difficult to explain to people who are not scientifically minded, and that is probably most people, what does and does not matter in environmental terms. There is a lot of confusion about the depletion of the ozone layer and global warming, for instance. I’m annoyed that lighting companies deliberate play up the fact that their light bulbs are low voltage. Most people take that to mean that they are low power, and therefore low CO2, but often that’s not the case. There’s also a widespread myth that it switching off a piece of electrical apparatus uses more energy that it saves. That is hardly ever true.
The gases that are thought to be most responsible for global warming are CO2 and methane, which would not be noticeable as pollutant gases so some explanation is needed on this point. It is understandable that they should be most concerned about this even though the link between clean air and global warming isn’t as direct as they might think. Some particular pollutants actually produce an overall cooling effect.
Of course people should expect, in fact have a right that the air they breathe should be clean, no matter where they live. There are those who would, I expect, argue that he’s got an inalienable right to drive their V8 powered cars wherever they like too and immediately these two ‘rights’ are in conflict. At present it isn’t easy to reconcile the two, but I would expect that during the 21st century we’ll move away from hydrocarbon fuels to a large extent, and so it should be increasingly possible in future. It is a lot easier to confuse the public than to educate. I suppose the idea is that if you do create enough confusion in the public mind, most people will stay relatively neutral on the issue, and be happy to leave the decision to the so-called experts. In practice, this means politicians, whose scientific knowledge is often not to good either, and certainly not expert. They aren’t going to do anything if they feel that it might cost them a few votes and, for those making one side of the argument, and those with vested interests that back them, that is obviously the objective.
I have previously mentioned that scientific opinion is overwhelmingly on the side of the argument that AGW is a serious problem that needs urgent attention. It hasn’t always been that way. Before the AGW issue became such a ‘hot topic’, in the early 90s there was a similar, but much less low key, discussion when temperatures also fell. The ‘official scientific line’ then was that it was all down to the eruption of Mt Pinatubo in 1991. That was very much an over-simplification and of course many people said so at the time. Even among the mainstream scientific community there was a general scepticism and quite a strong feeling that the AGW issue wasn’t much more than media inspired hype in the same way that the 60’s ice age stories were. The very strong warming that occurred in the late 90’s dispelled all that with the scientific community becoming near unanimous ten years later. We are going through exactly the same process in a much more public way at present. If the warming pattern repeats itself we’ll probably see a sharp jump in temperatures of about 0.3 deg C in the next few years and a continued rapid decline in the area of summer Arctic ice. There is a danger than a certain panic will set in if and when it does with lots of talk of ‘tipping points’ and ‘its already too late’ etc etc. The problem can be tackled effectively if we think rationally. Oscillating between denial and panic isn’t going to help in the slightest.
In the, I would say unlikely, event it does turn out that the scientific community is wrong on the issue and temperatures do start to fall, your current position will prove to be valid. But, what if we do get that sharp jump in temperatures and the scientific position does become increasingly accepted by the public? I agree that building ever larger and ever more numerous wind turbines is not the answer, but unless there is a credible alternative to the current ‘green’ position then we are going to have even more. The renewable energy sources, though they certainly do have their applications in areas which are not currently connected to any electricity grid, are unlikely to ever contribute more than 20% of the energy required for a country like the UK. At best they are irrelevant and at worst they are a diversion from how the bulk, the other 80%, of energy should be generated. Like it or not, the choice is between fossil fuels and nuclear power. I would suggest you might want to hedge your bets and would be better joining forces with the pro-nuclear environmental groups, such as this one. http://www.ecolo.org/base/baseen.htm You won’t see the French countryside covered by unsightly wind turbines.
I won’t make the case for the relative safety of nuclear power compared to coal here, but rather I would urge anyone who is interested in the facts to their own research. Even on radioactive emissions in comes out well ahead.
Re: #1, Peter Martin
I should be very careful with this one; it’s a double-edged sword. See here for just one example of how the warming side can be guilty of cynically spreading confusion. We’d probably agree that spreading confusion benefits no one but the perpetrators, and even then only in the short term.
I seem to remember ‘tipping points’ and ‘it’s already to late’ having a certain vogue about three years ago, soon after I first became interested in the climate debate. People like Houghton, Hulme and even the green activists hit it on the head very smartly when polling showed that such dire predictions made people fatalistic about climate change rather than inspiring them to adopt and implement policies that were perceived as likely to prevent it. The change of policy had everything to do with winning hearts and minds, and very little to do with new scientific evidence. I would be surprised if warmists make the same mistake twice.
I’m grateful for the advice, but as I mentioned on the New Statesman bog, I am not interested in tactics. What I say on this blog, and in comments elsewhere, is precisely what I am thinking at the time of writing. This can be assessed on the basis of my arguments and the references with which I support them. I am not asking anyone to believe me, or act on what I say, only to give me a hearing.
Some particular pollutants actually produce an overall cooling effect.On a completely flippant note, you might have seen this in a response I posted to something Brute said about recycling at the New Statesman:
I didn’t mention that it smokes horribly going up hill; the really thick black stuff. So are my firewood activities having a net warming or cooling effect? Collecting fallen timber for heating must surely put me on the side of the angels. But the dumper undoubtedly emits CO2, and that’s naughty. The fact that it has survived for over forty years – the same pieces of steel doing the same job without the need for more ore to be mined, smelted, wrought, machined and shaped – makes me a good guy again. But then there’s all those aerosols pouring out of the exhaust on the way home. They have got to have a cooling effect, but they do produce the sort of blot on the atmosphere that gives pollution a bad name, or it would if there was anyone else other than me to smell it.
Trying to establish the net warming or cooling effect of the whole operation would seem to me to be like trying to calculate the number of angels that can stand on the head of a pin. But I suspect that there are many well funded statisticians out there at this very moment trying to do the same thing on a far larger scale.
Incidentally the motivation for the whole operation is that I enjoy the work and it saves on heating costs.