lobal-warming Skeptics Know More Climate Science, Study Shows
A new study by Yale University Professor Dan Kahan confirmed that skeptics of the controversial anthropogenic global-warming theory — or realists, as they often call themselves — know more about climate science than AGW theorists. The latest findings directly contradict the myths, or lies, put forward by man-made warming alarmists about the countless scientists and the majority of the U.S. public that does not accept their theory.
The warmists consistently label those who reject their climate alarmism as “deniers,” “anti-science,” and worse. In reality, however, Kahan’s study, set to be published in the journal Advances in Political Psychology, shows yet again that the skeptics are generally more familiar with the science and the evidence surrounding the climate than warming theorists. Other recent studies have found that skeptics know more about science generally, too.
As part of the latest study, 2,000 participants were asked nine questions about what “scientists” — most of whom are funded with taxpayer money by governments seeking carbon taxes, global governance, and more regulation — believe about the climate. According to the study results, the average skeptic answered 4.5 questions correctly. By contrast, warming theorists only got four correct out of nine on average.
That might be due in part to factually challenged “reporting” from the increasingly discredited establishment press, with the New York Times and the far-left U.K. Guardian, among others, taking the lead in misleading readers and in many cases printing outright factual errors about climate change. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, virtually all of the “mainstream” media, with the notable exception of Fox News, have ignored the revealing results of Kahan’s new study.
Kahan, who appears to be an AGW believer based on his comments as quoted in various media reports, asked participants questions such as whether “scientists believe” that global warming would “increase the risk of skin cancer.” Skeptics were more likely than AGW believers to know that was false, Fox reported, in details about some of the study questions.
AGW skeptics were also more likely than believers to understand that global sea levels would not rise if the icecap at the North Pole were to melt. Of course, despite the embarrassing predictions by climate guru Al Gore and some government-funded “climate scientists” about the icecap melting by 2013 or even earlier, Arctic ice has been expanding quickly in recent years.
One question AGW faithful were more likely to answer “correctly” was: “What gas do most scientists believe causes temperatures to rise?” The correct answer, for the purposes of the study at least, was carbon dioxide, an essential-to-life gas exhaled by humans and required for plant life. However, the skeptics who did not answer carbon dioxide may have actually been closer to the truth.
All climate scientists, for example, know that water vapor, which is beyond human control, constitutes the primary greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, accounting for more than 95 percent of the “greenhouse effect.” CO2 emitted by humans actually makes up afraction of one percent of all the greenhouse gases present naturally in the atmosphere. Other natural greenhouse gases such as methane are also more important than CO2, despite efforts to demonize carbon dioxide as “pollution” by politicians and dictators trying to extort Western taxpayers.
Kahan’s findings about skeptics being more knowledgeable about the science were hardly surprising to serious climate experts. “It's easy to believe in the religion of global warming,” Dr. Roy Spencer, a former senior scientist for climate studies at NASA who now works as a climatologist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, told Fox News. “It takes critical thinking skills to question it.” Outraged by the increasingly rabid attacks from alarmists and the moniker “denier,” Spencer recently blasted “global warming Nazis” whose outlandish policy schemes literally threaten the lives of millions.
Another top expert in the field, MIT Meteorology Professor Emeritus Richard Lindzen, last month compared the alarmist movement to a religious cult. “As with any cult, once the mythology of the cult begins falling apart, instead of saying, oh, we were wrong, they get more and more fanatical,” he said during a radio interview. “I think that’s what’s happening here. Think about it…. You’ve led an unpleasant life, you haven’t led a very virtuous life, but now you’re told, you get absolution if you watch your carbon footprint. It’s salvation!”
Of course, Kahan’s explosive new study comes amid the accelerating implosion of the United Nations- and Obama administration-backed global-warming theory on the world stage. From the ongoing two decade-long “pause” in global warming and the record high levels of sea ice around Antarctica to the non-stop scandals such as “ClimateGate” and the failure of every UN “climate model” to reflect reality, recent years have been devastating for the alarmist cause.
In that context, the results of the latest study showing skeptics to be more literate on climate science were to be expected. The finding also meshes well with a separate 2012 study on the issue. As The New American’s James Heiser reported about those findings at the time: “The more scientifically knowledgeable a person is, the less likely he is to be troubled by the alarmist rhetoric of the purveyors of ecological gloom and doom.” In essence, the study found that those who are not worried about alleged global warming tended to have more scientific knowledge than alarmists.
However, the facts — whether on climate science, or on skeptics’ greater knowledge of it — are unlikely to tone down the hysteria from alarmists. In fact, with their theory quickly crumbling, the extreme rhetoric of warming theorists is becoming increasingly shrill and unhinged, with prominent alarmists now openly and regularly demanding that skeptics be re-educated, imprisoned, or even executed.
As the UN and governments around the world prepare to make one more push later this year in Paris to shackle humanity under their devastating global CO2 regime, the outlandish attacks on real science and those who reject the AGW theory will almost certainly accelerate. In the end, though, experts, and even Kahan, suggest that extremist assaults will likely do more harm than good.
“The position someone adopts on [global warming] conveys who she is – whose side she’s on, in a hate-filled, anxiety-stoked competition for status between opposing cultural groups,” Kahan wrote in his paper about the findings, adding that warmists should stop demonizing opponents if they hope to create more AGW believers. “It is really pretty intuitive: who wouldn’t be insulted by someone screaming in her face that she and everyone she identifies with ‘rejects science’?”
In fact, as “science” increasingly becomes linked with discredited and politicized global-warming dogma, the public is becoming more and more suspicious of scientists and their claims, as The New American reported in 2013. “As to the corruption of science, there is little doubt that the dumping of tens of billions into the charade of manmade climate change has led to substantial corruption and failures within the scientific leadership community, including by science journals and scientific organizations,” explained Space and Science Research Corporation Founder and President John Casey, a rocket scientist, former White House space program advisor, and climate researcher who was named “America’s best climate prediction expert.” “There are many aspects to this specific impact of the damage to the trust and integrity of science in general resultant because of manmade climate science corruption.”
Indeed, another recent study confirms the widening chasm between what “scientists” believe and the broader public’s views. Released last month, a Pew study found, for example, that 88 percent of those linked to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) believe genetically modified food is generally safe, while just 37 percent of the public held that view. On evolution, AGW, and other theories, the gap is growing, too. A separate 2014 study by the Pew Research Center, meanwhile, found that just 40 percent of the public believes the Earth is warming and that it is mostly caused by human activity.
With Kahan’s latest study, yet another alarmist-promoted falsehood — the notion that “deniers” are “anti-science” or less knowledgeable than alarmists — has been debunked. In fact, the results show that skeptics and realists actually know more about climate science.
Despite the entire AGW theory imploding in spectacular fashion, though, the UN and its oftentimes brutal member regimes still intend to impose devastating policies on humanity later this year. For the sake of liberty, science, and prosperity, scientifically literate Americans must ensure that they fail.
Alex Newman is a correspondent for The New American, covering economics, education, politics, and more. Follow him on Twitter @ALEXNEWMAN_JOU. He can be reached at:
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