I’m pretty impressed by this study in the comprehensive way they’ve gone about it. Above is an image swiped from the group’s website who commissioned the study. If you click on it, it will take you to the website.
This study does a pretty good in depth examination of the views professionals have on the climate issue and the imaginary consensus alarmists like to point towards. Unfortunately, it isn’t likely to change anyone’s views on “consensus” because of the limited scope and the sampled population. The image above tells us of the scope and sampled population. The group studied are professional engineers and scientists. But, they’re confined to Alberta, Canada. For those living under a rock, Alberta is home to many petroleum companies, so the study will have an over-representation of petroleum professionals. Still, quoting the study……
Alberta has the highest per capita of professional engineers and geoscientists (a category of licensure that includes climatologists, geologists, glaciologists, meteorologists, geophysicists, and paleo-climatologists) in North America.
The study
Science or Science Fiction? Professionals’ Discursive Construction of Climate Change
For a polling study, this is rather lengthy. I commend them in recognizing the complexity of the question and understanding the answer toward belief in the imaginary consensus opinion isn’t Boolean. I refer to the imaginary consensus as imaginary because no one can properly articulate what the consensus is supposed to be. From all of the studies I’ve read about the imaginary consensus, this study does the best job in demonstrating the differences. For instance, most alarmist nutters like to frame the argument as to whether or not someone believes in climate change. Of course, this is an absurd sophist framing of the question.
The earth’s climate is in, and always has been in, a constant state of flux. There has been no recent changes in the earth’s climate which alters the previous statement. So, when asking about climate change, one has to, in order for the question to be proper, state what change in relation to what they are referring.
The study was a questionnaire sent out to 40,000 people of the professional organization. They got 1,077 responses. The great part of the study is that they had some closed questions, but also open ended questions which allowed the respondents to expand on their views. Here’s the demographics of the respondents……
But, we’re interested in the results, right? Well, before I show the results, we need to understand that, as stated above, the question of belief in climate change isn’t yes or no.
The study makes this distinction and sets general categories of the professional by their various responses. They give us an explanation of the various positions represented.
I’m not sure I like the names of their categories, but, it’s just a label. Now, reading the categories and explanations of such, here are the results……
Hmm….. what does this tell us? Well, it tells us there is no consensus on much of anything, at least in Alberta(highest per capita of professional engineers and geoscientists). In fact, there’s more scientists in this study who are unconvinced of the perceived catastrophic consequences of the changing climate than there are ones concerned about it! Now, the nutters will dismiss this part. They’ll note this is largely a study of the evil fossil fuel workers! And, that, my friends, is where the crux of the argument is!
For years, the alarmist nutter group has wailed and cried about the vast conspiracy of big oil and whatnot, claiming this conspiracy drives the skeptical camp. Well, is it a vast conspiracy? Oh, sure, that’s why we see a near perfect split among the Oil and Gas industry respondents in the “Overwhelming nature” group vs the “Comply with Kyoto” group. The nutters have found them out! It’s a ploy to hire alarmists for the industry! 
Notice the top level oil and gas respondents. Nearly 20% of them agree with the nutters!
Lastly, one of the findings of this study….. which is something we all knew already…..
We find that climate science scepticism is not limited to the scientifically illiterate (per Hoffman, 2011a), but well ensconced within this group of professional experts with scientific training – who work as leaders or advisors to management in governmental, non-governmental, and corporate organizations.
h/t Hank
I see the weasel way for them to frame it now – Alberta is in Canada which is raping the land with Shale oil exploitation, so of course they are all being paid by Big Oil to say just that.
The truth does not matter to the Alarmists – just the spin.
Yeh, except that big oil is employing alarmist scientists!
There are 2 kinds of liberals. The ones with power (usually the smart ones that are liberals for the sole reason of power) and the ones without. The ones without are as intelligent as Charlie McCarthy (note our own crop of them). And they are the ones that always bleat the sheep mantra – Big Oil Bad – Pay Skeptics.
The reality is that “Big Oil” are corporations that have investments in many areas, including alternate fuels. So they win every time some mindless bureaucrat pours more money down the green hole. They will employ whoever makes them money, Alarmist or skeptic. Period. They are not about a political viewpoint, merely money and power. And that is why they fund the Alarmist causes by a rate of 10-1 over Skeptics.
Interesting categories. I’m obviously “economic responsibility” but with a twist: I think the Green Political Religion (GPR) overwhelms reason; our central planners are stupid and try to be the leaders of the GPR; and therefore we will see overall economic decline (while some sub sectors of the economy will grow explosively as it is their nature; the singularity applications).
So it’s a race of intelligence vs stupidity; stupidity has the guns, the media and the masses.
Yeh, even broken down in the categories like this, it still isn’t really sufficient.
Phil
I have some questions for you about John Maynard Keynes.
Did he like the idea of a welfare state noting he died well before the welfare state existed? Did he believe in efficient infrastructure spending by governments? Did he believe that the government should mostly run surplusses and only intervene during downturns?
Maybe you could run a summary of what his beliefs actually were so it is not confused with the modern goings on that use his name.
Kelly, you threw everything including the kitchen sink into that! I am no authoritarian on all things Keynes. I am merely an economist who studied him from an Economics perspective. The issues of the welfare state and the aspects of government spending are beyond that purview. They are more social engineering, which was not his forte’ (not to say he did not have opinions on them, only that I have not studied them).
Keynes was not for maintaining constant surpluses! They are as bad (or perhaps worse really) than constant deficits. The only surpluses he was advocating were to eliminate the deficit spending during a down turn. Since (normally) downturns are far less frequent and of duration than growth times, the surplus would be short lived. So perhaps a year of surplus would not be enough to pay for the deficit of the recession, but surely ongoing surpluses would be devastating to an economy (the government factor in the growth of money would retard economic growth).
As he was an economist, he was not concerned (in his professional work) about WHAT the government was spending money on, only that it was. IN this day and age where quacks like Krugman, who is not an economist, but more of a social engineer (and a bad one at that) are pontificating on subjects they have no clue on, it is often easy to think that men like Friedman and Keynes advocated many things. And they may have. But since I am more concerned with their economic theories and writings, I have not studied their private lives.
Sorry about that wrong thread I thought I was in the Open one.
The fallacy the envirowackos espouse is that big oil pays and employ skeptics. It’s just another projection. If that’s the case then so does medical research and for no good reason that benefits the profession. Most researchers I work with don’t believe climate change is a threat. So why is it a projection? Because it’s exactly what big green does.
The often touted study that concludes 98% scientists believe in CAGW looks at the research papers of climate scientists in the pay of government and signed on to deliver an alarmist result. Most, if not all, government grants that address issues of climate change require that the grantee accept that global warming is real and dangerous and whatever the grant proposes to be studied is threatened by it. Is it any wonder why the researchers conclude in their papers that global warming is real and dangerous and threatening whatever they researched? If they don’t they won’t get paid. If they have any doubt of the horrors of global warming they wouldn’t even attempt to apply for the grant.
The confirmation bias in climate research is astounding.
Reblogged this on Climate Ponderings.