'Climate change sceptics have smaller members, uglier wives, dumber kids' says new study made up by warmists

by James Delingpole, The Telegraph
Jun. 22, 2010

Are there really no depths to which ManBearPig-worshippers will not stoop in order to shore up their intellectually, morally and scientifically bankrupt cause?

Apparently not, as we see from the latest “study” – based on a petty, spiteful, Stasi-like blacklist produced by an obscure Canadian warmist – outrageously aggrandised by being published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (Hat tip: Watts Up With That)

The study examined 1,372 scientists who had taken part in reviews of climate science or had put their name to statements regarding the key findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Scientists were grouped as “convinced” or “unconvinced”, and researchers examined how many times they had published papers on the climate.

The results showed that “unconvinced” scientists accounted for just three of the 100 most prolific authors on the subject, while papers by “convinced” scientists were more frequently cited in other research.

Well, no s***, Sherlock. And might this have anything to do, perchance, with the fact that – as the Climategate emails made abundantly clear – “unconvinced” scientists were deliberately shut out of the peer-review process by the “convinced” ones?

And how many scientists, with bachelor of science degrees or higher, have signed the Oregon Petition expressing doubts about Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW)? 31,000 plus.

And how many of the supposed 2500 climate scientists responsible for the IPCC “consensus” were actively involved in the sections to do with AGW? 53.

And how many scientists does it require to successfully falsify – ie prove wrong – a shabby, tired old theory like “Phlogiston”, or “Geocentrism”, or “Dangerous, unprecedented Man Made Global Warming?” One.

But guess how BBC Radio 4 reported the story this morning? Yep. “98 per cent of scientists support global warming theory.” (Hat tip: Nick Mabbs)

Then again, since when did we expect any kind of honesty or decency from the Warmists? Have a look, for example, at this great analysis by the National Post’s Lawrence Solomon on how Warmist propagandists are using their useful idiots in the MSM to exaggerate the level of public credulousness in AGW.

In a New York Times op-ed, which has been much crowed-over by warmists, a Stanford university professor called Krosnick argued that – contrary to the impression given by every other opinion poll in the last three years – the majority of the US public is fully behind measures to ruin their economy in the name of combatting climate change.

In our survey, which was financed by a grant to Stanford from the National Science Foundation, 1,000 randomly selected American adults were interviewed by phone between June 1 and Monday. When respondents were asked if they thought that the earth's temperature probably had been heating up over the last 100 years, 74 percent answered affirmatively. And 75 percent of respondents said that human behavior was substantially responsible for any warming that has occurred.

For many issues, any such consensus about the existence of a problem quickly falls apart when the conversation turns to carrying out specific solutions that will be costly. But not so here.

Fully 86 percent of our respondents said they wanted the federal government to limit the amount of air pollution that businesses emit, and 76 percent favored government limiting business's emissions of greenhouse gases in particular. Not a majority of 55 or 60 percent -- but 76 percent.

Solomon explains here how Krosnick rigs his questions in order to “hide the decline” in public support for AGW lunacy.

The best question of all, Krosnick found, came from adding an assumption of pessimism:" What do you think will be the most serious problem facing the world in the future if nothing is done to stop it?" When put this way, 25% of the public responded with "Global warming/the environment." Krosnick doesn't tell us how many of that 25% choose global warming versus the myriad of other environmental issues, such as air pollution, food and drinking water safety, wildlife and species protection, farmland or woodlands protection.

Krosnick recommends that pollsters ask his 25% question, believing it will obtain a result more useful for policy makers. He also chastises the press for interviewing global warming sceptics along with global warming advocates, saying this creates in the public mind the impression that the science is not settled on global warming. 6% of articles on global warming last year included the views of sceptics, a percentage Krosnick evidently views as too high.

Krosnick gets different results than other pollsters do by asking questions that some might consider bizarre. For example, when people told him that they didn't believe global warming was happening, he asked them to pretend they did by asking them, "Assuming that global warming is happening, do you think a rise in the world's temperature would be caused mostly by things people do, mostly by natural causes, or about equally by things people do and by natural causes? He then lumped the pretend response from people who don't believe in global warming with a similar question asked of people who weren't pretending about their belief in global warming. The result of the merger of these two groups was: 30% blame global warming on humans, 25% blame global warming on natural causes, and 45% believe humans and natural causes are about equally to blame. In the New York Times oped, Krosnick summarized this finding by pretenders and believers as "75% of respondents said that human behaviour was substantially responsible for any warming that has occurred," even though many of those 75% didn't believe that global warming was happening at all.

So when dealing with the Warmist lobby, always remember these helpful tips: sup with a long spoon, know that they’re lying from the fact that their lips are moving, and when they leave, make sure to count your fingers and your silverware.