Some poll results were recently released by the EU. They posted the questions on the form with the details. From the totality of questions, this is intended to be a scientific poll on climate change. Take the question seriously and write your thoughts. We’ll do a comparison on Monday or Tuesday of the results.
A scientific poll of tAV readers who are widely educated on the mysteries of AGW:
the Air Vent 
I notice that “The Economic Situation” (Poverty, Hunger and lack of drinking water is an economic problem) come out way on top. This is as it should be. Nothing hurts people worse than losing their jobs. Plus, the Great Depression had a lot to do with starting WWII. Nobody wants Great Depression 2.0 to start off WWIII.
Can I add “Quality of politicians”?
I chose “other” because I think the major problem is poor quality leaders and politicians. Look at the dictators around the world eg in Zimbawe, North Korea, Cuba, Venezula, Myanmar(Burma), Syria, Libya (now gone) etc- then the poor or stupid leaders like Obama in US, Gillard in Australia, Cameron in UK (and before Blair & Brown), Merkel in Germany, the yearly turn over in Japan, the mess in Greece, sex & religion before people in Italy, renewable energy madness in Spain+ Basques, & the French who keep throwing up egotists trying to emulate Napolean. Where are the shining lights – Africa is a lost cause of corruption, Arab/Moslem countries are a mess of religion, & a mix of poverty & corrupt wealth.
China is one of the few that is showing progress but there are omnious signs of wasted expenditure for the military and in a space race.China and India together have more poor people than the rest of the world put together.
Our most serious problem is closely-linked losses of:
a.) Citizen control of governments and
b.) Integrity in government science
Can society now be salvaged after 40 years [1] of insanity?
a.) Save the environment: Drive an electric car!
b.) Join the marathon race against racism!
c.) End selfishness: Occupy Wall-street!
We have been trapped like rats in a social maze chasing imaginary cheeses since the time of Kissinger-Mao-Nixon-Breznov secret agreements to save us from mutual nuclear annihilation by adopting:
a.) The Bilderberg model of a stable Sun [2]
b.) Induced climate change as a common enemyto
c.) Unite nations in a one-world government [1].
My 50-year career [3] as a researcher and teacher of science and engineering allowed me to see parts of the maze as it was constructed and put into operation.
Other skills and talents are desperately needed to guide society, including many of its most conscientious citizens, safely away from foolish internal strife, revenge and punishment and restore science and constitutional governments to their pre-1971 state:
a.)Statesmanship,
b.) Wisdom and
c.) Unshakable Faith
Of great leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela.
References:
1. “The Bilderberg solar model,” Solar Physics 3, 5-25 (1968)
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1968SoPh….3….5G
2. “Deep roots of the Climategate scandal (1971-2011)”
Click to access 20110722_Climategate_Roots.pdf
3. “A video summary of my career (1961-2011)”
Click to access Summary_of_Career.pdf
With kind regards,
Oliver K. Manuel
Former NASA Principal
Investigator for Apollo
PS – The above comment was blocked from posting on the poll – as “spam.”
The article these questions came from is interesting:
Click to access ebs_372_en.pdf
You can’t solve many problems without economic growth. So the economic situation is the top problem.
Hunger, poverty, etc. would be one I’d like to address. But that is really a function of corrupt govt. If you aren’t willing to use force to replace the kleptocrats and defend the defenseless, you can’t address the problem. Giving money, food, etc. to the poor during the day is simply giving it to the thugs who will take it by force that night.
The saddest thing of all is the realization that the corrupt politicians require pain and misery for their populations because it helps them solidify their power (sort of like Democrats in the US only exponentially worse). Individual liberty and prosperity for the masses is a disaster for those who wish to acquire more and more power.
We need more great men like Cincinnatus (Washington’s role model). King George III asked his American painter, Benjamin West, what Washington would do after winning independence. West replied, “They say he will return to his farm.”
“If he does that,” the incredulous monarch said, “he will be the greatest man in the world.”
I voted economic situation, because it it foremost today, but is only a short term problem (<10 years). Long term the biggest problem is still hunger and poverty (I do not believe drinking water should be bundled into this question).
Our biggest problem is education. Remove stupid from the world and the rest will self-correct.
“The Economic Situation” (Poverty, Hunger and lack of drinking water is an economic problem) come out way on top.
All these, and energy shortages, are the results of proliferating population.
7 billion people any minute.
Giving the 300 million women who lack family planning the ability to control the family economics should be the first stage in addressing these problems.
We also need to stop the stupid pursuit of unlimited growth, and aim for better quality of life for everyone.
Would that decrease the need for terrorism?
One insular Briton was shocked to hear that the British burned Washington during the War of 1812: ‘I know we burned Joan of Arc, but Washington?’
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I went with availability of energy because if you do not have the energy available you will not be able to produce the food and transport it, the majority of business would not be able to function therefore no jobs for people. With available energy you can not only drill water wells but build dams and reservoirs. From there you can build aqueducts and water treatment plants that makes the water clean. With available energy it is easier to keep food from spoiling therefore reducing food born illnesses. It also allows you to have modern human waste treatment facilities. Available energy also means that you can have refrigeration to store vaccines and antibiotics in.
‘The Economic Situation’ (I note it leads in the vote when I voted) is facile. It’s a problem of the developed world. Does a peasant (anywhere) in Africa (or Bangladesh or….. ) care whether the Euro (or the almighty Dollar or the Yuan … ) goes belly-up? (Safe) Drinking water and malaria are the issues. Full stop (Period, to my US readers).
Speaking of errant thermodynamics, see Holdren’s and Erlich’s paper of 1970.
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Oops, 1980. ‘Availability, Entropy, and the Laws of Thermodynamics’. Audit that.
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Dp (8) is right.
—
Author of
CONVENIENT MYTHS
the green revolution – perceptions, politics, and facts
to learn more, visit http://www.convenientmyths.com
“Energy Availability” because the folks who presently run the West don’t understand its importance or are actively trying to reduce availability by increasing cost/kW. The rest of the items on the list are either secondary issues or at least widely understood to be problems.
Evil Denier – you are correct, but the economic situation greatly impedes the ability of the developed world to assist – with long term solutions – the alleviation of the hunger and drinking water issues.
I should add to the above that some of our leaders seem actually want to restrict energy availability as policy.
Cheap energy will go a long way towards reviving the economy.
Heh, Jim, merely removing the threat of more expensive energy will go a long way towards reviving the economy.
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‘Jeff Id – The article these questions came from is interesting:’
It is indeed.
Just how do they do their percentages?
I marked Other and the return to the truth, rejection of the consensus and developing, reapplying the standard for the science.
Like the medical professions credo Do no harm, the science should accept: Do not lye…
Oops, today, constitutional government is gone.
Can it be restored?
Regretfully,
Oliver K. Manuel
A difficult choice between economic situation and lack of drinking water. In either case, these (and everything else in the poll except “climate change” are REAL problems and not imaginary ones.How many of those real problems could have been substantially alleviated if not solved altogether with all the money, ridiculous regulations, erosion of liberties etc. wasted on fighting “evil CO2”?
What amazes me with the so-called Eurobarometer is that I have NEVER seen a survey which is actually active or know anyone who has _ever_ been asked to take part.
I even subscribed to the Eurobarometer mailing list, but all that ever arrives are the “results”. Never any indication of _any_ (irrespective of subject) polls which are actually active.
Am I wrong in felling very suspicious?
Energy consumption correlates with the standard of living. A high standard of living implies availability of jobs, drinking water, shelter, and food. Cheap energy is the key for us all.
http://pensiveprimate.com/2010/12/the-relationship-between-energy-and-standard-of-living/
A “Chicken Vs Egg” view can be taken on this, but I think that without economic freedom and economic security, you won’t have much else.
I voted for the economy. Of course our CAGW science elites are doing everything in their power to destroy economic prosperity.
curious said
October 8, 2011 at 10:30 am
Can I add “Quality of politicians”?
If so, please add “Quality of Scientists”.
28 – Fair point but IMO it is the politicians who actually hold the levers of power. Looking at the survey Jeff links in 5, I think we both have to vote “other”!
I checked “Other”. Out of control governments.
Jeff,
Sort of off thread, but check out
http://joannenova.com.au/2011/10/australian-govt-doesnt-give-a-toss-what-you-think/
Availability of inexpensive energy trumps all other categories. Almost all of the other categories are an energy crisis in disguise, are unaddressable without energy and become addressable with it.
W^3
Why is only one option permitted in this poll? Some are closely inter-connected.
I chose Poverty, Hunger and Lack of Drinking Water + the Increasing Global Population. Economic development is increasingly lagging the number of job seekers in some parts of the world.
China, on the other hand, with its One Child Policy, got things back in proportion with all its population now gainfully employed, living standards rising rapidly and educational opportunities for all increasing.
However, in other areas of the globe, where population growth FAR outstrips the growth in jobs, we find political instability, for example, throughout the Arab world where well over half the population is under 25. Relying on economic growth and education to reduce the birth rate (as they have done historically in the West) is problematic. The excessive birth rate of some conservative cultures has to be tackled directly, too.
I know this opinion is verboten on this board, but I guess it takes a woman to see that there IS a problem with too many babies per family – not least the adverse effect on women’s health. Sorry, guys!
Difficult question. If you had asked which was the least serious that would have been a lot easier!
Wait Kim –
Wouldn’t you put Obama’s “Muslim sympathies” at the top of your list?
http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2008/06/michell-obama-.html
Lots of dots. Lots of dots. We don’t need to connect them all to paint a picture. Lots of dots. Lots of dots.
Now you want to talk about allegiance?
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By the way, read the whole thread in Joshua’s link. There is a discussion of Michele Obama’s unethical interference in an ethical vaccine trial for HPV. She prevented little black girls in Chicago from participating in the trial.
Thanks, Joshua; what a blessing you and your search bots are.
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I agree with Cementafriend. The proliferation of idiots who think they can run the world for the rest of us is the biggest problem.
Marchesarosa,
please investigate China a little more closely. Your statement that they have all of their people gainfully employed is bordering on saying that Gulags would put the US back to work. The success of China is still for a minority of the population. The rest are only a little better off than under the ancient war lords. Without the markets of North America and Europe they will be back where they started except with huge areas polluted from their manufacturing, ore processing and mining operations.
Kim,
not sure I can knock Moooochelle on the HPV bit:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20928-we-need-to-talk-about-hpv-vaccination–seriously.html
as with so many new medical developments there simply isn’t enough information to really say whether it is a good bet or not. (models with optimistic assumptions, where have I seen that before…)
OOOps, that should have been “I can’t knock…”
Sorry to see that even in this group of thinkers nobody picked up on my proposal: Truth in science. It shows how deeply the relativism gone.
Nobody believes anymore that there is Truth and there is lye and the science should restrict itself to the Truth? Everybody accept the false believe that there is only relative truth? This is the very basis of the consensus science, which ruins our life.
Kuhnkat, We have crossed a few times. It seems that we think alike on many issues. Pity we live in different countries and are unlikely to meet up. I am in favour of direct democracy. I believe only Switzerland has a political system which is close to direct democracy. I saw it in action many years ago when Acts of the Bern Canton parliament were voted on by anyone who turned up in the market square. (Now they have electronic voting I believe)
If Australia had direct democracy the crazy “Clean Energy Acts” which are a tax of $23/tonne on carbon dioxide emission would never be put because the majority of the population (and of course voters) are against the taxes and would throw it out in a referendum.
Socialism leads to dictators, and all dictators are problems not only in their own country but possibly to the whole world (eg Kim Jong-il -North Korea, Hitler -Germany, Stalin- USSR etc). Besides the many dictators around the world at present there seems to be creeping socialism everywhere (in Moslem countries disguished as religion)
Khunkat, I have not made any remarks about China’s social/political/economic structure but merely used China as an example of the distinct advantages of moving to a birthrate more commensurate with the ability of the economy to provide full employment – benefits which we in the West enjoy and take for granted. China does indeed have a huge, relatively disadvantaged agrarian population but, as in the rest of the world, the inexorable movement is from the relative poverty of the countryside to the prosperity of the city. China will solve its own problems in its own way. My opinion is neither here nor there.
Whether the Arab nations, on the other hand, with their preposterously juvenile demographic structure will ever solve the challenge of providing education and employment for all is moot.
# 39
No, there are more idiots that keep reelecting the idiots that think they can run the world for the rest of us.
Much bigger problem
KK, the point is that she politically, and unethically, interfered in a trial approved by an ethics committee. How are we to find out the results you seek unless well-designed trials are run?
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204138204576603100469929700.html?mod=WSJ_hps_sections_smallbusiness Hey JeffID, looks like the investigators found you were correct about banks and small businesses.
John,
Thanks for the link. From the recent tax thread, which I thoroughly enjoyed, even a lot of this crowd didn’t know what business in America is facing. This is not an average crowd. It is very clear that the general public hasn’t got a clue about what is going on. You won’t be surprised to know that I think the wall street protests are a pile of idiots. Sure the banks are screwing us, but they are doing it in relation to awful policies by out already-to-socialist government. The quid pro quo payoffs are flatly right in front of their faces and the dumbasses don’t realize that we need less of the government interference and control to solve the imbalance not more. Every policy tweak is an increase in control by the on-the-dole politicians. The situation is so bad that all you need to do to figure out which policies work is look at different states or cities. Indiana vs California. Texas vs Illinois. Washington DC or Detroit vs Dallas. Liberalism in its current form is a Cuba style nightmare. I really don’t want that for my kids.
As I have also written many times, as soon as things go wrong, people flock to increased government with their hands out never realizing they are asking for more of what caused the problem in the first place. Government should help the helpless and the rest need to be left to their own abilities. Ten thousand people with their hands out screaming for the hard working wealthy to give them money is not a good show.
The poll was still running pretty well last night. We have over 500 votes now (which used to be about 6 hours at tAV), so I’ll try and do a summary later today. I did run this poll with an unstated intent that hopefully people will find interesting.
Liberals are OK, it’s the Progressives who are Regressive.
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I agree with most of the liberal social issues, just not their priority over the free market or their association with progressivism. Together it is pure evil IMO and a direct path to some very very bad places.
Kim, liberals blame conservatives and occupy Wall street.
Conservatives blame liberals and organize Tea Parties.
The history of government deception in science since ~1971 [1] suggests that both groups of politicians contributed to the well-documented deception that was forever recorded in:
a.) A CSPAN tape [2], and
b.) Climategate emails [3]
There is little doubt of intentional misinformation on:
a.) Earth’s heat source – The Sun, and
b.) Earth’s temperature, respectively !
1. “Deep roots of the Climategate scandal (1971-2011)”
Click to access 20110722_Climategate_Roots.pdf
2. “The Future of Space Science,” AAS Address by Dr. Dan Goldin (7 January 1998)
3. “The Climategate timeline,” by Mohib Ebrahim (2009)
http://joannenova.com.au/2010/01/finally-the-new-revised-and-edited-climategate-timeline/
Jeff, Awaiting your expansion of the ‘unstated Intent’ with interest…:)
I have to say I’m with the ‘with available and affordable energy, everything is possible’ group.
Ben Pile has a UK take on the poll here –
http://www.climate-resistance.org/2011/10/the-poverty-of-opinion-polls.html
which may be of interest in your deliberations.
I’d also caution against the use of the words ‘liberal’ and ‘libertarian’ when crossing the Atlantic. They tend to mean very different things in the UK and USA…
“I’d also caution against the use of the words ‘liberal’ and ‘libertarian’ when crossing the Atlantic. ”
I would describe myself most closely as libertarian but all the basic definitions are so screwed up that nobody can really be classified well.
Chuckles,
I’ll definitely reference some of it. Thanks.
I’m with Boballab’s “I went with availability of energy because if you do not have the energy available you will not be able to produce the food and transport it, the majority of business would not be able to function therefore no jobs for people.” and voted Energy too.
I figure Poverty vs Energy is likened to giving a man a fish vs teaching him how to fish.
With enough cheap energy we can do much.
Dr. James Hansen was sent a copy of the message @53 with a request that he specifically respond to the documented
misinformation about:
a.) Earth’s heat source – The Sun, and
b.) Earth’s temperature, respectively !
If he replies to me directly, rather than here, I will post a copy of his reply here.
Despite Big Brother’s looming shadow, all is well today.
How do we get the right people to give us the right information.?
How do you stop the MOB from controlling people via meadia such as TV, radio and the net?
The energy source of the Sun has been on the books as Hydrogen Fusion. What other source is there? Do we understand the workings of the Sun?
Marchesarosa,
without the sociopolitical situation China would NOT be able to implement its solution. Of course, like so many other Central Planning solutions they are causing a situation that WILL be a disaster. Due to the poverty a significant percentage of the poor are using abortion or murder to get rid of unwanted FEMALE children biasing the population to more males than females. I believe in the past a larger proportion of males usually precedes warfare on a large scale. We can pray that is for the past, but, what happens to the males. Do they start sharing the females??? Any other Central Planning solutions come to mind??
Kim,
“KK, the point is that she politically, and unethically, interfered in a trial approved by an ethics committee. How are we to find out the results you seek unless well-designed trials are run?”
An ETHICS COMMITTEE?????
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Harry
An excellent example that we have to start with the right questions!
Who do we trust? Who tell the truth, nothing but the truth… Very few paid scientists do… Prime examples are the scewing of Hubbles words, lying about the fact that he discovered the energy loss of photons during their propagation through the space, and the outrages lyes about Schwarzschilds so called black hole evaluation. In fact, he excluded that possibility, very correctly so…
Today unfortunately the MOB is the paid, government science and the real science is outlawed…
No, we do not understand the workings of the Sun. The atomic theory gives
a good explanation to the supernova, neutron star formation but we have not even touch yet the transition from neutron star to stars like our Sun and the decay processes in the layers below the surface. http://stolmarphysics.com/stolmar2.pdf
Click to access 32.pdf
UN PRESIDENT TIM KALEMKARIAN, US PRESIDENT TIM KALEMKARIAN, US SENATE TIM KALEMKARIAN, US HOUSE TIM KALEMKARIAN: BEST MAJOR CANDIDATE.