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Mass media efforts to raise American public concern about climate change, such as Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” and the “scientific consensus” media drumbeat, ironically may be having just the opposite effect, according to a new study appearing in the scientific journal Risk Analysis.

The above is taken from here.

Study Excerpt:

Paul Kellstedt, Sammy Zahran and Arnold Vedlitz examined results from an original and representative sample of Americans and found that “more informed respondents both feel less personally responsible for global warming, and also show less concern for global warming.” The researchers also found that “confidence in scientists has unexpected effects: respondents with high confidence in scientists feel less responsible for global warming, and also show less concern for global warming.” […] “Perhaps ironically, and certainly contrary to… the marketing of movies like “Ice Age” and “An Inconvenient Truth,” the effects of information on both concern for global warming and responsibility for it are exactly the opposite of what were expected. Directly, the more information a person has about global warming, the less responsible he or she feels for it; and indirectly, the more information a person has about global warming, the less concerned he or she is for it.”

The abstract from the paper is below:

Personal Efficacy, the Information Environment, and Attitudes Toward GlobalWarming and Climate Change in the United States

Paul M. Kellstedt,1∗ Sammy Zahran,2 and Arnold Vedlitz2

Despite the growing scientific consensus about the risks of global warming and climate change,
the mass media frequently portray the subject as one of great scientific controversy and debate.
Andyet previous studies of the mass public’s subjective assessments of the risks of global warming
and climate change have not sufficiently examined public informedness, public confidence
in climate scientists, and the role of personal efficacy in affecting global warming outcomes. By
examining the results of a survey on an original and representative sample of Americans, we
find that these three forces—informedness, confidence in scientists, and personal efficacy—are
related in interesting and unexpected ways, and exert significant influence on risk assessments
of global warming and climate change. In particular, more informed respondents both feel
less personally responsible for global warming, and also show less concern for global warming.
We also find that confidence in scientists has unexpected effects: respondents with high
confidence in scientists feel less responsible for global warming, and also show less concern
for global warming. These results have substantial implications for the interaction between
scientists and the public in general, and for the public discussion of global warming and climate
change in particular.

Risk Analysis, Vol. 28, No. 1, 2008 DOI: 10.1111/j.1539-6924.2008.01010.x

OVERSEAS trips may become a once-in-lifetime experience and car travel needed to be cut by 80 per cent if we have any hope of avoiding “dangerous” climate change, experts say.

Energy experts from Monash University said the carbon emission standards recommended by the government-hired Professor Ross Garnaut would not be possible if Australia’s love affair with cars and planes continued.

Continue reading Car travel ‘cut by 80 per cent’

Dr Joanne Simpson was the first woman in the world to earn a doctorate in meteorology. She has devoted her entire professional life to studying clouds and violent storms, and at 75, she’s still at it.

Formerly of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Present Position Chief Scientist for Meteorology, Earth Sciences Directorate. Simpson’s career also included working with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and NASA. Former Colorado State Climatologist Roger Pielke Sr. Called Dr Simpson “among the most preeminent scientists of the last 100 years.”

The following are excerpts from her guest post on Roger Piellke Sr’s Climate Science weblog:

Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receive any funding, I can speak quite frankly. […] The main basis of the claim that man’s release of greenhouse gases is the cause of the warming is based almost entirely upon climate models. We all know the frailty of models concerning the air-surface system. We only need to watch the weather forecasts. […] The term “global warming” itself is very vague. Where and what scales of response are measurable? One distinguished scientist has shown that many aspects of climate change are regional, some of the most harmful caused by changes in human land use. No one seems to have properly factored in population growth and land use, particularly in tropical and coastal areas. […] But as a scientist I remain skeptical. I decided to keep quiet in this controversy until I had a positive contribution to make. […] Both sides (of climate debate) are now hurling personal epithets at each other, a very bad development in Earth sciences.

Biography of Dr Joanne Simpson.

A new paper is currently in press in the journal Comptes Rendus Geoscience, which reviews the evidence for a connection between Cosmic Rays and Climate.

The invited review authored by Ilya G. Usoskin and Gennady A. Kovaltsov is entitled: ‘Cosmic rays and climate of the Earth: possible connection’ is available via Ilya Usoskin’s personal website for free download (as a corrected proof).

The Abstract states:

Despite much evidence relating climatic changes on Earth to solar variability, a physical mechanism responsible for this is still poorly known. A possible link connecting solar activity and climate variations is related to cosmic rays and the physical-chemical changes they produce in the atmosphere. Here we review experimental evidence and theoretical grounds for this rela tion. The cosmic ray – climate link seems to be a plausible climate driver which effectively operates on different time scales, but its exact mechanism and relative importance still remain open questions.

The paper concludes:

We have reviewed the experimental evidence and theoretical models relating cosmic ray variations to the terrestrial climate changes.

On short time scale of a few days, there exists much evidence that CR changes may affect the process of cyclogenesis via the changing transparency and pressure, particularly in the North Atlantic during cold seasons. Although each individual piece of evidence is barely significant, in aggregate, they suggest that the relation can be real.

A link between low clouds and CR appears statistically significant on the inter-annual time scale since 1984 in limited geographical regions, the largest being North Atlantic + Europe and South Atlantic. We note that many reconstructions of the past climate are based on European data, where the CR-cloud relation is the most pronounced. Extension of this relation to the global scale may be misleading.

A relation between the geomagnetic field changes and climatic variations provides evidence favoring the possible CR influence on climate. A study of regional climate variations in relation to the geomagnetic dipole axis migration over the last millennium is also promising.

There is an indication of the climate changes synchronously with the CR flux on Mega-yr time scales, but this result is not straightforward to interpret. Large uncertainties make it only indicative.

Essential progress has been recently achieved in theoretical modelling of both ionizing effect of CR and physical mechanisms relating CRII to cloud variations, but the link between micro- and macro-physics is still missing. A new experimental evidence, obtained by the SKYexperiment team, confirm that enhanced ionization notably facilitates the production of small ion clusters in realistic atmospheric conditions.

In conclusion, a CR-climate link seems to be a plausible climate driver, as supported by the bulk of statistical studies and existing theoretical models. However, further studies, in particular a clear case study as well as improved model development, are foreseen to improve our understanding of the link between cosmic rays and the climate on Earth.