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posted by janrinok on Tuesday April 07 2015, @05:23AM   Printer-friendly

Mary-Ann Muffoletto over at phys.org reports that researchers from Utah State and Yale Universities have developed a statistical model which puports to accurately estimate public opinion about climate change at the national, state and local levels, using documented research methods.

From the phys.org article:

Americans waste little time or ink debating global warming, but what do they really think about it in Peoria? Or Los Angeles? Or any other town, big or small, across the 50 states?

"My colleagues and I wanted to find out how people feel at the local level," says Peter Howe, assistant professor of human-environment geography in Utah State University's Department of Environment and Society and the USU Ecology Center. With Yale University researchers Matto Mildenberger, Jennifer Marlon and Anthony Leiserowitz, Howe describes a new statistical model that accurately estimates public climate change opinion in the April 6, 2015 issue of Nature Climate Change. "The idea was to develop a tool to map public opinion to get a sense of geographic variation across the country," says Howe, lead author on the paper. "Decisions about how to respond to issues such as climate change can happen at the state and local level as well as the national level, so we wanted to find out what people think about the issue at these levels."

The new model estimates opinion and support in all 50 states, 435 congressional districts and more than 3,000 counties across the nation. It's based on survey data collected from more than 12,000 people across the nation.

...

State and local surveys are costly and time-intensive, the researchers say, and most public polling is only done at the national level. The new model, for the first time, reveals the full geographic diversity of American public opinion. "A project like this has never been done at this scale before," Howe says. "It allows us to visualize the data and look for patterns." The model's results enabled the researchers to construct the interactive, online tool "Yale Climate Opinion Maps" at http://environment.yale.edu/poe/v2014/ , which allows users to explore public opinion in geographic detail.

 
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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by zocalo on Tuesday April 07 2015, @11:01AM

    by zocalo (302) on Tuesday April 07 2015, @11:01AM (#167391)
    One big eye opener for me was the differences between those who think global warming will harm them personally (34%) and global warming will harm people in the US (51%). Uh huh. "I'll be all right, but Joe next door is screwed!" That's some serious self-denial right there; let me know when you figure out how absurb that notion is and that we're all in this together, for whatever "this" turns out to be.

    The other was the obvious effect that all the PR spin has on people's perception of scientist's views on the subject. The general consensus seems to be that >95% of scientists agree in broad terms that global warming is happening (although there is some difference of opinion over the details, obviously), yet only 44% of people polled seem to think there is a scientific consensus. Heck, even most US Senators agree that climate change is happening per their recent vote on the subject (screwed up as it was), so clearly the spin from vested interests is working very well indeed.
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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by VLM on Tuesday April 07 2015, @11:59AM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday April 07 2015, @11:59AM (#167400)

    That's some serious self-denial right there; let me know when you figure out how absurb that notion is and that we're all in this together, for whatever "this" turns out to be.

    I don't see it as unrealistic at all.

    Lets try two other "mother nature" examples.

    San Francisco. Will earthquakes hurt me, personally, for some definition of hurt? I bet 1% is about reasonable. Will earthquakes hurt some dumb bastard living on an earthquake fault in the USA? 100% yeah.

    Rising sea levels and sinking land from oil extraction in New Orleans. Am I likely to be flooded by the ocean any time soon? Well, I live about 600 feet above sea level so if I'm flooded that would be most impressive. However I'm willing to agree to maybe 1% of the population could get actually flooded out. But the odds of some dumb bastard living below sea level getting flooded somewhere in the USA approach 100%.

    One problem with consensus is carefully excluding time scales. Obviously where I'm standing will once again have two miles of ice on it, depressingly soon. Also obviously on a somewhat shorter timescale (but only somewhat shorter...) there will be some warming, which is frankly going to be a lot more comfortable than the glaciers will be. So before I own a pet polar bear I'll be able to grow citrus or bananas, for a little while. Um OK sounds great.

  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Tuesday April 07 2015, @02:20PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday April 07 2015, @02:20PM (#167451) Journal

    That's some serious self-denial right there; let me know when you figure out how absurb that notion is and that we're all in this together, for whatever "this" turns out to be.

    I think it's less delusional than assuming everyone will get harmed equally. We're not all of us in it together. Not everyone lives within a few meters of sea level. Not everyone has a problem with food or water.