[jeroen94704]

Fascinating: 71% say they trust climate scientists regarding climate change, yet only 49% say they think "most scientists think global warming is happening". This would imply it is not necessary to convince people anthropogenic climate change is real, only that most climate scientists think it is real. Very different message.

[VLM]

Depends on your definition of "happening".

For most of the population their only daily contact with a STEM person is the TV weatherman who typically goes to great wishy washy lengths to explain that tonights snow fall or last weeks record high are not the sole or most significant primary proof of the truth or falsehood of global warming. Meanwhile clickbait and disaster pr0n movies for generations have implied we all gonna die due to climate change yet for generations life has gone on, and in fact will continue to go on, and the alarmists are looked with contempt similar to pseudo-Christian preachers and cult leaders announcing the end of the world, admittedly for differing strategies but identical reasons, gaining money and power (edited)

So everyone knows most STEM people are honest and that honesty results in our admittedly pretty awesome modern world, while simultaneously their personal daily experience of a climate expert is at best extremely wishy washy and the scam of begging for money and control via the impending apocalypse goes back millennia before modern "climate change" and most people very wisely scoff at it.

The results make sense that most scientists are technically trustworthy, as opinion leaders their politics are less influential than your average plumber's opinions, and apocalyptic preachers have always been full of it and always will be.

For political reasons and tribal reasons, many will have to pretend to be surprised to signal that they're in the in group and the out group suxs, but we all know the above is how the world really works.

[basurihn]

Most STEM people are honest? No. Having worked decades as an engineer, sometimes over scientists, I can tell you that STEM people are just as susceptible to human frailty and peer pressure as any other group. Some of them dont need help to be dishonest.

I posit that none of you have any daily experience with science, otherwise you'd appreciate that 95 percent of PhDs dare not stand up against the groupthink. You would also appreciate how much if clumate science is total garbage.

What an echo chamber. Thankfully, the political pressure to accept climate orthodoxy is currently waning.

And i give a damn about your downvotes, or your unqualified replies.

[VLM]

Well, I'll give you credit for pointing out I meant relative applied honesty.

An EE calculating a resistor for a circuit has a certain applied relative honesty such that either he's truthful about 2+2=4 and the circuit works or he lies and the 2+2=5 and the circuit doesn't work. That times 300 days/year time millions of engineers times centuries of progress equals our pretty freaking cool miracle of a modern world. Some individuals sometimes cheat when they play poker, or lie about politics, whatever.

On the other hand consider a line of work inherently relatively on average dishonest like marketing a dish soap via TV commercial method of marketing. No amount of extra lying will eventually construct Hoover Dam or land men on the moon.

[minikites]

Focusing on the past instead of the future works for a surprising number of people: https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/12/wouldnt-it-be-great-...

> Half of the participants got a future-focused message, like “Looking forward to our nation’s future, there is increasing traffic on the road.” The other half were given a past-focused message, such as “Looking back to our nation’s past, there was less traffic on the road.”

> After reading the message, the participants took a survey about it and their opinions on climate change and the environment. Participants who reported that they were conservative rated the past-focused message more positively and showed more pro-environmental attitudes in the survey.

[bwindels]

Also my main take-away. You could think people are misinformed, and scientists speaking up louder could help, but I think ignorance might be an excuse people use to explain their inaction, otherwise you have to recognize that although climate change worries you, you prefer to keep it at the back of your head because it complicates your daily life too much.

[peteretep]

I agree, that's my jaw-drop takeaway from it. I assumed it was science skeptisism, rather than simply being misinformed.

[mattmanser]

I wonder if it would be an effective thing in the US to capitalize on that and put up billboards around the country saying something like:

"{0}% of all US scientists believe global warming is real, it is almost entirely man-made and a grave threat to humanity".

Fill in {0} with 95 or whatever the real number would be after a survey.

[subpixel]

Here's an org that is communicating what many scientists believe through language that attempts to bring divided people together to fight a common enemy. They use WWII programs as a touchstone: http://www.theclimatemobilization.org

Their key documents address the issue of how best to tell people something they really don't want to hear, etc: http://www.theclimatemobilization.org/key_documents

Changing people's minds 'for their own good' is a really hairy problem.

[beaconstudios]

you'd want to make that specifically US climate scientists - physicists or geneticists don't have relevant authority on the subject.

[phaemon]

Ok, not geneticists, but radiative transfer is physics. What else would it be?

[beaconstudios]

everything is physics at the fundamental level, but that doesn't make physicists qualified to talk about everything. Climatology is its own field tied to Meteorology - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatology

[phaemon]

I didn't mean that I'd expect a physicist to understand every part of Climatology. I meant that I'd expect any competent physicist to understand the basic principles of the greenhouse effect, because that part is physics.

[peteretep]

It's still something like 97% though

[dexterdog]

Source? Please don't say Cook.

[peteretep]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveys_of_scientists'_views...