A BBC documentary television series called “Frozen Planet” will soon air on the Discovery Network here in the U.S.
Well, most of it will.
U.S. audiences will not be shown the last episode, which looks at the threat posed by man to the natural world.
It is feared a show that preaches global warming could upset viewers in the U.S., where around half of people do not believe in climate change.
The Daily Mail points out that 53% of self-identify Republicans refuse to believe the science establishing that humans contribute to global climate change, and the number leaps to 70% among the so-called “tea party” ultra-right wing.
Sir David Attenborough presents and authors the series, the seventh episode of which, entitled ‘On Thin Ice’, looks at how the planet’s ice is changing and what it means not only to the animals and people at the Poles but also the rest of the planet.
How about that. Only 32% of Americans support the Tea Party movement, which is perceived favorably by 28% of Americans. Only 29% of Americans self-identify as Republicans. Most Americans (38%) self-identify as “independent”.
I don’t quite understand, then, why a small minority of Americans gets to drive the nation’s scientific bus over the cliffs of ignorance.
No related posts.
Are there any Tea Partiers that don’t buy 100% of the Fox News propaganda ? This always amazes me. Is there anyone that both believes that Obama is an evil commie AND that climate change is real?
These people look at politics the same way they watch sports. They root for their favorite team/party and despise everyone and everything on the other team.
Dailymail says half of the people in the country dont believe in climate change. How do you get to a “small minority of Americans”?
Daily Mail was wrong.
Curious as to who made the decision not to air the final episode? Discovery? BBC? It didn’t seem clear in reading the Daily Mail piece.
Anyway, a quick read of the comments section of the Daily Mail shows that some Americans aren’t the only ones with uncertainties regarding climate change. Lots of talk of “deniers” and “warmists” back and forth.
IOKIYAR
Its because the so called Lllllibralllll media gives so much lip service to wacky right wing propaganda machines. Just say it and the media in American transmits it as a truth that must be considered no matter how stupid the issue is.
But it snows in the wintertime! There! Where’s your commie liberal global warming hoax NOW?
Hey Tea Party: HOW LONG CAN YOU TREAD WATER?? (apologies to Bill Cosby)
Unfortunately, climate scientists don’t just claim that global warming is happening, they also make predictions about its implications that are measurably off-kilter. The Gulf Stream isn’t slowing down. Greenland’s glaciers are not going to rapidly rush to the oceans and cause unprecedented tidal waves. There weren’t a half billion climate refugees by 2011. We were not struck by multiple category 4 and 5 hurricanes after Katrina.
In the past few days
, Cornell’s scientists announced that they are releasing their predictions for NY’s weather patterns in the face of global warming in a report with measurable predictions, too. Let us see how accurate they are.
The interesting thing is that Politico acolytes always seem to find some way to discount reality when these predictions fail to pan out – particularly alarming is the claim of “consensus”, which was discarded when science measured the Gulf Stream and proved that it isn’t slowing down: they claimed that only “some models” depended on this integral piece of climate. If there is consensus, why is there more than one model?
I have no doubt about the recordings of the scientists, and very little about their conclusions about its meaning… but, there’s evidence that proves their chicken-little predictions are so far off that they are laughable. Every student, even in failing public schools, has mathematical modeling illustrated to them, including the impact of errors. When the model includes an error close up, that error is magnified over the span of the model. The warmist religion’s predictions are alarming wrong close up, with no innouclation from the basic rules of mathematical modeling, so their long-term predictions are/will be even more dramatically wrong.
Ra-cha-cha, just who is treading water and acting on an irrational faith?
OK, I retract that last… just feelin’ a little confrontational today and misdirecting it.
@Leo Wilson: Citations, plz. Reputable and peer reviewed sources. I can save you the time and tell you there are no verifiable or reliable sources for your information, but I kinda want to see you try.
Does four comments in a row without any other responses nor attribution undermine the author’s credibility?
http://skepticalscience.com/argument.php
magoo- thanks for the link. particularly liked #8- “animals and plants can adapt”. wonder how the climate change deniers handle the pushback from the evolution deniers?
Start here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8589512.stm
I was off by an order of magnitude about the climate refugees, and I do apologize for that error. http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,757713,00.html
Ignorance takes one on the chin
http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/good-news-frozen-planet-story-was-wro
Well, I’m unable to find a link to what I was reading about the predictions about hurricanes. I do know that it was Judith Curry’s (speculation?) that the media took off with after Katrina, and I must say that I admire her blog/discussion site for its honesty and candor, and its focus on ethical research methods, taking to task both sides of the debate. She talks about it somewhere on her site, judithcurry.com, and I’ll bet that you can dig it out if you want to try… it’s a worthwhile site to look at anyway.
Unfortunately, someone is paying me to do something else, and I won’t be around again until at least Monday. On the Greenland Glaciers, the results were from the Greenland Ice Core Project and the results summarized by Professor Eske Willerslev from the University of Copenhagen. Again, you’ll have to dig into that yourself… one thing it suggested was that the glaciers are MUCH more stable than thought, and had survived the intergalacial period when temperatures were as much as 5 degrees celcius warmer.
@13 – Please, take the time. Anyone concerned about science and the recent decline in esteem the public has for it should be willing to challenge their own convictions.
Shorter Leo: I am far too busy and important to provide citations, links or support for my awesome takedown of the movie The Day After Tomorrow. Lookit up yourself, Fleabagger!
science and the recent decline in esteem the public has for it
…and how might we suppose that “decline in esteem” came about, and who may have funded the propaganda and misinformation leading to said “decline in esteem”??
C’mon, Eric… I’m a layman participating with an even keel on an opinion blog, doing my best to respectfully answer a challenge from another, somewhat more contemptuous poster. How disingenuous is it to challenge an opinion that’s more free of invective than this threads norm? The original article here is about opinion polls, not science. And, while I’ve clearly posted my opinion of the Occupy movement in other threads, why project name calling?
You can be better than that.
Hmm, maybe I used the wrong word. Contemptful? Anyway, what I meant was that the challenge was heaped upon me with contempt, not that I hold any for the challenger.
@23 – I believe that would be Julian Assange, and his release of ClimateGate emails?
jhorn, another good site for background is http://www.sourcewath.org; example:http://sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Judith_Curry
Good News:http://www.treehugger.com/climate-change/Digging-Beneath-the-Surface-of-Frozen-Planet.html It was a misunderstanding after all.
Some reputable scientist takes exception, attack her character. Was someone asking how/why public esteem for science has dropped? It’s like the campaign finance discussion: OUR scientists are OK, it’s the other guy’s who need to be silenced.
My conclusion about this debate is that there are so many True Believers spouting nonsense from both sides and using it as an excuse to ridicule others, to display their own “superiority” that lay people are left with what appears to be inflicted confusion.
Why would that be inflicted? Does anyone suspect it’s to enlighten, or is it more likely to mislead and/or to grab money and power? Or, worse yet, is there some inferiority complex that makes folks have a petty NEED to denigrate others?
Is it “scientific” to deny the varience between published predictions from computer models and what it realized in reality, and to attack the character of anyone who dares mention that varience?
@23 – another slew of climategate emails released just before the UN’s meeting on climate. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-15840562. Who do you suppose funds these things? I’m still betting on whoever sent money to Wikileaks in support of trashing the US military. You, maybe, or people you admire?
Or, is it the *exact* same thing? It isn’t who released them just in time to have an impact, it’s that they exist in the first place.