The Register reports climate poll inaccurately
New polling on people’s beliefs about climate change in Canada, Great Britain and the United States has been reported fairly straight up by some, but not by others.
The poll, by Angus Reid Public Opinion, is the latest in a series conducted at intervals since 2009 gauging public opinion on the causes of climate change.
For all the wrangling over public opinion on climate change, the polling suggests that the proportion of people who believe climate change is real and caused by humans has not changed decisively over the last 3 years. In the UK, the poll currently puts it at 43%, and suggests it has ranged between 38% and 47% of respondents over the past few years.
Interpreting the numbers
With that in mind, let’s look at IT blog the Register’s take on the polling.
First, it writes:
“Fewer Britons than ever support the proposition that global warming is caused by human-driven CO2 emissions, according to the latest survey.”
That’s not true. The results actually suggest that 43% of those polled in June 2012 agreed with the statement “Global warming is a fact and is mostly caused by emissions from vehicles and industrial facilities”.
That’s the same level of agreement as there was in September 2011 (43%) and December 2009 (43%). This isn’t the lowest level of agreement shown by the polling – in April 2010, just 38% of respondents agreed.
Here’s the table from the report:
Image - Table 1 - man made emissions (note)
Second, the Register says:
“Some 48 per cent of Britons now agree with the suggestion that warming could be “mostly natural” and that the idea of it being human-caused has yet to be proven.”
This is misleading, as it conflates two categories of responses. Actually, according to the polling, 27% of respondents think global warming is happening, but mostly “caused by natural changes” – not 48%.
Meanwhile, 21% of respondents think that it’s yet to be proven that global warming is happening at all. Only by adding the two categories together do you get a value of 48%.
Image - Pie chart skepticism (note)
(Our chart – categories paraphrased for brevity.)
Finally, the Register writes:
“The numbers have actually moved very little since November 2009, but believers are now in the minority.”
We assume they are talking about Great Britain here, and by saying “believers are now in the minority”, they are comparing the 43% of people who (we paraphrase) think climate change is real and mostly manmade with the 48% of people who think either climate change isn’t proven at all (21%), or that it’s not manmade (27%).
But by this method “believers” have been in the minority before, so this isn’t new. It was also true in September 2011, April 2010 and December 2009, if you were to add together those sections of the public who think climate change is either not proven or not manmade.
Image - Table 2 - man made/natural/not real (note)
Of course what the Register’s write-up of the poll obscures is that the largest single group of public opinion, according to this polling, is the group who think global warming is “a fact”, and mostly manmade. Oh well.
The poll results and methodology are available in full here.