To Victoria University Psychology Dept lecturer regarding recent survey
Dear Taciano,
My name is Esther Henderson and through the NZ Climate Science Coalition I received your email requesting participation in your survey along with a request to forward it on to our networks.
The Climate Realists Network which my husband and I founded and run (www.climaterealists.org.nz ) has been forwarded your invitation which has since generated quite a response.
I have decided to collate the responses I have received thus far and send them along to you so you gain an understanding of some of the shortcomings of a survey of this kind.
As you read through the responses below, bear in mind one or two of these people have emailed you separately. I have still included their responses in this collation for your convenience.
I took the survey myself and also found it frustrating that there appeared to be an underlying assumption that :
'caring for the environment' = 'believing in anthropogenic global warming'.
In fact I am quite passionate about caring for the environment- we live on a sheep and beef farm and use the opportunity to minimise waste, steward the resources we have charge over, recycle, plant many trees to provide shade, riparian strips and so forth- however I am also quite convinced that manmade climate change is a myth.
Since you state in your introductory remarks that belief in AGW is not a pre-requisite for completing the survey, it is quite frustrating that this assumption undergirds the phrasing of the questions.
However I and others in our network have done our best to answer the questions honestly so I hope it is enlightening for you to become aware of how many of us 'realists' are out there- despite Victoria University being a bastion of global warming propaganda there are very many of us in the rest of the country who simply do not share that view.
Yours sincerely,
Esther Henderson
Climate Realists (NZ)
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In my opinion, this survey is highly biased, since it contains several leading questions of the, "Have you stopped beating your wife", variety.
Fortunately, it would not accept my answer to the question on the relationship between Humans and Nature, posited as venn diagrams, so I was forced to abandon the survey.
Do these people genuinely believe that Humans are not part of nature? Why else would they pose such a question, if it were not for propaganda purposes?
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I did the 'survey'. The Qs were geared to the acceptance of global warming and climate change as 'gospel'.
In FACT, as we know, there is NO global warming and the climate changes ALL THE TIME - always has always will. So asserting that the former causes the latter is fallacious logic - petitio principii. In fact they called it one and the same. A Uni should know better.
A bigger load of self-serving, prejudged claptrap would be hard to imagine. Unis waste a LOT of time and money on such drivel.
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I filled out that survey - crikey took me a wee bit longer than 15 minutes! I'm sure the complaints you got from other Climate Realists were along these lines - but it was so frustrating to not be able to express - that I care about the planet, about recycling, and pollution - but not because of the Climate affecting the future for the next generation. It was so biased, and made so many assumptions - that you wouldn't care about the future unless you believed in Climate Change. Can't remember the other things that bugged me, tried to get it out of my head I was so riled! :o) I'm useless at politics too, so am pretty sure I've mucked up their stats!!
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Sent in a reply to survey. Loaded questions!
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I filled in the survey which took much longer than they claimed it would !
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I worked in this for several minutes but got so sick of stupid questions I gave up. Sorry. Maybe try again when I have more time and patience.
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Your survey has three fatal flaws:
- You do not indicate up front how many pages there are. I gave up after 10 pages.
- Your survey is too long. Eliminate the trivial.
- Two pages are poorly worded. I am an avid supporter of the environment BUT this has nothing to do with AGW climate change. You have confused the issues.
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Just for your info I have completed it but found it difficult to answer many of the questions. It is a very weird survey, starting off with
the statement that climate change = global warming. But then I note that it comes from the Psych Dept.
It lacks any way to leave a final comment to the researcher and the further you get the less it is about climate change, and more
a sociological and political survey? Also it did not seem possible to go back.
I guess this is the problem with online versus paper surveys.
It just goes to show that if you include "climate change" in your study application, you are sure to get funding perhaps.
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Took the survey…what codswallop. These academics have a cloistered life….ivory tower. Anyway did my bit to bring reality to bear.
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It seems funny how caring for the environment is linked to 'action on climate change'.
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Sorry to have to comment, but your survey's questions are in places repetitive and don't give room for expressing my view that climate change is always happening but the question is whether "man" is accelerating/affecting it.
For instance NZ's had six (6!!) years of dry drought years in 1909-1915 according to Dr Patrick Grant's work -that couldn't have been due to Man? It was so severe it killed 100 year old forest trees in the Ruahines.
But I do believe there is occurring a severe impact on the environment and ecosystem due to various causes. The symptoms are so evident - e.g. no frogs/tadpoles, declining bee numbers (major impact on flora and agriculture), declining aquatic freshwater bottom fauna, declining eels in rivers, fewer starling flights, and others-and politicians are oblivious.
And if climate change (accelerated) is a problem the solution is not in a greed-driven carbon trading system that is a rorer on the general people.
And also irrespective of whether accelerated climate change is occurring or not, the problem for the world is population growth. Yet governments ignore it. And NZ's government totally ignores it and is obsessed with growth!
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Are you sure this is a genuine survey and not a Trojan Horse virus dispenser?
If it is genuine it is probably the worst survey I have ever contributed to and I have taken part in many hundreds of surveys.
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Hi I have just answered the questionnaire which IMHO is just a load of fuzzy crap and which unfortunately did not give the ability to say what one thought at all and like most questionnaires such as this are loaded inasmuch as the questions presuppose situations i.e. Of course I believe in looking after the environment but there is no way I am going to join a bunch of losers such as Greenpeace or make donations to any other emotionally fueled group - so that skews my answers to many of the questions.
Please note: the writer of this comment also wrote a piece for our website which may be viewed here:
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I got as far as the first question and thought "Oops! ... I'd better look before I leap." That question was too emotive and poorly defined to be part of a proper survey (or the initiators are not as well versed as they think).
'Climate change is real' ... yes, no, or maybe?
Wow! Of course it's real—the climate has only been constant when locked deep into ice ages. Or do they mean the populist view, that "we are cooking our planet"? Which I do not believe, even though CC is real. Or am I meant to take the 'damned sceptics' point of view, that (snort!) of course it isn't real—not as misused by the Alarmists—although it blatantly is real.
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Hello,
Just thought I would drop you note to say that in many years of looking at surveys having started this one I found it to be the most stupid document that I have ever wasted my time on!!!
For example –what the hell does looking after the environment have to do with being “immoral” in 2050.
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Taciano Milfont's reply:
Dear Esther,
Thank you for completing the survey, and for taking the time to follow up with your concerns and query.
In designing the survey we did not assume that people are or should be convinced that anthropogenic climate change is occurring – we took the approach that some people are convinced anthropogenic climate change is occurring and others are not, and we wanted to hear from people with both perspectives. (This is exactly why we sent the survey invitation to the Coalition).
Our survey was focused on the social effects of taking action on climate change. Whether someone is convinced anthropogenic climate change is occurring or not, there is no doubt that governments and everyday people are contemplating acting on climate change, or have taken action already. In the survey we wanted to find out people’s views on what the long-term social effects of taking action on climate change would be. Some people may think these effects would be positive and others negative (e.g., on economic development). Indeed, we focused on these social effects because, regardless of whether these actions affect the climate or not, the actions governments and everyday people take can have consequences for the society we live in, and we wanted to know what people thought these would be.
Of course, we also wanted to know about whether people supported taking action on climate change, and about other attitudes and beliefs which might help us understand their views. Similar to other parts of the survey, the purpose of these questions was not to establish who has the correct view, but to try to ascertain the overall attitudes and beliefs of the participants. In this way someone who is convinced anthropogenic climate change is not occurring can still express his or her views regarding other issues, including ‘caring for the environment’ as you mentioned.
I hope that this has at least partly clarified the purpose of the survey and some of the measures you were concerned about. As I have described the purpose of some of the questions in detail, I request that you do not pass this email on further while data collection is occurring, as if it is seen by other participants prior to completing the survey it may affect their responses.
I am also sending enclosed a published article that describes the theoretical framework we are using.
Regards
Taciano
Taciano L. Milfont, Ph.D.
Senior Lecturer
Centre for Applied Cross-Cultural Research | School of Psychology | Victoria University of Wellington | New Zealand
A further response sent to Taciano by a CR Network member:
In the beginning, you seem to make it clear that you regard "climate change" to be dangerous man-made global warming. But then in the questions, you ask if "climate change" is natural.
