Just another survey that takes useful results, interprets with false assumptions, and produces mostly meaningless conclusions. Vale academia.
Farmers are a skeptical bunch, who watch the weather very closely– only 8% buy the whole article-of-faith that man-made climate is the dominant factor, compared to 50 – 66% of climate scientists.
Prokopy et al start from the unspoken assumption that climate scientists know what they are talking about (even though their models are abjectly failing) and try to figure out why farmers aren’t worried about climate change. At no point do they question that inbuilt paradigm and ask the opposite question — are climate scientists failing to convince farmers because the climate scientists are doing bad work? So they miss the obvious recommendation that climate scientists need to figure out the climate before they start the communications cycle. It’s a lesson in how important it is for all scientists to define their terms and state all their assumptions.
When Prokopyu et al manage to come up with a useful suggestion it’s largely by accident. They recommend two-way dialogues between stakeholders and climate scientists (what a wild idea). Can I suggest that climate scientists start by using English, instead of namecalling — “climate deniers”.
Their assumption is that the climate experts need to send their wisdom across the table from left to right (from computer modelers to farmers). My hypothesis is that the closer people are to reality and the further they are from government monopolistic funding, the better their scientific judgement is. The wisdom needs to flow from the right hand side of this table.
Instead of worrying about threatening the “world view” of farmers, Prokopyu could notice how threatening skepticism is to the “world view” of climate believers.
| Survey Question: There is increasing discussion about climate change and its potential impacts. Please select the statement that best reflects your beliefs about climate change. | CSCAP 2011 team survey (n=121) 86% response rate | 2012 U2U team survey (n=33) 56% response rate | Climatologist survey (n=19) 2012 100% response rate 2012 | U2U Extension educators survey across 12 Corn Belt States (n=239) 35% response rate | 2012 U2U Ag advisors Survey (n=1605) 26% overall response rate | Farmer survey m(n=4778) 2012 26% response rate |
| Climate change is occurring, and it is caused mostly by human activities | 50.40% | 66.70% | 53% | 19.20% | 12.30% | 8% |
| Climate change is occurring, and it is caused more or less equally by natural changes in the environment and human activities | 30.60% | 30.30% | 37% | 31.40% | 37.80% | 33% |
| Climate change is occurring, and it is caused mostly by natural changes in the environment | 10.70% | 3% | 5% | 23.40% | 24.90% | 25% |
| There is not sufficient evidence to know with certainty whether climate change is occurring or not | 8.30% | 0% | 5% | 24.70% | 22.40% | 31% |
| Climate change is not occurring | 0% | 0% | 0% | 1.30% | 2.60% | 3.50% |
There is no discussion in the paper of the qualifications of agricultural advisors or of farmers. In the UK, to be an agricultural advisor requires a degree in horticulture or soils or biology. In the US about 30% of farmers have attended college. In Australia more than 30% of farmers have a diploma or bachelors degree. So this survey probably just reflects the big divide between the tiny club of certified climate scientists and the rest of the scientific profession. Which scientist would have more influence on a farmer — a city-based climate scientist who produces bad forecasts, or a farm-based science trained colleague who produces real food?
(See also the Big Myth About The Worlds Scientists — which explains why more scientists are probably skeptics, though no one has surveyed them en masse. The media misreports a consensus among a few climate specialists as if it was a “scientific consensus” when climate scientists are failing to convince other professional scientists because they don’t have the evidence).
The disconnect between scientists’ and other stakeholders’ beliefs about climate change and its causes that this research identified suggests that climate information needs to be packaged in ways that have little to do with anthropogenic causation.
A good question indeed:
If indeed agriculture is “self-adjusting,” will the divergent beliefs between scientists and farmers eventually converge as environmental conditions change?
A better question is whether climate science is “self-adjusting”. If the climate continues to not-warm, will climate scientists views eventually converge with skeptics who were right all along? I suspect not until the government stops funding people to be alarmed.
Two “Conclusions”. The first inane, and the second accidentally correct.
Climate scientists can do at least two things to increase farmers and their advisors’ willingness to learn, better understand global and local climate patterns, and increase willingness to adapt or transform their landscapes: (1) reduce the threat to individual worldviews of believing in climate change, and (2) increase opportunities for dialogue among scientists, intermediaries, farmers, and the voluntary organizations to which farmers belong.
They identify agricultural advisors as important agents of influence, but not the scientifically trained farmers who are probably key to the whole information flow. If climate scientists can’t convince agricultural scientists who work the land, it’s no wonder they have little influence over other farmers.
However, our identification of a breach between understandings of climate change and its causes among scientists/climatologists and farmers/advisors is important because advisors are the change agents who communicate science to farmers. If their beliefs about climate change are more similar to farmers than to scientists, and at odds with the scientific consensus, this has major implications for outreach and engagement on climate change adaptation and mitigation in agriculture
Here’s that radical idea, why not have a two-way dialogue?
Relatedly, long-term relationships between climate scientists and stakeholders, as well as open-minded dialogue are essential for impacting decision-making (Changnon 2004; Morss et al. 2005). This will require a change in mindset for some scientists. For example, some climate scientists in the North Central Region perceive their role in communicating information to agricultural stakeholders as primarily supplying available data and are less comfortable engaging in a two-way dialogues regarding relevance of science to a farm enterprise (Wilke & Morton, 2014).
Notice that while universities are terrible at teaching logic and reason, the one thing they are successful at training into graduates is arrogance. Do survivors of dull lectures and predictable exams hold the secret key to information and knowledge? Should they aim to rain their wisdom down on the peasants, or do those who successfully harness nature and unpredictable events to produce actual essential goods have some insight worth listening too?
REFERENCES
Prokopy et al (2014) Agricultural stakeholder views on climate change: Implications for conducting research and outreach, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 2014 ; e-View doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-13-00172.1
UPDATE: Only 43% of certified climate scientists agree with the IPCC “consensus” that man-made CO2 is the main driver of climate change.
h/t to Rick.
Breaking news – 8% of productive people disagree with the unproductive in a loaded survey, this result clearly demonstrates how the unproductive can continue to reproduce themselves.
365
I’m not surprised that you created a bit of backlash there, Yonniestone. Most of the rules that have been made up are made up by people who have not performed any of the jobs that they made the rules up for. And that obviously includes “climate scientists”.
180
I’m never surprised at the reactions of people and frankly couldn’t care less about red thumbs, I respect the effort of someone replying with good information or rebuttals compared to a hollow gesture of disapproval which is why I very rarely give a red thumb.
I do like the idea of the thumbs it gives a certain polite Colosseum atmosphere with a lot less bloodshed, well maybe just a little bit less. 😉
‘Friends, Novarians, Countrymen, lend me your thumbs!’
71
You got mine!
Julius Caesar as it should be played., Rinse the Blood of my toga.
10
HA HA excellent Bob, we did this play in High School Drama class, also the Wayne and Shuster show was aired on local TV, come to think of it being co-educated by G. Kennedy, Tommy Cooper, The Goodies, Kenny Everett, Wayne and Shuster and many more of similar caliber put me in good stead for a warped sense of humour.
00
Yonnie,
Don’t sell yourself short – I agree with your statement that the unproductive can continue to f#ck themselves.
51
But Jo I protest – if we had a two way dialogue, then people might be able to discuss ideas not propped up by the CAGW belief in global awarming faries….and that would just never do….I mean the population might discover it was all a bit of a joke…or something….no…we must ram bizarre beliefs down their throat until they cry “Agenda 21″….or “the IPCC is my god”…or “Socialists can do no wrong”…( ok the last one was cheeky, but apparently just after I got back from re-education camp I saw the errors of my way, its all true yuou know….they do love us….really….)
he he
50
What a hopeless survey. We are constantly told that Anthropogenic Climate Change is or, at least soon will be, Catastrophic hence CAGW which I insist on using not the meaningless twaddle of CC or CD. This survey makes no attempt to quantify CC or even suggest whether it might be good, bad or otherwise – let alone Catastrophic. The questions and answers are meaningless.
10
The nub of the matter is that the people whose businesses depend on the “climate science” believe that the climate science is unsound.
Somebody should notice that this lack of trust is based on observation of the facts, not on theory and “homogenised” data..
00
It is essential that farmers understand the Climate – their livelihood depends on it. Is it any wonder that only 8% of farmers believe that “Climate change is occurring, and it is caused mostly by human activities”. You see farmers live in the “real world” – it seems they have little interest in the socialist/leftie idealistic “Theory of AGW”. Leave that to the “urban socialists” who would have in all livelihood no idea what is involved in farming. While the “urban socialists” sip their wine watching the ABC or riding their bikes double abreast on our main roads, “to save the planet” from that evil CO2, the farmers are out there in the paddock tending to their crops. What a contrast in mindsets. Good on you farmers – King Geo loves you all – as for the socialist/leftie idealists go and …..
352
Well said King Geo.
152
Yep…grew up in a rural area….agree 100%….
Most farmers would just laugh at them or reckon they were a bit weird…
60
I was out at a friend’s property a few years ago during the height of the drought and having a beer with him and his father-in-law, who had spent his 80 odd years on the land. After dancing around the subject of AGW/MMCC/GCD, I realised they were sounding me out. When I told them that my position, they both relaxed and said they were concerned that I would reflect the inner city chicken little view, as I had lived in inner Sydney for 20 years. Their position was that while the drought was dire, it was not unprecedented and it would again rain. They held alarmists in contempt.
50
Man made global warming caused wholly and solely by CO2 was the only concern, ever. It was hypothetical, not proven. Climate Change on the other hand happens all the time. The proposition was runaway catastrophic man made Global Warming. If any of those words are missing, it is not the alleged problem raised by the IPCC, whatever anyone might pretend now.
So why is anyone surveying farmers on something as nebulous climate change? Farmers change the climate every day, at least in their own fields and valleys. It is their job. They water where it doen’t rain or enough. They drain where it rains too much. They grow crops which are not native and in vast fields. They change evaporation, surface temperature, humidity, drainage, colour, light absorption, everything. They build dams and channels and terrace the land. They changes the species and so the millions of Australian gum trees in California and Spain with their attendant bushfires. Farmers do everything they can to change the climate. In Australian’s dry Riverina and river country, it takes an unnatural 2 metres of water just to grow a crop of rice in the desert. They grow grapes in a country which has never had grapes or rice or sheep.
What has this to do with CO2 driven Global Warming, which is demonstrably not happening and hasn’t happen almost since it was announced? This does raises questions though. If we could actually change climates, should we? If we could increase CO2, should we? Yes and yes. Who wants another ice age and those wonderful glaciers which made most of Europe uninhabitable just 20,000 years ago?
Change is normal. It is the people against change who live in fear, fear created by doomsayers. The world will keep changing. We should be talking about how and why and how to adapt, not how to stop change.
Cities in the ocean, cities underground, stopping the urban sprawl, new energy sources. All we read is the tired old nonsense about stopping everything, good and bad. So we just keep building windmills and the Greens dream of a time where iPhones were carved from solid wood and Twitter was what birds did.
342
Don’t forget South America. They are here in abundance also.
70
TdeF:
Excellent comment, what I’ve thought for years. Change is not only normal, but essential. Trees grow. Rivers change course. Beaches erode (or build up). Cute little puppies grow into big hungry dogs. People find out “it ain’t necessarily so”.
If it wasn’t for change, there’d be no life at all.
60
Ah! The mark of the phantom red hander! The Troll awards. Easier to do with only three comments, all red handed at the same time. Why does anyone bother? It is a badge of honour to be worn with pride. A single troll awarded red hand with worth twenty green hands. Sad, tragic troll. No life. Twitter for company.
213
Knowing that you have annoyed a latte-sipping inner-city socialist.
Does it get much better than that! 🙂
141
Let’s stop all this climate hysteria and sit down for a nice cup of tea.
140
It’s got to be PG.
http://www.pgtips.co.uk/article/detail/290609/history-of-pg-tips
40
Great picture. Ton does seem to be doing a rather better impression of a Tea Chimp than that knitted doll they use nowadays.
40
The response rate of 26% for farmers and advisors for the survey is much lower than the other groups suggesting to me that the other 74% are not interested in climate change which is remarkable since they depend on the weather for their livelihood. Either they are too busy, or not interested enough in climate science to bother, or think its a load of crock.
210
Or not interested in the scam about which which they have already made their decisions.
00
I deny we have a climate…
30
I believe we have a climate, but it purely a regional phenomenon.
The only way you can talk about a global climate, is when you’re comparing planets.
20
In the mid noughties, the first decade of the 2000’s farmers werere very intersted in the climate forecasts from then CSIRO , Flannery and lots of others.
Then as the years rolled by and not a single one of those predictions came to pass in any way that could be remotely linked with the original prediction.
Not a single one of those predictions ever showed up as a factor of any sort in our cropping and farming systems.
Not a single one of those predictions were ever seen in any manifest way as somehow having some sort of influence as predicted on our farming methods and outputs and profits or losses.
We came to see that as always Nature just kept plowing onwards in her inscrutable fashion regardless of our planning, predictions and predicted supposed catastrophic climate occurrences that was going to destroy all our farming here in Australia within a few years unless that so beloved of the climate science catastrophists. “We did something” or “somebody ” has to take action”
[ Strangely I’ve noted for a long time that it is ALWAYS somebody else who has to DO SOMETHING, or TAKE ACTION, an action which is never specified in any case.
It is never the promoter of that idiotic demand who promises to DO SOMETHING or TAKE ACTION ]
In short, the farming community in general after being heavily exposed for near on two decades to a constant barrage of climate catastrophes just around the corner for farming and farmers have come to the conclusion the whole thing, the climate catastrophe scare is a very large manufactured crock of complete BS which as many farmers are now quietly saying, has far more to do with climate scientists ensuring they continue to enjoy the lavish life style at tax payer expense than anything to do with the actual climate.
We are sated up to the eyeballs with a two decade long constant barrage of straight out lying, fraudulent, nonsensical claims about oncoming predicted climate catastrophes, none of which have ever shown the slightest inclination to surface in our farming circles nor are in away seen in the usual weather and climate factors we constantly have to deal with on a daily basis just to make a living.
250
Well farming is a huge and constant reality check with a very strong exposure to weather conditions and to longer term climatic trends. It also does not depend on research grants. With farming you have to take into account a wide range of variables and it is unrealistic to focus on minor part of the environment. So, there you go! This is why farming gives you a different world view than a government-funded climate research unit that has to toe the current political fashion.
280
There is an excellent comment over at WUWT by a farmer (I am sure Trenberth and Mann think he is an idiot). I would love to quote it completely, but perhaps just the link will suffice. It is by a Brandon C.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/11/12/study-farmers-and-scientists-divided-over-climate-change#comment-1786837
50
At least here in the states even those who do think there’s something to it rank it very low in priority. I wonder why. Could it be no job or shrinking income… …danger from abroad maybe?
The list is long.
When there’s not enough butter to cover the toast no one will worry about the bottom side of the bread. They worry about the top. And it’s not good for more people than the MSM has any intention of reporting. 🙁
People really do prioritize. And climate change has not given them any evidence to get excited over.
120
Of course, those who have something to gain from the climate change alarm are pushing it like the world would end tomorrow if we don’t agree to stop fossil fuel use today.
90
There is also another strange breed of people who latch onto something like CAGW and push it for all it’s worth, even becoming “expert” at pounding “deniers”, and who have nothing obvious to gain.
These people are generally quite irrational and seemingly beyond reason and blind to any evidence contrary to their belief.
I wonder if it’s an illness?
60
Backslider,
Yes! I would call it an abnormal need for attention, a need to belong to something “very important”. They have a personality disorder in my, perhaps not so humble opinion. I liken them to the politician who has to blather on about something in the House or Senate after the day’s work is done and they can make endless statements heard by no one but the fly on the wall and CSPAN (watched by none of those who should). But they then get to tell their constituents what a great job they’ve done and bask in the glory thereof.
20
Ah yes, visions of massive “hearings” in Congress about steroid use in sports, debates over the “hate” fomented by school mascots named for aboriginal tribes (who got to North America before Europeans) and the ever popular wild eyed rants of Harry Reid regarding the Koch Brothers being evil… no wonder all the CAGW alarmists are liberals… it’s in their blood to stand up and scream about nothing of any importance whatsoever.
70
All of which goes to show that trivial, fraction of a degree temperature changes don’t equate to climate.
I was born in the UK in the late 1940s, and yes, we’ve had rainy years, colder years, hot summers, cold winters, dry winters, wet warm winters and so forth – but has the climate really changed?
No.
The Koppen classification has been the best known and most used climate classification system for decades (p430,’The Atmosphere’, Frederick K. Lutgens and Edward J Tarbuck, pub. Pearson Prentice Hall 2007) and describes the UK as having a humid middle latitude, mild winter or Marine West Coast (Cfb) type of climate. And so it remains, regardless of annual variations.
What the Cfb coding means is that the average temperature of the coldest month is under 18 degrees C and above -3 degrees C.
No month is above 22C, and at least four are over 10C.
So, a wide range of temperatures define the British climate.
Thus it was in 2013, and also in 1659 as seen in the Central England Temperature Record (CET).
All this has stayed the same regardless of the small increase in concentration of the trace gas over which so much fuss has been made.
100
And do I dare say it might even have sufficed through the Medieval Warm Period ? An almost timeless classification system, in comparison to todày’s neurotic babblings a from a bunch of , dare I say largely overblown social scientists.
10
From my experience, nearlly all Ag advisors/consultants hold science degrees. Sales agents, working for Ag companies, are less qualified but I would not classify them as advisors.
The complexity of nature and the widely varied results we farmers achieve from our best efforts has a dampening effect on our enthusiasm for climate Gurus. As a farmer, you may not start out as a sceptic but you usually end up one.
50
Then Farmer Gez, they should all be enrolled in this titillating course:
Making Sense of Climate Science Denial
Climate change is real, so why the controversy and debate? Learn to make sense of the science and to respond to climate change denial.
https://www.edx.org/course/uqx/uqx-denial101x-making-sense-climate-4371#.VGU4hfmUcpi
10
Perhaps a very simple fact has escaped them: Agricultural advisers earn their living helping farmers maximise the efficiency and returns from agriculture – they do that based on fact as opposed to fictional projections on climate.
If they did the latter then both they and the farmers they advise would soon be out of business.
20
Are these climate gurus trying to persuade farmers to mend their ignorant ways the very same people who conned several governments, a few years back, to construct desalination plants to provide potable water supplies because it wasn’t going to rain any more?
Good luck with that, chaps!
20
As a farmer (with a degree) I can tell you that most farmers I know don’t worry too much about climate change. We will do what has made us good at what we do and adapt.
Climate is average weather but we never have an average year. My average rainfall may be 550 mm but we have never had 550 mm, it varies from 350-650 mm and we prepare for that every year as farming in Australia is basically all about risk management.
If the climate shifts than the range of seasons may shift, but 8-9 out of ten seasons will still fall within the range we currently have so business as normal but with some adjustments (adaptations) to allow for the slightly increased risk of extremes in one direction.
In SW Australia we have had warmer winters the last two years and more growing season rainfall which has led to excellent years, especially for pasture, if this is climate change, bring it on.
If you go to the “Pastures from Space” CSIRO website and go to Western Australia (someone smarter than me can do the link) and click on the “chart Shire PGR (pasture growth rates)” and select a shire such as Kojonup you will see the Pasture Growth rates for the last 11 years. This is as good an indicator of what the climate is doing but should caution the highest readings should be taken with a pinch of salt as I don’t think readings that high were calibrated in the beginning.
Our total rainfall for the year will not be that high as we had no summer or early autumn rainfall, but were in the top percentile for winter and spring which is when we want it but did lead to waterlogging and trafficability (getting bogged) issues.
The main negative of low rainfall early in the year was lack of mineralisation of nitrogen requiring more N in fertiliser on the crops.
The point being it is not the total that is important as when and how intense the rainfall is.
As a farmer dealing with the reality of nature everyday we see every weather event having positive and negative effects. Climate change is the same, we hear all about the negatives but natures equilibrium says that for every negative there is a positive. When the climate does change , as it always has, there will be winners and losers and mankind will do what it has always done and adapt.
80
The temperature this morning was 17C, it’ll hit 35 sometime today, it’s dry but my garden is thriving.
And yet; if the morning temperature was to be 17.5C and the day’s top was 35.5C, everything will die off and we’ll become climate refugees. There is zero sense to what these “scientists” are telling us.
30
Luckily we have a competent spokesgroup for our farmers: the National Farmer’s Federation:
The changing climate is potentially the biggest issue facing Australian farmers in the future. As a sector so dependent on natural resources, climate change poses a significant challenge to agriculture.
As the ABARES report, Climate Change: Impacts on Australian Agriculture shows, without actions to adapt to a changing climate and to mitigate the effects of greenhouse gases, Australian production of wheat, beef, dairy and sugar could decline by up to 10 percent by 2030 and 19 percent by 2050.
The implications of this for current farm enterprises and possible future industries vary, but show the need of all farmers to deal with hotter, drier and more variable conditions across much of Australia. To do so, farmers require access to the right tools to effectively manage the risks, to capitalise on any opportunities arising from this change and to be resilient.
15
Oh Fudgeit, I see I’ve been my evil personality again, so I need to apologise for cherry picking, I know, I always poke the finger at everyone else for cherry picking.
I am so angry because upon reading it, I discovered the post actually says nothing… new. In fact it seems old and repetitive, and, I mean historically, non-tampered temperature records show Australia has always suffered from a severe climate, including as far back as records go, back to the great droughts and heatwaves of the 1860’s. Much more severe than today, and to think not 200 years since the end of the Little Ice Age.
The LIA?
Say, do you think the temperature warmed naturally since the LIA and that the CO2 concentration rose through natural warming and plant growth mechanisms?
And do you suppose that our farmers have always recognised this ‘sunburnt country’, and because Dorothea McKellar wrote a poem about it, it must always have been so, and farmers have always adapted to the climate and mitigated the affects of natural forces through inginuity, intelligence, observation and commonsense, managing to pass on their knowledge to succeeding generations?
And I suppose you think real science proves that as CO2 increases so do harvests and crop yields, thereby increasing the availability of stock feed…
You would probably believe that’s why the Chinese Government – I worship the Chinese Government for their genuine stance to adapt and to mitigate climate change by deciding to produce as much CO2 as they can until their population peaks in 2030 – is buying as much Australian farmland as possible and why Gina Rhinehart has just announced her massive move into the Australian Dairy Industry.
I know China recognises CO2 is the baddest evvva thing and I applaude China for the fact that what is bad for the rest of the world is good for China.
Now you see that is real adaption and mitigation in action, forcing lesser governments to adopt Green Policies in order that China can step in and make trade deals and grand gestures and capitalize on their weakness.
Which brings me to another question… why does Russia have warships circling our shores?
00
PNAS put LIA in perspective. Northern Hemisphere phenomena at best, doesn’t even appear in some SH ice core data. On McKellar: my in-laws and their ancestors come from the Kamilaroi.
On Russian vessels, it’s probably a bilateral exercise for Rear Admiral Scomo. To test his Border Security flotilla and their capabilities at detection, interception, boarding, vessel control and personnel transfer to little red life rafts.
01
No suggestion of trying to hold back any climate change there, just deal with it, whatever it throws up, as farmers have been doing for eons.
00
You don’t say Sillyfilly!
Having served at top level in farmer organisations, I am pleased with your confidence in my competence. Luckily most research funding for climate change neatly fits into current programs. We are already dry and warm but also cold due to frost events. Ag science has put the global warming tag on project bids and “Bob’s your uncle”, business as usual. Farmers would be mugs not to take climate cash if it is on offer.
40
Well! you just put another log on the fire there ol’ chap, and ignore the risks!
02
Hey dopey,.. its summer.. why would he put another log on the fire. DOH !!
20
“but also cold due to frost events”
November is Summer? I must tell the kids!
01
Ignore the risk!
I don’t think so.
“As the ABARES report, Climate Change: Impacts on Australian Agriculture shows, without actions to adapt to a changing climate and to mitigate the effects of greenhouse gases, Australian production of wheat, beef, dairy and sugar could decline by up to 10 percent by 2030 and 19 percent by 2050.”
Every indication so far is that the plant world is responding positively to increased CO2. Also getting wetter.
Australian production should be UP by 10 % in 2030 and UP by 10% in 2050.
00
Sillyfilly: the posts above have given real world data and observations of what goes on by those in daily contact with nature – the farmers.
Some of those farmers have been working for well over half a century. In spite of all the variations in the seasons, they put food on our tables. Where would we be without their knowledge and skills?
Yet you persist in your belief.
Would you care to explain in your own words, using observed figures and references typed out as befits a scientific comment, why exactly you consider that we face a climate catastrophe as a result of mankind’s CO2 emissions?
10
Chuckle!.. Yep, The NFF knows how to “play the game”.
When was that written? Was it during the Lab/Green farce of a government?
Notice the “could” and the “money please” statement on the 2nd last line. 🙂
10
“Log on the Fire”?
I think we farmers put food in your mouth. Must get a bit hard to swallow Sillyfilly.
30
I suspect that the dopey donkey lives in a barn in inner city somewhere.
Near where there are plenty of inner city lattes.
Probably never seen anything but cafes.
20
She lives in Bright, Vic.
There are plenty of Cafe’s there.
10
So nice to see Sillyfilly on active duty.
http://news.yahoo.com/australians-bury-heads-sand-mock-government-climate-stance-104620653.html
The irony burns.
30
The 400 or so people shown on the beach with their backsides in the air are presumably the sum total of those bother to visit the Skeptical Science website these days!
10
Whhops! That should read ‘those who bother’ – my apologies!
00
…and ‘whhops’ should read ‘whoops’. Brain malfunction +++!
00
My Gawd! even the scientific fossils from my Bolt days are out and about!
01
THis survey is actually very good. THere may even be a connection to the farming world which motivated it in the first place. Secondly the results are very interesting. Only 50 – 66% of the scientists believe anthropogenic factor is dominant. Great result – it negates the botched / boodged 97% number bandied around by skeptical science and Naomi Oreskes.
THe bit about communication etc may be pressure to put something like that in, in order to be published, but the results are a revelation
10
Sillyfilly: What exactly are your ‘Bolt days?’
00
I’m not sure if anybody has already commented, but …..
Only 53% of the climate scientists accepted the “concensus” I thought it was suppose to be 97%. What happened?
00
I’ll put this simply for Sillfily. Plant breeders endeavour to endow germplasm with traits that can cope with abiotic stress, such as heat, drought and cold. This leads to nutrient and water use efficiencies that enhance production and is least cost. This is good for the atmosphere as inputs such as nitrogen are mostly utilised in production and not volatilised as a greenhouse gas.
As I have tried to point out, current projects are fully compatible with reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Farmers are dead against taxing carbon inputs in order to increase our costs and thus lower our carbon footprint. Investing in good science will achieve the same result and enable us to feed the billions on our planet. You seem obsessed with regulation when I see the true benefits of innovation. Give the cash to the boffins and not the bureaucrats.
30
A summary/breakdown:
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/BAMS-D-13-00172.1
In 2012, a total of 22 state and extension climatologists were selected through a purposive sample to represent main outlets of publicly available and location-specific climate information in the region. Nineteen of these climatologists completed a pre-interview survey that included the climate change question (see Wilke 2013). Consistent with the many disciplinary scientists in the two USDA-NIFA projects, over 90% of the climatologists agreed that climate change is occurring while none believed that it is not occurring (Table 1). Fifty-three percent [10 of 19] attributed climate change primarily to human activities.
——
An online survey of about 1600 private and public agricultural advisors was conducted in 2012 in four states (Indiana, Iowa, Michigan and Nebraska) in the Midwestern United States. Three-quarters of these advisors believed that climate change is occurring, with 12% [197 of 1,605] of them believing that it is mostly caused by human activities (Table 1).
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Extension educators are a unique set of agricultural advisors who serve to connect and translate research from universities to farmers in order to decrease risk to the farm enterprise and increase productive capacity and resilience. Typically, Extension educators have at least a Masters degree and are trained in agronomic sciences, which may not include climate sciences. Almost 75% of the Extension educators [239 respondents] believed in climate change, with over 19% [46 of 239] attributing climate change to human activities (Table 1).
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