A Climate Survey! (And it’s not even mine!!!)

Please share your views on climate change and reading blogs by filling out this survey. The data will be used for getting to know the readers of climate change blogs.

 

What’s in it for you?

  • You have a chance on winning a $20 gift card of Amazon;
  • You will get a sneak preview of the preliminary results;
  • You will contribute to research on climate change blogs.

 

Participation is anonymous, and your answers will be handled confidentially. The data is only used for research purposes.

 

Your input is highly valued! Please fill out the survey by following this link.

8 responses to “A Climate Survey! (And it’s not even mine!!!)

  1. Took me 15 minutes (a third of the time you recommended spending on climate blogging per day, Tom) but I was happy to help, particularly if it reduces the pro-insanity-skewing influence of Sou’s retinue upon the results.

    The survey is admirably agnostic, except for its premise that WattsUpWithThat is an example of a blog that “rejects evidence for man-made climate change” and ATTP as one that “accepts” it. WattsUp may reject the catastrophist narrative but to accuse it of rejecting scientific evidence—evidence of anything at all—is to beg the premise that skeptical blogs are anti-science. This is not only picking a side, but picking the wrong side in my opinion.

    Also, the use of “climate change” instead of “global warming” makes it hard to answer questions about likely impacts if your answer happens to be heavily influenced by the expected catastrophic effects of the next reglaciation, however far in the future it occurs. My answers assumed that they meant GW, not CC in general, but this should have been disambiguated.

    Feel free to pass my criticisms on to the originators of the survey if you know how, Tom.

    Thanks!

  2. To clarify my begging-the-question criticism:

    Suppose I were to write a survey describing SkepticalScience as a website that “rejects the evidence for natural climate change.” This may or may not be accurate, but I wouldn’t say it in any case, because it clearly chooses sides.

  3. Yes, your points are uniformly pertinent. However, there is a chance that the answers to the questions will point that out, depending on how they look at the origination of traffic.

    When I did my survey back in the mists of time, I segmented respondents by site of origin and was able to compare the responses of people coming, for example, from WUWT to those coming from Bart Verheggen’s site. That was useful.

    It really depends on if they’re taking the survey seriously or if they’re looking to count quick coup against the ‘enemy.’

  4. Fry and Laurie cracked me up with the affable old Earl who said, during a tour of his ancestral estate, “and I’m afraid the, uh… origins of this piece here have been lost in the mists of… which we get quite a lot around here…”

  5. I didn’t feel like their enemy, but (at worst) an object of pity admixed with curiosity on the part of investigators who’ve never looked deep enough into the debate to know there is a viable case for non-nutballs skepticism. Not that I’d blame them; they probably have lives. If so, then, given the narrative they’ve taken for granted, their almost-impartiality suggests a rigor above and beyond the call. Still, the residual bias will be a dealbreaker for some. That’s why, and assuming the most honest of intentions on their part, I wondered if it mightn’t be worth someone’s while letting them know their priors are showing.

    What did your survey teach mankind? I feel like I should remember it, but let’s just take it as read that I’m a terrible person and I don’t—do you gots a link?

  6. Ah, now I get ya—”they’re” being the respondents, not the writers of the survey. Now your remarks about origination of the responses make a lot of sense. (What would the significance of being referred from your blog be, Tom? Despite its title, am I right in saying you tend to attract a more discerning clientele these days, which is my flagrantly partisan way of saying a climate-skeptical one?) I still would like to refresh my memory about your survey because knowing you, I suspect it was rather well designed and analysed. Linky?

  7. Were the survey results published anywhere? Who organised the survey?

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