Are climate sceptics more likely to be conspiracy theorists?

Aurora · Post by **Aurora** » 27 Jul 2012, 14:17

The Guardian - 27/07/12

It's time to come clean: climate change is a hoax. And the moon landings were faked, 9/11 was an inside job, and the CIA is hiding the identity of the gunman on the grassy knoll.

It might seem odd to lump climate change – a scientific theory supported by thousands of peer-reviewed papers and hundreds of independent lines of evidence – with conspiracy theories like these. But new research to be published in a forthcoming issue of Psychological Science has found a link between the endorsement of conspiracy theories and the rejection of established facts about climate science.

In a survey of more than 1,000 readers of websites related to climate change, people who agreed with free market economic principles and endorsed conspiracy theories were more likely to dispute that human-caused climate change was a reality.

Article continues ...

extractorfan · Post by **extractorfan** » 27 Jul 2012, 14:37

Ah yes, but if you believe Climate Change is a conspiracy you are not labelled a loon. That is the difference, it is an acceptable belief as it doesn't go against a BAU spirit.

energy-village · Post by **energy-village** » 27 Jul 2012, 14:51

What this article is doing is, rather crudely, lumping all these things in together, labelling them 'conspiracy theories' and by implication, loony.

That may be very satisfying for the converted but I doubt it's good enough to win people over to AGW. Not that I know how such a thing could be achieved. I suspect major change in any area is only likely incrementally over generations or after a collapse of some sort.

extractorfan · Post by **extractorfan** » 27 Jul 2012, 14:59

energy-village wrote:What this article is doing is, rather crudely, lumping all these things in together, labelling them 'conspiracy theories' and by implication, loony.

That may be very satisfying for the converted but I doubt it's good enough to win people over to AGW. Not that I know how such a thing could be achieved. I suspect major change in any area is only likely incrementally over generations or after a collapse of some sort.

Strange, I took the oposite view. I think it's interesting that you can deny scientific consensus on one hand and not be a loon and then in another theory you are completely bonkers. I thought that was what the article was getting at.

energy-village · Post by **energy-village** » 27 Jul 2012, 15:15

I suspect this article is all about the headline and the first paragraph;

It's time to come clean: climate change is a hoax. And the moon landings were faked, 9/11 was an inside job, and the CIA is hiding the identity of the gunman on the grassy knoll.

Good for eyeballs and comments.

Having worked on a lot of online surveys I know how difficult they are to get right, even in the most apparently straight-forward of cases. In this case they are not only looking at various different views that they are then labelling 'conspiracy theories' (which itself asks a lot of questions), they are throwing climate sceptism into the survey pot AND free market economic principles. Good luck with that research, it wouldn't be easy.

In a survey of more than 1,000 readers of websites related to climate change, people who agreed with free market economic principles and endorsed conspiracy theories were more likely to dispute that human-caused climate change was a reality.