Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Skeptics: an endangered species in Germany?

In 2011, a research group from the University of Hamburg conducted a general population survey in Germany in which they "looked for systematic linkages between public climate-change skepticism on one hand, and energy preferences and political participation on the other." The results are the following:
Our results indicate that climate-change skepticism has not diffused widely in Germany, but that it correlates with less support of renewable energy sources. However, skepticism correlates negatively with political participation, and there is no strong political outlet for public climate-change skepticism in Germany.

Unfortunately, the article "Public climate-change skepticism, energy preferences and political participation" by Engels, Hüther, Schäfer & Held is hidden behind a paywall, but here you find the abstract.  Spiegel-online reports on this study and points to the difference between the clear feature and prominence of skeptics in the US and those in Germany, where they show no clear profile and where we have only a few "total deniers". According to the researchers, this might indicate that the "Energiewende" will not meet great resistance, at least not from the skeptics. Does this mean that Klimazwiebel is one of the last resorts where  free-ranging skeptics can be observed and listened to? Wow.

3 comments:

Karl Kuhn said...

Ein exzellenter Artikel zur Psychologisierung der 'Klimaskepsis' und anderer unbequemer Meinungen findet sich hier:

http://www.spiked-online.com/site/article/13716/

Passt sehr gut in den Kontext Klimafalle!

itisi69 said...

You would think so, Overpeck compares Lincoln's war against slavery with war for AGW and Nurnberg Trials against skeptics are advised also.

What a world we are living in nowadays.

Werner Krauss said...

Hier der link zu einem Kommentar von Peter Heller, in dessen langer Einleitung er zur Skeptikerstudie von Anita Engels et al Stellung nimmt:
http://www.science-skeptical.de/klimawandel/hans-von-storch-starkt-klimaskepsis/0010315/