Political Spin News Article on Hurricane Michael. Really!?! 1

[Latexman]

Take a look at this news article.

In North Carolina, hurricanes convince some Republicans that climate change is real

The first thing that crossed my mind when I read it was, the "political spin" the writer wanted to impart. How many believe that only Republicans are changing their opinions on climate change after a catastrophic weather events like Hurricane Florence and Michael? Only Republicans? And, why go after this angle? I'd bet almost everyone in Mexico Beach, Florida will have their opinions challenged until the memory fades a bit - Republicans, Democrats, Independent, Libertarian, Green, etc. Is the writer, who I'm guessing is a Democrat, saying, it's okay for all you Republicans to change your mind because here's some that have?

Or, were they just struggling to meet a deadline, and came up with this angle?

Sometimes it would be good to know what's going on in someone's mind.

So, is this fake news? Or, just a political spin on real news? Or, a political message piggy backing off of a convenient real news story?

Anyone else see a different issue?

Good luck,
Latexman

To a ChE, the glass is always full - 1/2 air and 1/2 water.

 

[IRstuff]

At the bottom of the article it mentions that percentage of Republican voters who believed that there was going to be a negative impact from climate change went from 13% to 37% since 2017, so that's certainly significant news and consistent with the title.

If you go and look at the poll in question, the overall numbers went from 45% to 52%, driven mostly by Republican voters. We can slice and dice, but the bottom line is that Democratic voters going from 75% to 67% wouldn't be much of a news item, considering that was part of the Democratic position to begin with. The fact that Republican voters in that state have substantially shifted their positions away from their party's is a big deal.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

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[IRstuff]

The two poll reports are located at
2017 poll:

https://www.elon.edu/e/CmsFile/GetFile?FileID=1396

2018 poll:

https://www.elon.edu/e/CmsFile/GetFile?FileID=1397

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

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[Latexman]

I guess the Engineer in me wants to see all the data first, then slice and dice it.

Good luck,
Latexman

To a ChE, the glass is always full - 1/2 air and 1/2 water.

 

[cranky108]

Not having read the article, but just looking at the headline, It looks like "political spin" and I likely would not read it.

Polling data can be affected in many ways, including how the questions are asked. So I would likely not trust them much or the results.

And to that point there can be different levels of belief. Is the earth warming? Is it man caused? Should we start a carbon exchange? Should we remove all cars from the roads?

I think they are just trying to sell something, and you appear to be a consumer of that.

 

[ornerynorsk]

What?!?! No white versus black versus Hispanic data??? I'm appalled. I wonder how the gunowners feel about climate change? The vagina-hat crowd, the pipeline protesters, the contestants on Wheel of Fortune???

Sadly, this is the state of our union. EVERYTHING has to have a political or racial twist to it.

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.

 

[Latexman]

Maybe we should be glad the climate change conversation never ends, because if it does end, it's probably because some cataclysmic event just started the next ice age . . . and snuffed out the entire population.



Good luck,
Latexman

To a ChE, the glass is always full - 1/2 air and 1/2 water.

 

[zdas04]

Polls are an interesting discussion. All the polls had Hillary winning 92-8% on the last Presidential election day. That is a big departure from actual results. I think that sometime during that last election cycle there was a switch from enthusiastic participation in polls to utter saturation. I still get 3-5 requests to give my opinion a day, and just hang up the phone every time. I know a lot of people (mostly conservative) who do the same. It seems that the only people I know who still welcome them are people with a specific political agenda (e.g., gun control, immigration, the wall, prayer in schools, Planned Parenthood, Medicare, Citizen's United, all the other single-issue-voter issues). If that is true, then any movement of conservative numbers is limited to a tiny portion of the GOP membership and likely has nothing to do with the outcome of elections.

Have any of the rest of you had similar (or different) experiences with polls?

[bold]David Simpson, PE[/bold]
MuleShoe Engineering

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. Galileo Galilei, Italian Physicist

 

[Latexman]

Very similar. I get 1-2 spam/robocalls calls a day. If the number does not bring up a familiar name in my contacts now, I don't answer. And, everybody wants me to do their survey. Buy tires. Survey. Eat out. Survey. Replace your A/C. Survey. Make a transaction at the bank. Survey. It's never ending. Did companies fire all their supervisors/managers and we're doing performance evaluations through surveys now?

Good luck,
Latexman

To a ChE, the glass is always full - 1/2 air and 1/2 water.

 

[zdas04]

I probably get more than most because I have three landlines into my home (don't ask) and a cell phone. Most people I know have a single land line and a cell phone so I have 100% more opportunities to be annoyed.

[bold]David Simpson, PE[/bold]
MuleShoe Engineering

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. Galileo Galilei, Italian Physicist

 

[hokie66]

Most people I know, who are younger than about 45, do not have a landline and rely only on mobile phones. I have one of each, but only receive survey calls on the landline. So to me, that would skew the result of surveys. I am another whose stock answer is "I don't do surveys". Whatever data manipulation they do, I don't think there is much validity in surveys.