Global Warming - Two-Thirds of Americans Want Us to Join Climate Change Pact

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Probable motive or imputed motive could be discerned from the outcome of the poll though not explicit. One can argue that the results of the poll is skewed towards having the US approve climate change treaties. The timing of the poll precedes the World Conference on Climate Change currently going on in France. The newspaper in the past has published poll results and articles in favor of global warming , therefore raising red flags on the accuracy of the poll results

Important information missing from the article is whether or not respondents understood and appreciated the subject matter in question. The subject appears to be a technical one and may not be easily understood by random people. This brings the methodology into question as selecting individuals by random to respond to questions on a technical issue without testing their knowledge is likely to produce a result which does not reflect the true position .

Personal sentiments, emotions and bias on the subject at issue cannot be ruled out as probably affecting the results of the poll. Individuals with a certain persuasions be it political or religious are likely to respond in a particular way. For example, is the partisan nature of the topic. Republicans appear opposed to signing the treaties while Democrats are considered more likely to favor signing the treaty as illustrated in the poll results.

Setting affects poll results, the poll was conducted the week preceding the Global Climate Change conference. This could be a means for canvassing support for US to join the treaty.

Conclusion

Though the poll could be a reflection of the current sentiments of the American people today, there are a lot of questions which can be raised which brings the credibility of the poll into question. For example there appears to be fluctuations in responses with passage of time but that is not adequately captured in the news item. Question 5 which informs the screaming headline could also be questioned as we are not sure if it is accurate because it is not compared to any previous poll.

The poll mentions partisan results but nowhere in the poll is the question of whether one is a Democrat or Republican mentioned. (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/11/30/science/earth/01poll-document.html)

Ethical consideration could be raised regarding who sponsored the poll as we are not aware if there are some influential powers behind the poll as the issue appears to be a political tool to persuade the US to accede to climate change pacts.

References:

Utts, Jessica (2015). Seeing through statistics, 4th edition. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.

Websites:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/11/30/science/earth/01poll-document.html

http://nyti.ms/1Q9utWG

http://nyti.ms/1SLkPJr

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/01/world/americas/us-climate-change-republicans-democrats.html?

http://factivists.democrats.org/two-thirds-of-americans-want-u-s-to-join-climate-pact-while-republicans-continue-to-deny-science-and-public-opinion/

https://www.rt.com/usa/324060-climate-change-paris-americans/