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US Still Skeptical About Global Warming: Survey
WASHINGTON - More Americans than at any time in the past decade believe that the seriousness of global warming is being exaggerated, a Gallup poll showed Thursday.
Forty-one percent of Americans told Gallup pollsters that they are doubtful that global warming is as serious as the mainstream media are reporting, putting public skepticism about the hot-button issue at the highest level recorded by Gallup in more than a decade.
An iceberg in North Bay, Rothera Point, Adelaide Island, Antarctica. Months before make-or-break climate negotiations, a conclave of scientists warned Tuesday that the impact of global warming was accelerating beyond a forecast made by UN experts two years ago. (AFP/Science/Ho/Pete Bucktrout) The previous high came in 2004, when 38 percent of Americans said news reports exaggerated the seriousness of global warming.
Gallup's 2009 environment poll, which surveyed 1,012 adults by land- and mobile phone line between March 5 and 8, also showed that Americans ranked global warming last out of eight environmental issues that respondents were asked to give a score to based on their level of concern about the topic.
The pollution of drinking water was deemed the greatest source of concern, with 84 percent of respondents saying it worried them.
Other issues that were ranked -- and beat global warming by at least five percentage points -- were water pollution in general, toxic contamination of soil and water, fresh water supply, air pollution, loss of rain forests, and the extinction of plants and animals.
The number of Americans who thought global warming is already affecting the planet has also fallen, from 61 percent in March last year to 53 percent this year.
And a record high 16 percent of Americans told Gallup pollsters that they believe the effects of global warming "will never occur."
The poll results suggest "that the global warming message may have lost some footing with Americans," Gallup analyst Lydia Saad said.
"Americans generally believe global warming is real ... (but) most Americans do not view the issue in the same dire terms as the many prominent leaders advancing global warming as an issue," she said.
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18 Comments so far
Show AllIt is typical of Americans to disregard the opinions of the best scientists in the world when those opinions require them to adjust to a lower-consumption lifestyle, while at the same time buying into the marketing hype of the bottled-water companies in their misplaced concern over the quality of their drinking water.
Or maybe I misunderstood, and it's the quality of drinking water in the Third World that has Americans worried.
Yeah, right.
It's unfortunate that in today's highly politicized world, even opinions by many scientists are to be questioned.
The whole military-industrial-EDUCATIONAL complex is geared towards delivering what the government masters desire. If you want to prove global warming, you might get that federal grant. But if you choose to prove otherwise, lots-a-luck.
How could so many scientists be misled? The same exact way practically all in our Congress were used to initiate Bush's wars.
That's just utter nonsense.
The government, particularly with lots of Bush-era hires still at their desks, is largely in the pocket of industry and is more inclined to fund biased pro-coal and oil research.
Afraid of losing your SUV and your big exuburban house near an interstate exit? Afraid you might have to move to the city and ride on a bus full of black people to work?
---USAn---
Yeah right. Environmental Henny-Penny's control the government, as opposed to the most powerful industry in the history of the world (fossil fuels, who also btw demanded the "War" on Iraq).
Your silliness is good for a morning laugh.
I actually take zorex's comment a little more seriously. Just a few decades ago, "Science" was practically worshiped. One spoke of a "man of science" with great and enormous respect; and such people had enormous political clout. As a result, the powers that be went about the process of harnessing as many to their own ends as they could. Therefore, we have seen a progressive and cumulative process of corruption of fields of intellectual inquiry. Where we once saw the idealized scientist, researcher or professor, we have now been disabused of our illusions. The God has fallen, everything is corrupt, nothing is to be believed.
As with anything, getting through this mess means understanding it in more detail. Grasping the specificity of various sciences, understanding how they work, which fields have been corrupted, and how the forces of corruption play their game. Until we can identify that fields like physics, geology and climatology are as different as night and day from "captured" fields like economics, medical research/molecular biology, nutrition and toxicology, we won't know where to put some element of veracity and where to be on our guard.
As a start, it might be edifying to look at a copy of Journal of the AMA, which is so full of ads that it looks like Vogue. Compare it to, say, Physical Review Letters. Understanding that biology departments have been bought and paid for by pharmaceutical money, whereas physics or geology are poor cousins, and that peer review can not operate in fields, like medicine, where it is accepted policy to keep data and results secret, is the first step in clarifying all of this.
Of course, it's a big task; but then, in the end each individual has to learn what is dependable and what is not. That goes for all of us. It doesn't make any difference how many PhDs you have - I have two, but there is always _something_ one is not going to know.
Good luck - to all of us. I hope you are successful because we need you - this problem of recklessly spewing greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere is very, very serious.
Global warming is complex and easy to obfuscate. It requires multivariate analysis and an understanding of risk management. There is an army of oil company and coal company propagandists out there casting doubt and confusion. People do not know who to believe.
The effect of CO2 on the ocean and its life forms is at the level of High School science - easier to understand, illustrate and prove. That, in and of itself, is an extremely serious problem and perhaps should be highlighted as well as global warming.
I once wrote a science curriculum unit for late elementary school on seashells. It included one experiment of putting locally collected clam shells in different solutions, using different amounts of vinegar to acidify the PH of the seawater. We measured and compared the rate at which the shell dissolved daily. Results are straightforward and dramatic.
Joe
I'm surprised the GW skeptics and deniers haven't jumped all over this. It disheartens me to hear, but also coincides with the basic psychology of how people react when confronted with something as massive as global climate change. Hell, people are good at denying things right in front of their faces which they are responsible for, let alone something as amorphous as climate change which they can be in 'plausible' denial about. It is much simpler to deny the severity or existence of the threat than to begin the hard work of change. And that is a human trait, not just an American one.
What distresses me, though, is how willing people are to believe that global climate change will be less severe than predicted. It could just as easily be more severe. And that is a gamble that people seem willing to take, or that 41 percent of the polled people want to take. Which begs the question, how representative was that poll...
From the movie Doctor Zhivago:
"It gives you pleasure to believe the worst doesn't it?"
"It would give me pleasure to hear you admit it."
"And why is that?"
"Because it is so."
"Your attitude has been noticed you know; oh yes, its been noticed."
We must learn to be skeptical of our skepticism.
I doubt that.
"US Still Skeptical About Global Warming: Survey"
An earlier CD article pointed out that the conservative polluters are spending lots of money on MSM and online propaganda against global warming. They work for Mammon.
Liberal non-industry scientists and most of the online public don't get paid for information they post. They work for the people.
One best way to separate science from propaganda is to consider the source: A rule of thumb is don't trust conservative sources. They have caused every disaster known to man but still own the microphone.
It will be interesting to see how polluters explain the studies showing that CO2-acidifying oceans will be devoid of marine life in the near future. But I guess when all else fails, ridicule and Chicken Little arguments have some clout with the sheeple.
Climate change is like a coke bottle falling from above
"To free a nation from error is to enlighten the individual and it is only to the degree that an individual is receptive of the truth that a nation can be free from that vanity which ends in national ruin."
- Homer Lea
Once the lower part of Manhattan is under water, as well as numerous Eastern coastal areas, it may be that global warming will become a reality for the United States. Substantial change, here, usually comes by way of a sizeable body count.
'41% of Americans doubtful of the seriousness of global warming.'
I wonder if this is the same percentage who belive in angels and the literal interpretation of the Bible...
Walk in peace.
I ALWAYS LAUGH AT THE DENIERS SAYING THAT HUMANS CANT EFFECT THE CLIMATE HAVE YOU DRANK OUT OF THE HUDSON RIVER LATELY?BACK IN THE EARLY 70 S THE CUYAHOGA RIVER ACTUALLY CAUGHT ON FIRE ,GLOBAL WARMING ASIDE WE ARE POISONING THIS PLANET AND ABUSEING WATER AND LAND RESOURCES WITH THIS SELF INDULGENT CONSUMTIVE LIFE WE ARE LIVEING .HOW IS IT NOBODY THINKS.EVEN IF WE GET BEYOND OUR CURRENT FINANCIAL CRISIS DO YOU REALLY THINK WE GO BACK TO THIS WAY OF LIFE AS IF NOTHING IS WRONG .PEOPLE BETTER WAKE UP AND VOLUNTARILY CHANGE THE WAY THEY LIVE..
MITAKUTE OYASIN
ALL MY RELATIONS
News flash folks: Global warming is over.
Search CD for the article "How Global Warming May Cause the Next Ice Age". It describes the mechanism by which global warming causes ice age. From the record of ice ages attained by drilling ice cores, global warming usually causes ice age within an average 3 years. The article also describes a lot of what we've experienced in recent years, particularly cool summers and lengthening and intensifying winters.
What's more is the Arctic sea ice is now COMPLETELY gone. Check www.flashearth.com to see that for yourself. Be sure to select the Yahoo! Maps version of the Earth map there. This was predicted last summer and came to fruition about October of last year. All that fresh water is slowing the ocean current which is going to send the planet into an ice age, which means year round permafrost descending across Canada and into Northern America. The South Pole on the other hand is bigger than it ever was in all of human history. Which means the cooling that is being caused by the past few decades warming is well underway.
Good thing about that is, hopefully things will get cool enough quick enough that Greenland doesn't go in the drink and cause massive flooding.
The Tom Hartmann article you reference was published over 5 years ago, and does not represent the mainstream opinion on climate change. I'm not saying his ideas are wrong, or far-fetched--there's real science there, a hypothesis about how the so-called "conveyor-belt" might behave based on its behavior in the past.
But there are more variables in play, too many for us to be 100% certain in our predictions. The latest reports from the IPCC are usually cautious in their predictions in order to minimize making shaky claims, but their most pessimistic predictions have been exceeded by actual events in the last few years.
You would hope the precautionary principle would be of more interest when we consider things like large-scale changes to the balance of the ecology, atmosphere, or climate, but when it comes to influencing public perceptions, the IPCC and other environmental advocacy groups can't really compete with the huge PR efforts of the oil and auto companies. It's going to get worse--good luck.