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TechnoratiAmerican Public More Complacent About Climate Change
WASHINGTON - Less than two months before a key international conference on curbing climate change, a major U.S. poll has found a sharp drop in public concern about global warming.
![[]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/watching_tv.jpg "watching_tv.jpg")
According to the survey by the Pew Research Centre for the People & the Press, 65 percent of the public believes that warming constitutes either a "very serious" (35 percent) or "somewhat serious" (30 percent) problem, down from 79 percent in July 2006 and from 73 percent just 18 months ago.
The survey also recorded a sharp drop in the percentage of the public that believes that "there is solid evidence the Earth is warming" - down from 71 percent in April, 2008, to 57 percent - and in the percentage that believes global warming is caused primarily by human activity - from 47 percent to 36 percent over the same period.
The survey of 1,500 adult respondents comes was released just six weeks before the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen where the representatives of 192 nations will gather to hash out the basic principles of a treaty to curb global emissions of greenhouse gases that virtually all climate and atmospheric scientists agree constitute the major cause of global warming.
The treaty would replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol that requires developed countries to reduce their greenhouse emissions by an average of about seven percent below their 1990 emission levels by 2012.
The administration of President Barack Obama has been pushing for Congress to approve new legislation that would commit the U.S., which signed but never ratified the Protocol, to reduce emissions by 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050 before the Copenhagen Conference, in major part to persuade developing countries, such as China and India, to agree to curb their own emissions under the successor treaty.
While the House of Representatives has passed such legislation and the Senate is currently considering its own version of the bill, top officials concede that any final legislation is not likely to be approved until early next year, if then.
Still, the survey found that a majority of 56 percent of respondents said the U.S. should join other countries in addressing climate change, while only 32 percent said the U.S. should set its own standards.
The new poll, which was conducted between Sep. 30 and Oct. 4, will likely strengthen those in Congress who oppose strong, swift action favoured by the administration to deal with warming.
The sharp decline in the percentage of the public that believes that global warming is taking place and that human-generated emissions are responsible for it might best be explained by the degree to which economic and health-care issues have dominated the domestic political debate over the past year, according to Michael Dimock, Pew's associate director of research.
"People are just not thinking about global warming; they're focused more on economic concerns and the health-care debate," he told IPS. "They don't have as fixed an opinion about global warming, because they're not thinking about it much."
Other recent polls, he noted, had shifts in opinion about abortion and immigration "and for a whole host of issues that were really vivid to people two years ago but that have been pushed aside."
Still, the survey's findings are particularly striking in light of the growing scientific consensus that climate change is actually taking place more quickly than was predicted as recently as 2007, when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - a group that includes hundreds of the world's leading climate and atmospheric scientists - issued its last report.
Last month, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) released its 68-page "Climate Change Science Compendium 2009" based on some 400 major peer-reviewed studies published since late 2006.
It found that Earth may rapidly be approaching certain thresholds or "tipping points" that can permanently disrupt entire ecosystems that currently support the lives of millions of people.
The latest studies, it noted, predict that Earth's average temperatures could rise as much as 4.3 degree Celsius - the outer limit of the IPCC 2007 estimates - by the end of the century, even if industrialised nations comply with their most ambitious emission-reduction targets, including the 80 percent emissions reduction by 2050 on which leaders of the Group of 20 nations agreed at their July Summit in L'Aquila, Italy.
"Just a few years ago, we though sea level rise might become an issue in a century or two," said UNEP's executive director, Achim Steiner. "The latest research (on sea level rise) is something that is really quite breathtaking," he said. "It is not inconceivable that sea level rise may reach two metres... in the lifetime of a child born today."
But, if the scientific consensus about the dangers posed by global warming is becoming ever stronger, public opinion in the U.S., as reflected in the latest poll, appears increasingly complacent.
It appears that awareness that global warming was indeed taking place peaked between 2006 and 2007 when "An Inconvenient Truth", the documentary film produced by former Vice President Al Gore, gained considerable media attention, and 2007, the year it won two Academy Awards, or "Oscars".
In polls conducted by Pew in August 2006 and January 2007, 77 percent of respondents said they believed there was "solid evidence the Earth is warming" and 47 percent attributed it to "human activity."
The same polls found that nearly 80 percent of the public considered warming to either a "very" (43 percent and 45 percent, respectively) or "somewhat" (36 percent and 32 percent) serious problem.
But those who agreed that that there was "solid evidence" of warming fell to 71 percent by April 2008 and 57 percent earlier this month, according to the poll. Similarly, those who believed that the warming posed a "very" or "somewhat" serious problem fell to 73 percent in the 2008 poll and to 65 percent in early October.
In terms of party affiliation, the declines were particularly sharp among self-described independents and Republicans. Sixty-two percent of Republicans, fore example, said they believed there was "solid evidence" of warming in 2007, almost twice the current level of 35 percent. Only 18 percent of Republicans attributed warming to human activity.
A 47 percent plurality of Republicans, however, said they believed the U.S. should join other countries in setting standards to address climate change, compared to 39 percent who said the U.S. should its own standard, and nine percent said it should do neither.
By comparison, two thirds of Democrats and 53 percent of independents said Washington should join other countries in taking action to deal with warming.
46 Comments so far
Show AllI just find the AGW believers to be hilarious: No scientists disagree?
A year ago 31,000 actual climate scientists disagreed, and NASA revised its annual temperatures to present 1934 as the hottest year, not 1998 as previously thought. And, sorry little darlings, oceans are not rising as forecast.
And Gore's little side show had nine serious distortions and inaccuracies; and a couple of actual lies. The great hockey stick messiah erased the warming period of one thousand years ago, and the little ice age.
tonyryan -- You're cheating. I've already posted links in previous discussions showing what nonsense the "Oregon Petition" is. Here's one again: http://debunking.pbworks.com/Oregon-Petition . And another: http://greenfyre.wordpress.com/2009/07/12/what-if-the-oregon-petition-names-
were-real/
As I have already posted these, you are now required to actually read them before moving back to square one.
As to the 1934/1998 discrepancy, it's nothing new. I'm afraid your great discovery is no discovery at all. Of course, you are doing the old clumsy denier prestidigitation. Even if 1934 were much warmer (and, oops, it's just a reading for North America, not a global reading) it wouldn't in any way "disprove" the fact of global warming as the whole history of rising temperatures is what is significant, not one year.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/08/1934-and-all-that/
Whoa, you had better get cracking. Isn't it about time for Rush?
"reduce emissions by 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050 before the Copenhagen Conference"
First, by 2050??
Second, Obama can sign an executive order at any time committing the U.S. to reduce emmissions BY NEXT YEAR if he wanted to. He is beholden to the coal and oil companies so any effort to GET Congress to sign on is for SHOW.
Third, people would be more concerned if climate change groups would be more clear on the immediate importance of reducing emmissions.
Asthma, respiratory problems, cancer, etc. are just a few health issues resulting from our polluted air, water, food and land.
If the public was made aware of these immediate concerns, they may be more immediately concerned. Unfortunately, most people are concerned more about themselves only and not about animals or the environment or whether or not the earth will still be here in 30 years.
Sell the immediate direct impact to people and maybe they will GET it and ACT to stop the coal, oil and chemical industries from further eroding our health and our environment.
What we do to our environment, we do to ourselves.
The American public isn't just more complacent about climate change, it's complacent about anything and everything that doesn't directly hinder their ability to drink lots of Bud Light & have really, really, really big flat screen TVs with which to numb their miniscule minds with. For as long as they can continue filling up the tanks in their SUVs with blood-tainted gas from the Middle East and clogging their arteries with McDonald's burgers tainted with Mad Cow Disease, they will be complacent and oblivious to reality. In a sad and convoluted way, they get exactly what they deserve.
So on point & correct.. except that the they (us American's) seem hell-bent on taking down the rest of the planet with our abundant pollution, willful waste & profound ignorance.
Y'know like those desparate folks who instead of just killing themselves they end the lives of their entire families.. well, that's US!
Even the Chinese who have nearly destroyed their environment for the sake of "growth(?)" are taking action to accomplish more with renewable energy than US leadership deems important.. and most of them can't even speak english.
Joking aside, the degree to which industry has contaminated the environment in the US & abroad is profoundly disturbing.
I have the data.
If the US played like grown-ups and actually participated in mitigating its contribution to climate change tomorrow, it would impact the magnitude but not so much the plethora of carcenogenic releases that are degrading the quality of our lives, now and in the future, with ramifications the majority of citizens have yet to fully grasp.
Google TOXIC RELEASES along with the state you live in, which may help to identify causes of peculiar health conditions, but first finish your big mac..
All true. However. How does a poll work? You take a randomly selected group of names from your list and then ..... what list? Where did the list come from? In this case, was it supplied by Fox network, perchance? Or some other, hugely complicit organization? Take a look at the poll done by the 350.org people. Quite a different result. Or the one done by the chap who wrote the other article in today's commondreams headlines. [I can't remember his name, and I don't know how to hold this and go look.] When I was in grad school, the social science grad level statistics classes were either using, or joking about, a textbook called 'How to Lie with Statistics'. It's pretty easy. Then it can be used to justify whatever you want. Our population and society size has way outstripped our social abilities to deal with these complexities, and our media companies [5 of them, worldwide] hold the power to alter the way their viewers think. And they do. Look at Fox network, and the fact that over half our population gets all of their 'information' from Fox. And the trouble is,Trailing Begonia, that when they get what they deserve, my grandchildren will have to deal with it, too. And given the current real timeline [never mind 2100] I'll still be around to help.
The article is by Richard Sclove, posted today. Read it, too. This one, saying the American people are uninterested, is bullshit.
There was no reason to use up a lot of words about this. The photograph of the nice family watching TV tells the whole story.
americans seem to be the funniest, most comically imprudent people on earth - hand in hand with being the most stubborn to face facts unless those facts are what they say - to their satisfaction of course - "clearcut".
exactly HOW clearcut does "global warming" have to be?
something on the order of cities like new york, LA, seattle, baltimore, washington DC, san diego , new orleans, miami, orlando, etc...inundated with floods, getting more "constant' perhaps,,,getting a bit higher each year perhaps...the midwest getting fewer rainful and drying up lakes or rivers perhaps...
or maybe entire industries getting nowhere due to lack of fresh precipitation, perhaps, maybe more tornadoes, maybe more this or that -- perhaps-- a decade from now?
and americans will say:
"oooops...my bad?"
and they await - as they get more and more "faith based" out of their own sheer lack of intellectual acumen or even simple curiousity about things OTHER than "america"..-- the non-existent Messiah
whom they believe even if they DON"T have "clear cut" evidence but eons of hearsay- exaggeration and make believe?
americans are funny...tragically, stupidly, funny. with their noses so far up their asses they can't still sniff the stink of their own tortured position about "things" that don't strike them as "american" enough to "believe".....
meaning
anything that's TRUE and REAL .
theywill continue to live in lala land right up to the day their noses are already deep in shitwater..due to global warming.
"americans are funny...tragically, stupidly, funny. with their noses so far up their asses they can't still sniff the stink of their own tortured position about "things" that don't strike them as "american" enough to "believe"....."
So tragically beautiful...and dead on the spot!
Right-wing idiots are proclaiming that the earth has been cooling for the past eight years. They announce this as if it were true. They also claim that scientists are divided on climate change. When such lies continue to be spread, many uninformed people will believe them.
"People are just not thinking about global warming; they're focused more on economic concerns and the health-care debate"
Then the friggin poll results are invalid. The Pew researcher could have said so, but his number one priority is to protect his job, so he sacrifices the public interests by letting stand the crummy idea that the poll results are valid and should be acted upon. He's a cog in the Pew machine, the machine having a mind of its own - to perpetuate itself.
There a huge amount of progress to made toward self-governance in the "good ol USA", primarily a communications revolution which keeps the people extremely well-informed, with tactics to avoid information overload and distortion. It's not easy, but it's possible to present the issues in ways that allow the people to apply their values consistently. All indications are that the polling organizations are in cahoots with the elite establishment, which wants to keep the people confused and conquered.
The loss of glaciers on land, the shrinking of ice caps at both polls, the expansion of deserts, the receding hardwood forests, and STILL people question IF there is global warming.... Oh year, I forgot, it was colder than normal LAST NIGHT, so I guess that settles the debate....
Climate change is, always has been, and always will be a natural progression. To what extent humans add to this change can be debated, but not refuted. Eventually we will (if we have not already done so), reach the tipping point where the temperatures will begin to cascade downwards. The lowering of the earth's temperatures will be far more rapid and far more dramatic than any of the warming scenarios we've been witness to so far.
Americans are more complacent because we're far more ignorant of the facts. We've been tranquelized by a constant media passification campaign of sports, "reality" tv, soap operas and game shows. Our process foods make us obese and lethargic, the drugs we take cause more illnesses than they cure. We accept a police state thinking that we're being protected, and we accept MSM's version of the "news". Our schools are designed to create subjects, not citizens.
We are, the proverbial child that grew so strong so fast, that we never had to learn to be civilized. The education of the American population will come far too late for the world I fear, and the rest of the world fears the US too much to hold it down and make it listen.
Our strength is our greatest weakness. We are too powerful to need to listen to others, or to make true compromise....
Americans are soft and lazy nihilists. We'll wait for our great new Messiah to fix it all up for us so we won't have to put on a sweater, or unplug our appliances when not in use, or get rid of the "living rooms on wheels" we love to parade around town in, all alone, usually. We Americans are the #1 threat to this entire planet, in every conceivable way...
The argument flows back and forth, is it real or isn't it? Obviously the Climate is changing, it always does. Is GW a fact? Doesn't look like it. The science and predictions at this point is looking quite shakey.
And is it man made. We simply don't know.
The one fact that is indesputable is that we don't know if we could do anything about it if it was true. We don't have any answer at all about that.
And denying to discuss it or denying there is any doubt proves only one thing, they are afraid of the truth.
I totally disagree with your entire post, you sound like an apologetic not a defender of the truth. I'm not going to get into the whole thing (mostly because I don't enough on the subject myself to do so); however, this particular quip begs to be addressed: "The one fact that is indesputable is that we don't know if we could do anything about it if it was true. We don't have any answer at all about that."
Nothing could be further from the truth than that. If we created the problems, only we can correct it. However, the big problem here is that it would require major change and a tremendous shift in attitute and behavior. The culprits in this disaster - the big corporations, mainly, Big Oil - will never cut their bottom lines in order to correct their damage. For them, it's all about the here and the now; they'll never, think, plan, much less worry about 100 or 1,000 years from now. The Earth is here for them to take, pillage and rape not save. Their stockholders now that, even their out-of-control greed is limited by their length of their putrid lives so they're all about today, never tomorrow. Now, you try to change that, huh! And good luck to you in your effort!
Henry -- I enjoy most of your posts on CD. Obviously, we don't agree on much, but we do agree on some significant things; and, anyway, I like to see your viewpoint in the mix.
But your global warming posts look like you just have one card in your "Global Warming" file that you just copy anytime the subject comes up. It's as if you blank out all the responses you get, and when the subject comes up again you reach for that old smudgy card.
Why don't you actually visit RealClimate.org and try to determine why we are saying what we are saying? Read books on the subject to get a background.
The argument doesn't flow back and forth at all. (Other posters are correct in the evolution/creationism/intelligent design "debate" comparison.) There is steadily accumulating evidence of AGW, not to mention that it would be amazing if the 450 billion tons or so of carbon we have released into the atmosphere were somehow (magically?) without effects, especially the effects known and studied for decades, specifically the effect of trapping infrared radiation.
You say, "we don't know if we could do anything about it if it was true". Come on, Henry. That's unworthy of you. Are you a guy just to lie down and take it because "we don't know if we can do anything about it?" It's damn late in the game, but we can try to get those ppm's (parts per million) down as well as prepare for consequences that will certainly come.
So, how about it? Throw away your stock response, learn the science, face the facts, and be part of the solution or at least the mitigation.
Is that Henry8 that I see in the picture with this article? Has he been watching a lot of TV? He seems to have fallen for the big PR push that there is some scientific dispute on Global Warming. There is NO DISPUTE in the scientific community. Global warming is happening.
Henry8 is sure we can't do anything about it so he can comfortably just enjoy the bright colors and lights on the TV and have another beer.
The science is not shaky, there is a human contribution, we could do something about it, but we (meaning the corporations that would loose billions of dollars in profits if we did do something about it) do not want to. It would be difficult, it would hurt, it would require sacrifice, it would infringe on our "freedoms," etc, etc, etc, ad nauseum. The only people afraid to discuss the issue are the deniers. Go to RealClimate ( www.realclimate.org/ ) if you are serious about the real science. From my experience, deniers are never interested in the science, which in this case is borne out by the statement "The science and predictions at this point is looking quite shakey [sic]."
I agree with this. However. If the corporations couldn't sell their product for a fat profit, they would not do it. Every nickel we spend is a political act, supporting a particular product and its producer's point of view. Every nickel. For many years now, I have been trying to assemble enough support to stop the recreational use of internal combustion engines. [That was mostly back when I thought individual actions could have an impact.] Died in the wool environmentalists called me every name imaginable. They are unwilling to give up their ATVs, their 'personal watercraft', their motor yachts and RVs. No boat of mine has ever had an engine, including my 35', 7 ton sailboat. We cannot lay the blame entirely on the corporations, when it is our expenditures, our consumption, which feeds them profit. I know that by and large, the majority of americans get their ideas and philosophies from tv, fox especially. But how about the rest of the people on this website? How many of us have a gas driven recreational device? It is too easy to lay blame on one segment. We have shared in our doom. I just came back from a 350 demonstration here in Bellingham, and I could fit all the people involved in my tiny living room. We are all complicit, some more than others, but all. All.
climate is one thing, industrial destruction and chemical alteration are another...
we're not arguing opinion about climate to avoid discussing blatant destruction and toxification and specicide, are we?
no matter the climate, nothing eats a nurdle, or drinks fracking fluids...when the mountain is blown apart for the coal, or the rainforest burned for grazing, opinion goes quietly home...
our behavior is life-threatening, and must change, let the climate do as it will...
and the radioactivity goes on...and on...and on...thanks to private property...
This poll may be telling us that the American public is more aware of GW than we thought. The poll question of note is 'is there significant evidence that Earth is warming?'. Given the trend of the last decade, I would have to conclude NO. Now, I believe that GW is real, human caused, and a SERIOUS problem for mankind moving forward. But, just based on the temperature trend of the last decade, I can no longer say that the evidence that Earth is warming is 'significant'.
Scientists expect the trend to start up again shortly, and so do I. But, it IS significant (we just don't know of what) that the long term (150 yr) trend took a pause there in the last 10 years.
For myself, once large amounts of glacial ice started calving off Antarctica and Greenland, I wouldn't expect global temperature to continue up. Like the heating of a cup of ice-water, once it reaches the melting point of the ice, the warming trend pauses, and stays paused until the ice has melted. I think we're seeing something like that right now, on a global scale. But I think we'll continue to see upward movement, this is not evidence that GW is natural.
"Now, I believe that GW is real, human caused, and a SERIOUS problem for mankind moving forward. But, just based on the temperature trend of the last decade, I can no longer say that the evidence that Earth is warming is 'significant'."
Ha ha! If you were living in Cuba, you'd beg to differ with your own statement! I'm sure that people in other warm climates throughout the world can attest to the same. Won't be long before those places become extensions of Tierra del Fuego.
Yeah, Al Gore better get cracking on another one of them Powerpoint presentations 'cuz his agenda is losing steam.
Oh yeah, because we're all only doing this because of Al Gore, he's so inspirational.
"we're all only doing this because of Al Gore," - you'd be surprised. Looks like support for the global warming theory peaked at that point. It was, after all, the only view that was presented.
As other sources (whether you believe them, or not is besides the point) started coming out with their theories people started not being so hysteric any more. Fascinating what actual exchange of opinions can do.
Calling the drivel being spewed by AGW deniers "theories" is ridiculous. Calling them opinions is accurate. It is very easy for pseudo-science to prevail in a population that has been brainwashed into doubting real science.
chameleon said: "As other sources.. started coming out with their theories"
Gore's 'theory' was the established climatological explanation for what was going on. By the time of Gore's talk, GW, as a 'theory', was 20 years old, and climatologists had long ago investigated CO2, heat island effect, H2O feedback, solar perturbations, oceanic currents, and every other possibility decades previously.
So, the statement 'as other sources started coming out with their theories' isn't correct, unless you think a theory advanced by a retired electrician working for 2 years in his spare time rates up there with a 20 year old theory by multiple climatologists that appears all over the peer-reviewed scientific literature. And, I think the problem with the GW 'debate' is that too many Americans do, in fact, place the two 'theories' in the same plane, like evolution and 'intelligent design'.
All that is happening here is Gore led a horse to water, but he couldn't make it drink. Mother Nature will make it drink, but by then it may be too late.
All i'm saying there's two sides to the story. You don't care about one of them. I don' care about either one. Either way the little guys (me and you) are gonna be screwed by the elites. The GW theory is the one that seems to want to screw me more right now, thru taxes and shortages.
And the science is not as clear cut as some would want you to believe.
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2009/20090910_summerstats.html
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/06/spread-of-thicker-arctic-ice-seen-last-summer/?emc=eta1
Consider your two sources of information and who/what they represent and that should tell you more than the contents of the articles themselves.
Not sure exatcly what you mean. Numbers don't lie. Whether Limbaugh or Gore spew them they are still numbers.
I would refer you to two articles on RealClimate: Climate Cover-up: A (Brief) Review ( "http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/10/climate-cover-up-a-brief-review/ ) and A warming pause? ( http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/10/a-warming-pause/ ) for a more cogent analysis of what is actually happening.
One doesn't have to be hysteric to know how grave a problem is.
Sea level rise: the scientific consensus is 3ft by end of century. But, regarding the consequences of Polar warming, the scientists have underestimated them continually since they first realized they could be warming. Studies are only beginning to incorporate realistic numbers for ice-sheet melting, but already studies that do so estimate 6 ft by end of century as a worst case. I believe the science will eventually settle on 8ft by end of century, with 3 ft possible in the next 20 years. Furthermore, because an ice-sheet can undergo significant internal weakening by melting before collapsing into the ocean, I believe the first 3 ft is inevitable no matter what we do now. Inevitable and essentially permanent.
I find it sad that, even as the science begins to better understand the consequences of global warming, Americans are less concerned about it. If you think what I just related is pessimistic, consider that none of it accounts for methane gas release in Arctic permafrost. That has the potential to blow the lid off ALL global warming consequences. If it does, I wonder if Americans will be able to retain their sanguine attitude about it all. This is truly an uncontrolled experiment, and Americans are carefully training themselves not to look at the results.
Considering the amount of money the "energy" corporations are pouring into attempting to discredit the scientific research, this result is not surprising. In a country where almost half of the population believes the Earth is less than 10,000 years old, it is not difficult to sway popular opinion using pseudo-scientific arguments to the real science. The result is: "This is just too confusing! Let's watch the game on TV."
I sometimes wonder how many are actually aware that they are living on an isolated ball in remote space...a finite ball, currently featuring living systems and material, that may no longer, and possibly soon...
Many among us may be aware of this in a distant, dreamy way, but not in a conscious, moment-to-moment, behavior-affecting way...we are physically one with the relatively small, living world, and will live or die along with it...
Maybe we need to take off our shoes...touch the planet with every step, to reinforce the real connection between the dirt and our bodies...the air and our spirits...
The image that came to mind when I read this article was of the American public as a criminal condemned to die, but who is given a sedative to make him comfortable before the lethal dose is administered.
The mental picture I get is fattend calves being led to the slaughter house....moo!
"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." - John Keats
Despair may not accomplish anything, but there comes a time when, though it's not a destination you would choose, it's the spot you find yourself in.
The findings of this highly respected poll (and probably more to follow) mean that the cap-and-trade proposals circulating in Congress have a snowball's chance in the year 2100. On the other hand, Kyoto has amply demonstrated that cap-and-trade doesn't work anyhow. Even this fatally compromised meaningless gesture is something beyond our grasp.
Most Americans are fully prepared to remain oblivious forever and watch the world disintegrate before their blind eyes, blaming it all on liberals. When the earth is finally uninhabitable because of American indifference, 67%, or 72%, or 38%, or 49% will STILL deny global warming is caused by human activity. Because they'll still have a need to protect the rights of corporations to extract the highest possible profits at the expense of the entire world. Capitalism will remain the religion of these know-nothings to the bitter end, even if it is the direct cause of that most bitter of ends. Plenty of bangs and whimpers will be heard in in all quarters.
Thank you Faux News.
"Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the shadow"
Pretty much.
Another article on this poll mentioned that another polling group which has polled on beliefs about the climate crisis has seen no evidence of a recent change.
See:http://comm.stanford.edu/faculty/krosnick/
and:http://woods.stanford.edu/research/surveys.html
Brian
However, this poll does seems to accord with the the trends, admitedly anecdotal, of attitudes and actions of people around me. Several of my co-workers are, or are considering, buying an SUV again, and when I ride the bus, I see fewer people than ever who are middle class "riders-of-choice". My proof-of-concept lithium electric motor scooters generate zero interest - even among scooter enthusiasts. And I can assure you that I cound ask hndreds of random people in my area if "350.org" means anything to them and get zero responses.
Don't give up on the scooter idea. Unfortunately, our zombie media has succeeded at making zombies of most of the population. Time will come when your idea will be popular.
Whether any particular individual believes or doesn't believe that climate change finds its origin in human activity is irrelevant.
Having said that, I'm convinced it does and I believe we need to do something about it.
To those who doubt the human cause of climate change, I say this: If we act and it turns out I'm wrong, we'll merely have spent billions and billions of dollars cleaning up the environment.
If you're wrong, we all die.
Know when to fold 'em, gambler.