From the Pew Research Center:
Views about the existence and causes of global warming have changed little over the past year. A new Pew Research Center poll finds that 59% of adults say there is solid evidence that the earth’s average temperature has been getting warmer over the past few decades. In October 2009, 57% said this.
Roughly a third (34%) say that global warming is occurring mostly because of human activity, such as the burning of fossil fuels, which also is little changed from last year (36%).
The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted Oct. 13-18 among 2,251 adults reached on landlines and cell phones, finds that 32% say global warming is a very serious problem while 31% think it is somewhat serious. A year ago, 35% described global warming as a very serious problem and 30% said it was somewhat serious.
In 2006, far more Americans said there was solid evidence that the average temperature has been rising over the past few decades. In July of that year, 79% believed there was evidence of global warming, and half (50%) said it was mostly caused by human activity. Much of the change in attitudes about global warming occurred between April 2008 and last fall, with the decline coming mostly, though not entirely, among Republicans and independents. (See “Fewer Americans See Solid Evidence of Global Warming,” Oct. 22, 2009).
Two other indicators of opinion on the issue were not included in the October 2009 survey, and both show significant changes from earlier polls. Currently, 46% of the public says global warming is a problem that requires immediate government action. In July 2006, 61% said the issue needed immediate action. This decline is mostly a consequence of the fact that fewer now say global warming is a problem.
The public is divided on the question of whether scientists themselves agree that the earth is warming because of human activity: 44% say scientists agree, and 44% say they do not. In July 2006, when a much higher percentage of the public said there was solid evidence of global warming, 59% said that scientists agree that global warming is caused by humans, while just 29% said scientists do not agree.
The new survey finds continuing support for a range of policies to address the nation’s energy supply, including requiring improved vehicle fuel efficiency and increasing federal funding for research on wind, solar and hydrogen technology. Support for allowing more offshore oil and gas drilling – which declined during the Gulf of Mexico oil leak – has rebounded modestly. Currently, 51% favor allowing more offshore oil and gas drilling, up from 44% in June.
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Read the complete report here
Caveat: some of the usual suspects will complain that the graph I presented has “bias” due to it showing only the range of change in the data on the Y axis, and not the full possible range.
If lodging such a complaint, please consider lodging a complaint about the Y axis of these graphs also:
Sea Ice, Sea Level, Temperature rise
Thank you for your consideration – Anthony
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Interesting to see these kinds of polls. It should be remembered that public opinion is as fickle as the weather, and of course, everyone is happy and optimistic and “bullish” just at the height before a stock market crash, just as everyone is down and negative, at the stock market bottom. Best to stick with science, and realize that public perception means very little…
Funny but the first thing I thought about when looking at the graph was you were going to get complaints about the restrained Y axis. Being an engineer I try to look at graphs I make in various ways to see if I can justify a smaller dependant variable axis range. I have no issue with your presentation.
Barry S.
This is bad news for contrarians.
We may need to switch sides if belief in AGW stays low for much longer.
Anyone know some good arguments for why AGW is real and dangeresque? I’d hate to have to rely solely on the uncertainty principle and black box computer models.
Oh my! How will they “hide the decline” ?
Interesting times….
As the great George Carlin said:
Pack your sh**s folks….we are leaving!
One thing the chart does NOT show is that the remaining believers are increasingly from the left hand side of the IQ bell curve. Every day, it gets more difficult for any sane person with an IQ much over a hundred can believe ANY of this climate alarmism.
The first people with the intellectual ability to see through the fraud, on the other hand, are from the far right side of the same bell curve. There seems to be a clear, positive correlation between increased name calling and the dwindling intellectual abilities among believers.
Interesting that most of the drop occurred during the 2008 La Nina and not after climategate.
I kind of miss the true believers…. kind of.
It is nice to see that the belief is dropping, but there are still so many misconceptions about climate that another series of hot summers or winters could swing the belief back to believing in it.
That is why it is important to make sure that people understand the actual climate of the Earth and not the garbage that is spewed out by so many. Teach the science, that is the key and that is the direction I am trying to take.
John Kehr
The Inconvenient Skeptic
Am I right to thing that the answer to “is it a problem requiring immediate government action” a very slim majority of 51% against (No+Not a problem/dk)?
The Scientific American poll, the carbon exchange flatline & now this. What next: Hell freezes over?
R. Gates says:
Interesting to see these kinds of polls
++++++++++++++
Seeing as poll results are all about consensus, this is an important (inevitable, given the facts) change. If science doesn’t run on consensus, as Dr Judith says http://judithcurry.com/2010/10/25/heresy-and-the-creation-of-monsters/ and politics does, we know how to interpret AGW arguments at places like RC that rely completely on ‘the consensus’.
I will not be shy to mention that public consensus on AGW is becoming settled as the public become more informed than previously. It seems that the CAGW promoters were short on scientific proof and long on political consensus. Interesting. The problem was the Team proclaiming that political consensus = scientific fact and therefore there was no need to look further into it. It seems the realities of life have not fully sunk in yet though:
“An emerging consensus that the globe either is not warming or if there it is there is no urgency about doing something about it, as if we could affect in the first place…..hmmm…. [thinks]….. sounds like…a fascist idea. Yeah! Fascist! That’s a good emotive word! Sort of reminiscent of Holocause denial – and that worked pretty well before :~)
“We need a new Team word for ‘climate denier’ to go with ‘climate disruption’….. How about a press release that claims, ‘widespread fascist manipulation of the main stream media creating distortions in the science’. Oh wait, that’s us.
“Hmmm…. [thinks]….”
Why do 46% say it requires government action where only 34% believe in AGW?
BS Footprint says: “Oh my! How will they “hide the decline” ?”
I love a challenge:
Eco-alarmist press release:
Latest poll shows increasing numbers of people accept solid evidence for catastrophic mannmade global warming
A recent opinion poll showed a dramatic increase from 57% to 59% of those who accept the solid evidence of catastrophic mannmade global warming, and a reduction in those who believe it is due to natural causes from 18 to 16%, the number of people who rejected the idea that global was not a problem also rose from 69% to 71%.
I.A.midiot the smokesperson for eco-fascists united said: “this is tremendous news and just shows that more and more people are coming to accept the need for government action to fight mannmade global warming”
etc.
I often ask belivers if they have personally been affected by global warming and the best they can do is mention polar bears and arctic ice. but i point out that they dont live there and they are stumped as to how to respond. yet they often babble on about its effects being all around us
I would think that a big objection from AGW supporters would be that the sum of Very Serious and Somewhat Serious is still 63% …
We live during very interesting times. We have witnessed the greatest, and most damaging hoax of all time being perpetrated, and now coming apart. It will be something to tell the Grandchildren.
R. Gates says: October 27, 2010 at 9:36 am
Interesting to see these kinds of polls. It should be remembered that public opinion is as fickle as the weather. Best to stick with science, and realize that public perception means very little…
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R Gates. The climate ‘Science’ is shonky and the general public has realised this. It means a lot Mr. Gates. The politicians depend upon public opinion. The pack of cards is falling.
You better get over it.
Doug
Proving you can’t fix stupid …
I have found a site with a new product that makes me feel like changing my light bulbs. http://www.odorkillingbulb.com has compact fluorescent bulbs that not only save energy, they also kill odors, kill bacteria, kill viruses including MRSA, and it kills germs. Now my bathroom never has unpleasant smells. I have them in the whole house and never get dog smell now. Try them and you will love them like I do.
REPLY: Besides being totally off topic, this post violates site policy by placing a link advertising a product at another website. I followed the link, because I was curious. My impression after visiting the website is that this is a SCAM of the highest order. Note for example one of the supposed byproducts of the SaniBulb:
But then in another part of the website you say:
http://www.sanibulb.com/p/Air-Sanitizing-Purifying-Deodorizing-CFL-Bulbs.html
SaniBulb™ Helps Fight Global Warming
Light is powered mainly by coal burning power plants and natural gas, both of which create greenhouse gases (GHG) that cause global warming. The EPA estimates that 1.535 lbs of greenhouse gases are released into the a™osphere for every kilowatt hour of electricity generated by a coal-fired plant.
Replacing a single 100 watt conventional incandescent light bulb with a 25 watt SaniBulb™ can prevent more than 169 pounds of coal from being burned and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 814 pounds over the lifetime of the bulb. This is over 4,000 times SaniBulbs™ own weight in greenhouse gases!!
Yeah, right. No mention of how much CO2 byproduct the SaniBulb produces. And, I’m not so sure that I want hydroxl free radicals floating around in the air that “destroy cell walls and DNA in germs”. I take it then you’ve found a way to make those free radical molecules follow your wishes and only target germs, but not throats or nasal passages?
Sorry, color me unimpressed, I think this is a product with oversold claims. Though I do applaud you for saying “carbon dioxide is harmless” in the image above.
– Anthony
Interesting, I suppose. In general though people seem to have short memories. I wonder what poll result differences there would be if they asked these questions twice a year – dead-of-winter February and high-summer August.
By the way, are we coming on to the one-year birthday of Climategate yet or did that already happen?
A pity the poll data does not go further back. It would be interesting to see what kind of correlation there is between the average temperature of the mainland and the people who believe in AGW.
Fortunately beliefs have no bearing on truth.
————–
R. Gates,
The exception being that on Nov 2 in the USA, while the voting places are open, public opinion will be definitive over what science/scientist is funded to do for several years or so. : ) All that gov’t money has strings attached ultimately to the voting dudes/dudettes.
Lets see what happens in that public opinion poll on Nov 2 in the USA.
John
“Immediate government action”? Yea right, is there anything governments can’t do now… They’re so powerful they can rule out a planet’s climate.