From Gallup News: Global Warming Concern Steady Despite Some Partisan Shifts
by Megan Brenan and Lydia Saad
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Partisan gaps across global-warming measures slightly wider than in 2017
- Democrats view global warming seriously; Republicans view it skeptically
- 69% of Republicans, 4% Democrats say global warming is exaggerated
This story is part of a special series on Americans’ views of the environment, global warming and energy.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Americans’ concerns about global warming are not much different from the record-high levels they were at a year ago. However, the views of some partisans have shifted, creating larger gaps than what Gallup saw last year across all questions about global warming.
Gallup’s annual survey about the environment, conducted March 1-8, found that Americans’ opinions about global warming, like many other issues, have increasingly become politically polarized.
In general, Democrats view global warming seriously, while Republicans view it skeptically:
- Ninety-one percent of Democrats and 33% of Republicans say they worry a great deal or fair amount about global warming, but 67% of Republicans worry only a little or not at all.
- While 82% of Democrats think global warming has already begun to happen, only 34% of Republicans agree. Rather, 57% of Republicans think it will not happen in their lifetime (25%) or will “never happen” (32%).
- About seven in 10 Republicans (69%) think the seriousness of global warming is exaggerated in the news, 15% think it is generally correct and 15% say it is generally underestimated. Democrats, however, are much more likely to think the seriousness of global warming is underestimated (64%) or correct (32%), and just 4% say it is exaggerated.
- Eighty-six percent of Democrats versus 42% of Republicans think most scientists believe global warming is occurring. The percentage of Republicans who say most scientists believe this is down 11 percentage points since last year.
- Almost nine in 10 Democrats say increases in the Earth’s temperature over the last century are due to human activities more than natural changes in the environment. Just 35% of Republicans agree, while 63% attribute the temperature increases to natural environmental causes.
- Four in five Republicans do not think global warming will pose a serious threat to them in their lifetime; two-thirds of Democrats think it will.
Full report here
Mike Bastasch at The Daily Caller observes:
“With Trump reversing many of his predecessors’ policies aimed at curbing global warming, Democrats are feeling a greater sense of urgency about the issue, while Republicans have either remained as skeptical as they had been in the past or have become more so,” reads Gallup’s poll analysis.
For example, the percentage of Republicans and Independents who believe global warming is caused by human activities fell 5 percent and 7 percent, respectively, from 2017 to 2018. Democrats, on the other hand, increasingly saw global warming as man-made.
Democrats are still flushed over the success of their acuity over recent scientific discovery of 48 new genders. They are on a roll.
Following on the heels of that monumental discovery that you can borrow your way to wealth!
If we had only known we could simply print as much money necessary for everyone to be rich decades ago!
“everyone to be rich decades ago!” The only problem would be a cup of coffee would cost $1000.00
So, the computer model generated global warming forecasts are politically divided, eh? Actually, it would be better for all concerned if these artificial forecasts be placed where they will be the most useful – the paper shredder.
Or the bit bucket! :))
My observation would be that the left (progressives) have become more militant about EVERYTHING after Trump’s election.
Too true. Recognizing that a basically political issue is just that is growing, and AGW is definitely a political issue.
I think the problem with the Left is that their party has been infiltrated by leftists.
(Militant factions of anarchists, socialists, communists & ecologists)
This is why conservatism is met with aggression and hate speech. People marching in the streets with hateful signage and wearing Black Masks. They are the ones who attack those that disagree with them. They are the ones who fire guns into research facilities if they don’t agree with the research being done or the Scientists doing said research.
Bryan – “Ecologists”??? You put ecologists with socialists, communists and anarchists? What have ecologists done to deserve your animosity?
” They are the ones who fire guns into research facilities if they don’t agree with the research being done or the Scientists doing said research.” Did I miss something? What’s this about?
The hate speech and aggression go both ways. The Left think that Trump encourages it, and they have a good case. The Left loathe Trump and fear that the country is being taken over by far right. And the Left are pompous and elitist, I can see that, but the Right seem to me filled with a hate and bitterness I don’t think is on the Left so much. I’ve heard many on the Left talk about wanting to bridge the gap, but never have I heard that on the Right. Why is that?
You know what I fear? Conservatives will disparage academia so much that their kids won’t go to college. There NEED to be more conservatives in academia! The country needs highly educated conservatives and academia needs them so kids get a well-rounded educations. The Right needs to stop complaining and blaming and do something about it. Encourage your kids to get PhDs! (I’m not saying academia is the only way to be highly educated – not by a long shot. But a graduate degree s a rigorous, structured, education with both depth and breadth. At least mine was; I assume they all are.)
I’m a liberal, but I am conservative-friendly (how’s that for weird in this day and age?). Best friend is very conservative. I find it appalling that political partisanship is tearing our country apart. People talk about civil war!
It’s quite a bummer not hating conservatives, and having to read a lot of anti-liberal comments, but that’s what I get for barging in on y’all.
Kristi Silber on March 29, 2018 at 12:06 am
Project much?
Kristi …. I just don’t see it …. your alleged “hate and bitterness” that exist on the right as a result of Trump. I don’t see crowds of conservatives shutting down free speech at Universities. How do you come to the conclusion that Trump defending himself from the never ceasing barrage of lies and media spin somehow equates to a good case on the lefts part that Trump is encouraging hate speech and aggression?
If anything, the right is energized that they elected a candidate that will stand up to media and leftist academic establishments, and refuses to just roll over and let the left define the conversation.
On the topic of Global Warming, the Left, and the Media have ruled the day, with skeptical voices be branded “deniers”, and conservative politicians being afraid to stand up for truth and real science! Trump …. not so much! Trump had the audacity to adopt the true scientific method and proclaim ….. “prove it”, and until then, we will be pulling out of this charade. Pulling out of Paris, pulling out of the demonization of CO2, and all the flimsy policy put in place by the previous admin to push towards a collectivist society.
AGW is a political issue, plain and simple. There is no science to back it up outside of wrongly applied physics and the virtual world of computers. Trump had the audacity to acknowledge such, and it is the Left that is full of hate and bitterness about it.
Dear Kristi- I’ve been conservative, in the sense lf conserving and promoting the good in society, since about the time I understood what political was in 7th grade. It was a liberal girl from a wealthy family trying to convince us that the government running schools was a good idea and would help a lot. What really convinced me was Lyndon Johnson and is disasterous Great Spociety and War on Poverty programs. In 1950 a greater percentage of relatively poor Black folks were married, with chidren White folks and doing better faster economically. By 1975 the unmarried mother, often with multiple children with different fathers, was at 50% in the Black community. Now it’s 70%. How’s that for progress? Soon it’s likely to be 90% for most less than affluent people. All the public aid specifically kept it from going to intact families, greatly promoting the myth that unmarried women could be a better parent than a family and driving fathers out of their children’s lives.
Hate speech and agression do not go both ways. Show me even one college campus where conservatives shut down an invited speaker or got liberal speakers disinvited. It perhaps has happened, but Liberal students have shut out opposing view points from speaking at many colleges and universities. It’s almost a daily happening.
You fear conservative people won’t go to college? Why of course, many can get better jobs than putting off work for 4-8 years and working as semi-slave while in school in order to get into a higher ed teaching job or work for a government program. Face it, for at least half of students college, especially paid for by loans, is a bad choice. Plenty of research shows that only about 1/3 of students in STEM programs graduate in <6 years and aren't deeply in debt. The rest are basically in trouble for the rest of their lives due to money problems. When I was in school several schools, and several papers pointed out that only about 25% of the population can reasonably complete college satisfactorily. The rest are better suited by reason of inclination, skills, and intelligence to other work. It's called the Bell curve. Everybody cannot do everything equally well.
The other issue is that well over 90% of professors and people working in higher ed are deeply liberal and think they have all the answers- equality, rights, identity, social justice. Those terms are all dog whistles for Marxicommupostmodern thought ideas that don't jibe at all with human behavior.
I apologize for the rant Anthony, so back to climate change.
Kristi, the climate meme began amongst liberal activists in the 1970's and had it's fruition in the UN Framework Convention of Climate Change, a purely political ploy with the admitted goal of a world society without the Dreaded Capitalism and devoted to "spreading the wealth around" through politcal power. It was never about climate, it was never about pollution, it was never about coping with the natural diasters around us. It was purely political power. It says so right in the base documents
Kristi – re: shots fired at research building – “Did I miss something? What’s this about?”
http://whnt.com/2017/04/24/multiple-shots-fired-into-uah-building-over-the-weekend/
UAH collects temperature data from space that is not influenced by urban heat island effects, jet engine exhaust, etc. The results do not agree with CAGW.
surveyed 1000+ people by randomly calling cell and land line numbers…..
They did not survey one single conservative…..no conservative would pick up the phone and talk to them
…is this the same Gallup that gotten all their other polls wrong
I would talk to them.
I’m sure you would. However, they know you’re a conservative so they’ve “lost” your number.
Lat, but still proving Abraham Lincoln’s famous statement is mostly correct: “You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”
Up to others to identify the political parties of “Some of the People all”, “all the People some” and “cannot All the People all”
They also seem to have become more militant about some of their other favourite causes, like open immigration and more gun restrictions…
Oops ristvan beat me to it!
“Believe Global Warming is caused by human activities.”
This question is just as deceptive as the Alarmists use of the data. I expect that most people reading the question & results will translate that as human production of CO2. Period. And, Alarmists will ignore whatever portion of the warming coming from natural causes / variation and ascribe 100% to man made CO2.
You would think that the Gallup organization would understand the idea of bias in the questions.
They do. And they will apply whatever bias those paying for the poll ask for.
+ Lots and Lots.
Note this, please – it is the old principle of ‘He or she, or whichever of the 50+ genders we reference, who pays the piper calls the tune”!
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Sure wish I could give you a +1 without posting.
“•Democrats view global warming seriously”…. that should be ‘Democrats view global warming religiously!’
Cheers!
Joe
“•Democrats view global warming seriously”…. that should be ‘Democrats view global warming Histrionically!’
I really hate that comparison with religion. It’s an insult to those who have true religious faith. It also implies that Democrats can’t be skeptics – true skeptics, who genuinely question their beliefs and confront their biases. Well, I could just as easily say the same about Republicans. Face it, we’re all biased and we’re all influenced by others. Knowing one’s biases is necessary to counteracting them.
Democrats certainly can become what I prefer to call Climate Realists. Up until 2007, I simply believed what we were being told about CO2 and climate. I had no reason not to believe it. Ironically, it was because of who I saw as a climate crank posting letters in a local paper that I went in search of what I assumed would be easy responses to counter his claims. In order to do that though, I had to see what “the other side” was saying, and up until then, I wasn’t even aware that there was another side, with the exception of the occasional climate crank, who I thought had to be crazy. I began comparing and contrasting, going to various sites. Within about a month, I began to suspect that there were serious flaws in the global warming arguments. I never wrote that letter, but instead, within two or three months began writing my own Skeptic/Climate Realist letters. The responses were instructive – highly emotional, pompous,and showing zero knowledge about they pretended to know about. This told me that the issue on their side was one based on propaganda. This put me, a solid Democrat in an extremely awkward position. I knew the Democrats were horribly wrong on this issue, so I could no longer vote for Democrats at the national and state level. I voted for Obama in 2008, but only because McCain was also on the climate bandwagon, and I hoped Obama might soften his stance, but no, he hardened it. So in 2012, I voted solidly Republican for the first time in my life. I prefer to think of myself as an Independent now, but the reality is, I can’t vote Democratic anymore, because of the climate issue. I did the same in 2016, voting for Trump even though I knew he was horribly flawed. I still view him that way, but will likely vote for him again in 2020.
Actually, Kristi Silber, it is more like the analysis by Eric Hoffer in “The True Believer” that mass movements will have a stereotypical set of behaviors, and politics often acts in a way very similar to an evangelical religion. The environmentalists, if regarded as a mass movement, often act in a quasi-religious manner.
That is not to claim that all persons concerned about the environment are part of the mass movement, but some definitely are.
“You would think that the Gallup organization would understand…..”..Really? Why? If Gallop was really interested in the truth, why not ask the question…”How much warming has taken place in the last 100 years? ” Very interesting to see how this was answered by the 91% of Dems that are ‘worried’. It would be very telling frankly….how ridiculously uninformed they are! I would be willing to wager that a large percentage would say 2-3 or more degrees. It would be interesting also to see how they would answer to the amount of sea level rise since the end of the last glaciation period (350-400 ft)…It would be interesting to see how many would even know when the last glaciation period ended…..and it would be really interesting to see if they even knew we are still in an ice age..Quanternary….and lastly it would be the most interesting to see if they knew that we are in a much colder than average climate than what has been the norm for the last 500-600 million years. Ave temps above 20 degrees Celsius….now around 14.5.
You think conservatives would perform better?
Yes
Why bother with an expensive survey for Dems when you can just ask a handful of media publishers, editors, Party leaders, and comedians?
Oil Companies Don’t Produce CO2, Car and Truck Drivers Do
Reminiscent of the “Guns Don’t Kill People, People Kill People” argument, the SF Judge Alsup presiding over CA vs. Big Oil Lawsuit asked a very interesting, and potentially, very damaging question for either the plaintiff or society at large. In the document titled: Case 3:17-cv-06012-WHA Document 161 Filed 03/27/18, the judge asks: If plaintiffs’ theory is correct, why wouldn’t … Continue reading
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2018/03/28/oil-companies-dont-produce-co2-car-and-truck-drivers-do/
It’s an interesting question, for sure. Since the Combustion Inquisition forbids the possibility that CO2 doesn’t cause global warming, anyone and everyone who continues to willfully produce CO2 must necessarily do so with malice aforethought.
My only question then is, “Can we string up the Environmentalist High Priests first?”
Just so I can see that before I take my turn on the gallows and go out with a smile on my face.
All this survey says to me is that relentless propaganda delivered through the MSM works on those who have poor critical thinking skills. It is not surprising that those who tend to react emotionally to most every issue (i.e. liberals) follow the herd. Conservatives tend to be less swayed by fear and emotions, but that does not mean they are completely immune to propaganda.
Science by polling – why not…
Dinsdale – btw – are you related to the hedgehog? – I agree.
It’s called consensus.
And it’s not science.
We had the Einstein quote a day or two ago
– something like – ‘A hundred folk disagree with me; so what! – it only needs one solid observation . . . .’ [a poor paraphrase, I know, but it’s getting late here. Sorry].
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The good news is that the independents are gradually realising the truth; leaving the Democrats alone in their fantasy world.
As others have pointed out, the meaning of several questions is open to interpretation. For example I believe that the “effects of global warming have already begun.” Given that the planet has been warming for over a centenary it is inevitable that the effects will have begun by now, fortunately all those detected have been benefits.
BillP: “The good news is that the independents are gradually realising the truth; leaving the Democrats alone in their fantasy world.”
That was the lesson I took from this article.
From the article: “For example, the percentage of Republicans and Independents who believe global warming is caused by human activities fell 5 percent and 7 percent, respectively, from 2017 to 2018.”
This appears to be the only mention of Independents in the article, for some reason.
Rick C PE…Totally agreed..but 91% is still a bit shocking to even me…and I am surrounded by the most ‘tolerant, enlightened, planet loving’ folks on the planet.
Based on the limited and biased sample consisting of my entire family and most of my friends, it is impossible to have a rational discussion of climate science with a liberal. They just start yelling “consensus” and “settled science” then refuse to acknowledge that there is any evidence to the contrary.
And they scream “I KNOW THE SCIENCE! ” Which is 100 percent untrue. Okay, maybe less than 100, but not much.
They became more militant… period. Climate change is just the religion. It’s FAR from the only destructive policy they’ve gone flat psycho-control-freak on – it’s pretty much everything.
I’ll say this for Trump – he makes all the players show you who they are.
See, behind the flowery face of the camouflaging progressive press, we are FINALLY seeing the face of the Gorgon.
Clean Energy Wire, Feb.16, 2018
“Germany is a ‘living lab’ for the energy transition”
Article and related information on German presentation at the AAAS Feb.2018 Texas meeting.
Article also mentions use of the Delphi method and cross impact analysis.
Follow the links in the article.
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/germany-living-lab-energy-transition
The left have wrecked Western society to the point where they have to win now, or lose altogether when everything they’ve corrupted collapses around them. They’re getting desperate, particularly because they no longer control The Narrative.
Their Big Lie has become Too Big to Fail.
Pity Democrats – gullible, really worried and threatened. They seem a bit snowflakey.
Yet easily incited to riot.
Hey, not that easy. I heard Soros pays them at least a couple of hundred bucks for a good riot.
in the next few months we will see the average temp fall below the 30 year average. some scientists will have a lot of splainin to do if media does not ignore that.
Well, eighteen years of flat temperatures didn’t seem to make a difference.
Hansen has already set the table if it gets cold. He claims we should expect a little bit of cooler weather in the future, a decade or two,, but he also says that doesn’t mean CAGW is not real.
The want their cake and they want to eat it, too. And the MSM will assist them in every way possible.
Well Gallup is most certainly aware that the phrasing of a question, the order in which it is asked greatly influences the answer.
The “children ‘s crusade” climate lawsuit will be heard in district court in San Francisco. The endangerment finding will be the center piece of that lawsuit. We can hope Judge Alsup uses his seniority to hear that case also, having had time to study the tutorials. What a day that would be if a “judicial rebuke” of the finding was issued
And my middle name is Pollyanna.
You spell “Pollyanna” with a “D”?
I like the categorization of “cool skeptics”:
I like those sunglasses!
Question if global warming is an important political issue has claimed , why was it a virtual none-issue in the presidential election, with no side thinking it was a vote winner ?
I imagine those who would promote CAGW, like Hillary Clinton, really don’t have a very good argument to make, and it would quickly become apparent that she didn’t know what she was talking about after she had exhausted her initial talking points.
Alarmist climate scientists can’t make a good argument for their case, so it is no surprise that politicians would shy away from a subject they really don’t know that well.
All Trump had to do to counter Hillary was say: “Prove it”. And Hillary can’t prove it. So there you go.
If I get a call other than someone I know I just immediately hang up……how accurate can polls be
From the top of the article: “Americans’ concerns about global warming are not much different from the record-high levels they were at a year ago.”
I don’t buy it. If that many Americans saw global warming as a true threat to our way of life, they’d vote accordingly. In exit polls, and in actual voting results, global warming is clearly not important to many people here in the US (thank goodness).
It irks me when pollsters don’t ask the right questions, and/or don’t include the best answers among the available choices.
Why didn’t they ask questions like these?
And why was there no opportunity to give a nuanced middle opinion like, “about half and half,” as the answer to this question?
Or how about a question like this?
The key numbers in any political poll are the independents. It is independents that decide modern elections in the USA assuming they turn out. Low turn out of independents and Democrats/ progressive have a much higher chance of winning. With elections down to just a few percentage points it makes even the best of pollster cringe. Most of you know the left’s base. Whether they believe in CAGW or not they are going to tell a pollster that they do in order to maintain the base support of the organized environmentalists.
Most ‘independents’ are just Republicans who haven’t yet decided whether they can be bothered to vote for the lesser of two evils this time around.
“Demonic” would be a better description of the Left under Trump. Eight years of their empire building flushed !
Looks like proof positive that Republicans tend to be more knowledgeable about Science, while dems tend to be more emotional and snowflakey.
Just don’t drive us all off the cliff….
https://m.chron.com/news/crime/article/Family-killed-in-cliff-plunge-free-spirits-or-12789878.php
… more militant and poorer
forget all about global warming pollution of our land air and water is more important we are killing everything with plastic garbage and chemicals