Multiple indicators show less concern, more feelings that global warming is exaggerated
by Frank Newport, Gallup News
PRINCETON, NJ — Gallup’s annual update on Americans’ attitudes toward the environment shows a public that over the last two years has become less worried about the threat of global warming, less convinced that its effects are already happening, and more likely to believe that scientists themselves are uncertain about its occurrence. In response to one key question, 48% of Americans now believe that the seriousness of global warming is generally exaggerated, up from 41% in 2009 and 31% in 1997, when Gallup first asked the question.
These results are based on the annual Gallup Social Series Environment poll, conducted March 4-7 of this year. The survey results show that the reversal in Americans’ concerns about global warming that began last year has continued in 2010 — in some cases reverting to the levels recorded when Gallup began tracking global warming measures more than a decade ago.
For example, the percentage of Americans who now say reports of global warming are generally exaggerated is by a significant margin the highest such reading in the 13-year history of asking the question. In 1997, 31% said global warming’s effects had been exaggerated; last year, 41% said the same, and this year the number is 48%.
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Americans Divided on Causes of Global Warming
In a sharp turnaround from what Gallup found as recently as three years ago, Americans are now almost evenly split in their views of the cause of increases in the Earth’s temperature over the last century.
In 2003, 61% of Americans said such increases were due to human activities — in line with advocates of the global warming issue — while 33% said they were due to natural changes in the environment. Now, a significantly diminished 50% say temperature increases are due to human activities, and 46% say they are not.
Americans Less Sure About Scientists’ Beliefs
Since last fall, there have been widespread news accounts of allegations of errors in scientific reports on global warming and alleged attempts by some scientists to doctor the global warming record.
These news reports may well have caused some Americans to re-evaluate the scientific consensus on global warming. Roughly half of Americans now say that “most scientists believe that global warming is occurring,” down from 65% in recent years. The dominant opposing thesis, held by 36% of Americans, is that scientists are unsure about global warming. An additional 10% say most scientists believe global warming is not occurring.
The percentage of Americans who think most scientists believe global warming is occurring has dropped 13 points from two years ago, and is the lowest since the first time Gallup asked this question back in 1997.
Implications
The last two years have marked a general reversal in the trend of Americans’ attitudes about global warming. Most Gallup measures up to 2008 had shown increasing concern over global warming on the part of the average American, in line with what one might have expected given the high level of publicity on the topic. Former Vice President Al Gore had been particularly prominent in this regard, with the publication of his bestselling book, “An Inconvenient Truth,” an Academy Award-winning documentary movie focusing on his global warming awareness campaign, and Gore’s receipt of a Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.
But the public opinion tide turned in 2009, when several Gallup measures showed a slight retreat in public concern about global warming. This year, the downturn is even more pronounced.
Some of the shifts in Americans’ views may reflect real-world events, including the publicity surrounding allegations of scientific fraud relating to global warming evidence, and — perhaps in some parts of the country — a reflection of the record-breaking snow and cold temperatures of this past winter. Additionally, evidence from last year showed that the issue of global warming was becoming heavily partisan in nature, and it may be that the continuing doubts about global warming put forth by conservatives and others are having an effect. A forthcoming analysis here at Gallup.com will examine shifts in global warming attitudes in recent years among various demographic and political groups.
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Read the entire poll results at Gallup News
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Another hockey-stick???
Ecotretas
What we need is an advertising campaign in a big time
newspaper to stop this trend in badthought !
OT
In- WUWT, “IPCC announces “independent” review” Curiousgeorge asked for a link to the Energy Sec. Chu remarks. Thought others might be interested also.
WSJ
MARCH 8, 2010
Politics and Policy
Energy Secretary Steven Chu on the administration’s game plan
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704869304575104
And partisan = ideologues with vested interests versus free thinkers.
absolutely great cartoon ! … 🙂
just 137kb and saying it all … everything and everybody is in it …
Fortunately common sense is on the increase
Is global warming exaggerated?
There’s a simple test anyone can do to see whether it is. First write down all the measurable possible advantages of hotter weather: longer growing season, less winters deaths, higher food yield. Then go and read so called scientific papers on the effects of “global warming” and divide them into two groups: those that mention the obvious benefits and those that don’t.
Now label the groups: “biased, bogus environmental propaganda” and “research which at least attempts some scientific impartiality”.
In my case, it was 99 “scientific” papers in the bogus clap-trap pile, and one don’t know. Which I think means we can be >99% certain the harmful effects of any global warming are exaggerated.
They are missing a key question
Just your impression. Which one of the following statements do you think is most accurate-
1-)Most Politicians who are trying to introduce New Taxes, Trading Schemes and Regulations (TTsR) believe that GW is occuring,
2-)Most politicians who are trying to introduce TTsR DON’T BELIEVE GW is occurring,
3-)Most etc etc are UNSURE whether GW is occurring or not.
The results would have been interesting.
I would have said 2 ofcourse
I’ll respond in kind, by referring to a cartoon: http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1271
The Mark 1 eyeball suggests to me that public opinion was swung by the 2007 IPCC reports. People might have realised that there was an oversell and that the portents of doom were not matched by changes in the daily lives of people. Nothing much had changed in the climate lifetime of most readers.
Of course, the impact of CA enhancing WUWT , tAV, Niche Modeling etc, though hard to measure, could be showing in the figures. (Apologies if I have them out of historic order).
The poll results are being driven by some effects; they are not a random walk concept.
At the moment, I see no other comments yet, but I’ll point out what I’m sure others will too.
By my rough estimate, using a Fortran IV model developed at considerable time and expense and using the above raw data, slightly homogenized and a little pasteurized, I have come to the following conclusions:
a. by 2014, EVERYBODY will believe AGW is completely exaggerated.
b. by 2016, more people will believe climate change is natural than there are people. That is, greater than 100%.
c. by 2020, the “Is Occuring” line will cross zero
It’s worse than we thought!
Congress should IMMEDIATELY increase their spending on propaganda. Oops, sorry, I meant Research, marketing, and positioning.
It is extremely difficult believing in things that are so hard to produce hard evidence to support. I am totally open to the fact there may be the tiniest of human influences but the effects being predicted are ridiculous on their face.
When you predict and you are wrong over and over then get a grip and change your mind.
Personally it was the sea level rise (upper level) changes predicted in the 4 IPCC reports over a 17 year period that ‘proved’ that these guys just don’t really have a clue for me.
They adjusted their upper level predictions down by 85% in 17 years whilst bellowing ‘trust us’ for their catastrophic predictions for the next 100 years.
It’s actually quite embarrassing being a human being when human beings can behave en masse like this.
Two years ago AGW was at the maximum hype with Gore’s “Inconvient Truth” and the peace price given to IPCC and Gore.
These were massive amounts of media coverage.
So wonder why the hype for “Green” everything started?
There was absolutely no coverage of the scientists that became the “Deniers”.
They were just given a very hard time to stick to the regime of the concensus (IPCC).
Funding flowing with no regard for what was being done with it except it was going for something “Green”.
IMO, a cold winter is enough to change some of the general public. If we have a new record warm year with the El Nino, concerns about warming will swing back.
All hell is going to break loose soon. Get ready. All the scams are being exposed. Repo 105 seems to be the last straw.
On this subject- beyond Gore, the IPCC and even the Lame Stream Media, the ones that have caused the greatest amount of disconnect with the real status of the science behind GW for Americans (and others) is Nature, Science, Smithsonian, Scientific American, Discover, Etc. magazines. Many of us used to (and many still do) “believe” their reporting was well researched?, verified?, independently analyzed? separate from the source. To weed out the garbage. So as to be kind of “Fair and Balanced”. You know, info WITHOUT a political slant. How naive – – I was.
The LSM prints whatever fills columns with, sensation. Understandable. And stupid in an age of untold numbers of info sources, not the least of which is the Internet. Thank You again, Anthony. But when the editors of a periodical such as the above START from an ideological point, it not only reduces their words to below the level of a super-market rag, it “misinforms” a large segment of he populace, not directly involved in climate science, that we want engaged and active in the discussion/process. And they wonder why, when the likes of The National Enquirer are reporting more accurately then them, we turn to the Internet. Talk about “forcings.”
Just as I was commenting on the previous post, this new one appears. My comment may be more appropriate here. There is a long way to go:
http://www.herkinderkin.com/2010/03/public-opinion-about-global-warming/
The Passing of a Pioneer Woman:
Ms. Simpson, who died March 4 at age 86, didn’t have much success suppressing storms. But her discoveries about the nature of clouds and the formation and dynamics of hurricanes were some of the most significant in 20th century meteorology.
Joanne Simpson helped show how hurricanes draw their power from warm seas. Armed with that knowledge, she set out to destroy one by sending a payload of silver iodide into the heart of a storm.
Ms. Simpson didn’t quite achieve her goal of never retiring, but she used retirement to take a swipe at global-warming theorists, whose dire predictions she felt were over-reliant on computer models.
Now there is a scientist! She too was also deemed a “Denialist”.
Most politicians don’t care if they believe or don’t believe this or that, as long as what they are saying gives them more opportunity to grab more money and power. The very notion of “truth” (scientific or otherwise) is alien to the ruling classes. They suck moral relativism and disdain for human nature with their mother’s milk.
A comment I made in the last posting may be more appropriate here. To stop this AGW black hole of funding, we need strong public consensus. The lastest poll is a start:
http://www.herkinderkin.com/2010/03/public-opinion-about-global-warming/
But we are still seeing comments like this:
Imagine if countries got together and enacted laws to reduce and regulate the carbon emissions into the atmosphere. What a success that could be.
Andrew Bolt’s blog today.
Most US Americans appear to be quite gullible at best. Sixty six per cent of people in the USA surveyed by Gallup in 2007 thought that God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years. And in a gallup poll only last year 44% thought that God created human beings in their present form.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/21814/evolution-creationism-intelligent-design.aspx
Yet in the same poll, 53% thought it was definitely or probably true that human beings developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life.
It’s a strange world indeed and some education systems must be even stranger.
Correction – the ‘yet in the same poll’ refers to the 2007 poll, not the 2009 poll.
BillD … temperatures in Canada were above normal this winter: http://www.cbc.ca/nl/features/nlweather/2010/03/warmest_driest_canadian_winter.html
Seals are pupping on beaches in northern Newfoundland because of the lack of ice.
Roger Carr (03:31:01) :
But we are still seeing comments like this:
“Imagine if countries got together and enacted laws to reduce and regulate the carbon emissions into the atmosphere. What a success that could be.”
Imagine if countries got together and enacted laws to eliminate warfare and promote universal brotherhood. What a success that could be.
Oh. Wait…