Gallup poll: last year – global warming concerns down, feelings of exaggeration up, this year – more steady

While Waxman and Markey continue to try to salvage the EPA in hearings on the hill, the public shift clearly says “we aren’t buying it anymore”. This quote from Gallup last year pretty much sums it up

“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.”

Last year:

Americans’ Global Warming Concerns Continue to Drop

Multiple indicators show less concern, more feelings that global warming is exaggerated

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.

This year:

More Than 4 in 10 Say Seriousness of Global Warming Is Exaggerated

The plurality of Americans continue to believe the seriousness of global warming is generally exaggerated in the news (43%) rather than generally correct (26%) or generally underestimated (29%). This is the third year in a row that a substantial plurality has believed global warming’s effects are not as bad as they are portrayed, a departure from prior years, when Americans were about evenly split between the three points of view. The percentage who think global warming’s effects are exaggerated is down a bit from last year.

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Last year:

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%.

Fewer Americans Think Effects of Global Warming Are Occurring

“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.”

Many global warming activists have used film and photos of melting ice caps and glaciers, and the expanding reach of deserts, to drive home their point that global warming is already having alarming effects on the earth. While these efforts may have borne fruit over much of the 2000s, during the last two years, Americans’ convictions about global warming’s effects have waned.

A majority of Americans still agree that global warming is real, as 53% say the effects of the problem have already begun or will do so in a few years. That percentage is dwindling, however. The average American is now less convinced than at any time since 1997 that global warming’s effects have already begun or will begin shortly.

Meanwhile, 35% say that the effects of global warming either will never happen (19%) or will not happen in their lifetimes (16%).

The 19% figure is more than double the number who held this view in 1997.

This year:

While Americans’ self-professed understanding of global warming has increased over time — from 69% saying they understand the issue “very well” or “fairly well” in 2001, to 74% in 2006 and 80% in the current poll — their concern about global warming across several measures is generally in the lower range of what Gallup has found historically.

For example, 49% currently believe the effects of global warming have already begun to happen, similar to last year’s estimate and one point above the historical low from 1997. Just three years ago, 61% thought the effects were already occurring. Over the same time, the percentage doubting global warming’s effects will ever happen has increased, from 11% to nearly 20%, including 18% this year.

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Last year:

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.

This year:

Read the entire poll story from 2010 here

…and from 2011 here

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NOTE: The first published version of this article was incomplete and did not have comparisons from last year’s poll to this year as was intended. This was a consequence of have two browser windows open with editing capabilities, side by side, so I could do comparisons and then cut and paste portions, and the wrong one got published accidentally. My apologies for any confusion this may have caused in the 45 minutes or so the incomplete story was up.  – Anthony