Water Issues Worry Americans Most, Global Warming Least
PRINCETON, NJ — With Earth Day about a month away, Americans tell Gallup they worry the most about several water-related risks and issues among nine major environmental issues. They worry least about global warming and loss of open spaces.
In fact, over the past ten years, environmental concerns are down in general, despite the recent shrillness of the environmental message.
Bottom Line
Although the United States has experienced nothing like the mass drinking-water scare that is gripping Japan during its current nuclear crisis, Americans largely recognize the importance of clean water to their lives. All four environmental issues referring to “water” in this year’s Gallup Environment poll rank in the upper tier of environmental concerns, with air pollution a close fifth. Perhaps not surprisingly, there is a slightly steeper drop-off in concern about several issues that aren’t directly related to daily survival, such as the loss of tropical rain forests and urban sprawl. What may surprise some, given the broad exposure the issue has received in recent years, is that global warming ranks lowest — consistent with other Gallup polling — with barely half of Americans concerned and 48% only a little or not at all concerned.
===============================================================
Translation: green dudes, you are losing the public attention. Be thankful for the whacked out messages from people like Al Gore, Jim Hansen, Bill McKibben, Tim Flannery, and Joe Romm, because without them these AGW worry numbers would be far higher.
Full report here
[sarcasm]
But doesn’t America realize that every one of those issues is CAUSED by AGW?
[\sarcasm]
You know what the only really big difference between the Eastern Mountain Lion and the Western Mountain Lion is?
Where they live. Seriously, there are no significant genetic differences. The idea that a species has gone “extinct” is ridiculous nonsense.
So the story about the mountain lions is actually “oh boohoo, mountain lions don’t live in heavily populated areas, that’s so sad.”
One topic area that could be explored more in understanding the public reaction to AGW is “the wisdom of crowds.” In short, if you ask thousands of people to guess the number of jelly beans in a jar, their collective average will be more accurate than any single or small group of jelly bean experts. It seems to me that the “People” have collectively considered AGW and written it off.
Google has many references, start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wisdom_of_Crowds
For a crowd to be “wise” it has the following characteristics:
1) Diversity of opinion
2) Independence – individuals are not influenced by those around them
3) Decentralization – diversity of information sources
4) Aggregation – means for turning private judgements into collective decision
For failure of groupthink, (and many examples involving the CIA come to mind), the following characteristics are present:
1) Homogeneity – everyone comes from the same background
2) Centralization – hierarchical decision making structure
3) Division – not sharing information
4) Emotionality – need to belong, peer pressure, collective hysteria
You can immediately see these categories reflected in the climate change blogs. Why do you suppose WUWT is so popular? Why are the proponent blogs generally so shrill, questioning credentials, crying wolf and fending off new information?
Why is the MET office so FUBAR? How about the Hadley Center? GISS? NASA?
As a politician, has Obama actually grasped the “crowd” decision and now deliberately fails to mention AGW in any context at all? What’s up with the pols in Australia?
We probably should not lose track of the fact that having GW in the list at all is an invention. Giving the subject group a blank sheet of paper and a request to list the 10 most pressing concerns in a person’s life I’ve no doubt the spontaneous results would look very different than that from the scripted quiz. A bias is built into the poll but that is the nature of such polls.
Yelling fire in a theatre will get you arrested if it’s a prank or false alarm, due to the stampede.
Yelling fire on a Planetary scale under the same auspices should get you what?
Warmists should realise that the more they scream and wave their hands about the more support they lose? Let’s hope they carry on. Go BBC! Go Guardian! Go Gore! These people are fighting a losing battle even without the efforts from sceptics.
2008
Increased Knowledge About Global Warming Leads To Apathy, Study Shows
November 2010
Doomsday Messages About Global Warming Can Backfire, Study Shows
Answer: Another research grant. (unfortunately but this is also changing fast)
Interesting. Basically this is an IQ test with the right column showing those who passed, and the left column showing the useful idiots who don’t seem to believe what their eyes are showing them.
Boy – did they ask the wrong question, surely it should have been,
I’m going to read you a list of environmental problems. As I read each one, please tell me if you personally worry about this problem a great deal,
a fair amountI obsess about it all the time,only a littleit gives me nightmares and I can’t sleep, ornot at allI’ve bought a seaside coastal mansionI’ve bought a survivalist hut on a mountain top to avoid global thermageddon.Now it’s fixed.
woodNfish says:
March 29, 2011 at 11:20 am
Interesting. Basically this is an IQ test with the right column showing those who passed, and the left column showing the useful idiots who don’t seem to believe what their eyes are showing them.
First one must open their eyes, if they are to see clearly.
Jimbo:
From the first article about increased knowledge leading to skepticism :
“The findings that the more informed respondents were less concerned about global warming, and that they felt less personally responsible for it, did surprise us. We expected just the opposite.”
Well how about that? You mean that when people get beyond the MSM and learn more, they understand the shaky underpinnings of the science and back away? Works for me.
Several (or many – who’s counting) years ago, my friend David Evans moved back to his home in Australia and was hired by the government to help develop the scientific underpinnings for their cap and trade system. He went in with guns blazing to save the world from AGW. Living in the progressive bastion of Palo Alto CA, then home to Steve Schneider (saw his slides before he gave them to Al), I was on board too, harangued the Rotary Club and anybody else who would listen.
About a year later, David sent some disturbing emails, stating flatly that once he got into the science, he saw that it was misrepresented at best, fraud most likely. I was shocked – shocked I tell you. For about six months I simply assumed that he had gone off the deep end. Then I decided to resolve my cognitive dissonance by learning more for myself. It didn’t take long, reading the actual climategate emails, actual IPCC reports, actual scientific studies, to realize that indeed – at best the science was “unsettled” and at worst, indeed, fraud.
All of this suggests a somewhat different strategy for dealing with AGW proponents: rather that debating, simply suggest that they LEARN MORE about the subject, maybe providing some helpful links, and ask them to come to their own conclusions.
Scientific studies prove that education works.
Jimbo:
From the first article:
“The findings that the more informed respondents were less concerned about global warming, and that they felt less personally responsible for it, did surprise us. We expected just the opposite.
Well duh. It worked for me.
Several (or many, who’s counting) years ago, my friend David Evans moved back to his home in Australia and joined the government to apply is substantial scientific intellect to developing their cap and trade program. He went in with guns blazing to save the world from AGW. Living in the progressive bastion of Palo Alto, CA, home at the time to Steve Schneider (saw his slides before he gave them to Al), I was fully on board too, haranguing the Rotary Club and anyone else who would listen about the horrible fate that awaited us all.
About a year later, I began to get disturbing news from David about the “science” which he was coming to know and how misrepresented and downright fraudulent it was. In order to settle my own cognitive dissonance, I decided to educate myself on the science in order to eliminate the filter of the MSM. After reading the actual climategate emails, the actual IPCC reports, many actual scientific studies, it became clear to me too that the science was, to put the best possible light on it – unsettled.
All of this suggests a strategy for dealing with our friends in the general public who have picked up the AGW meme – instead of arguing the details ad nauseum, just suggest to them that they might want to learn more about the subject and maybe provide them a few helpful links. Trust them to come to their own conclusions.
Scientific studies prove that education is the best antidote to the MSM.
I think these results can largely be attributed to 1) answers that correspond to areas of environmental concern that have the highest concentrations of anecdotal evidence (the public is much more responsive and in-tune to prima facie visual evidence as well as concerned about those environmental issues facing their local/regional communities and them individually right now), 2) a general lack of foresight and concern about the future in the USA (as exemplified by economic and education based decisions, both individually and as a union), 3) an overall poor job giving the climate change issue its due diligence by the media and insular researchers, and 4) just an overall lack of concern about the environment in this climate of massive concern about the economy (among others). These questions could have been formulated much better since several are extremely similar (i.e., pollution of drinking water/pollution of fresh waterways) and some are highly causally related to a varying degree (i.e., air pollution contributes to global warming; land surface change contributes in a varying degree to global warming; loss of tropical rain forests can contribute to species extinction). Despite limited changes to the priority of environmental concerns by the public over the last decade, according to this poll, there has been an unfortunate decrease in the overall concern for the environment.
Jim Cole says: “Survey results mostly show that our public education system has totally failed to educate people in their most vital skills – skepticism, debate, and logical expression.”
Memorize Jim Cole’s comment. Then repeat loudly so all can hear.
What no “The capitalist/political hijacking of the once puritanical green movement?”
Mods, you’ve had 2 days to respond to
Are we going to get the correct second survey results? Or just imagine them?