It appears that only the zealots care much about global warming anymore, yet it doesn’t stop them from making grand pronouncements of gloom and doom or taking fossil fueled publicity stunt boat trips to Antarctica.
The Pew Research Center released its annual poll today, and global warming is not only last, it’s last in importance with the public in 22 topics covered. Those who think “Climategate” had no impact, think again.
Plus, energy problems get twice as much attention as global warming as a policy issue. Essentially, global warming is now “dead heat”.
They write in the press release:
As the 2012 State of the Union approaches, the public continues to give the highest priority to economic issues. Fully 86% say that strengthening the economy should be a top priority for the president and Congress this year, and 82% rate improving the job situation as a top priority. None of the other 20 issues tested in this annual survey rate as a top priority for more than 70% of Americans.
Since it was first tested on the annual policy priorities list in 2007, the share of Americans who view dealing with global warming as a top priority has slipped from 38% to 25%. Democrats (38%) are far more likely than Republicans (11%) to rate this as a top priority. But the decline has occurred across party lines: In 2007, 48% of Democrats rated dealing with global warming as a top priority, as did 23% of Republicans.
Full report here
Being cold and hungry tends to “focus the mind” and a lot of the country is cold and hungry right now. And wondering just where their 401K went. If folks talk about global warming, it tends to be about wanting some more and / or wishing to put selected politicians on a bonfire…
@thepompousgit:
I thought it was a C.E. (Civil Engineering) that dealt with things like sewage facilities? (C.E. is usually employed by folks building roads, sewage plants, airports, stadiums. Sometimes called a ‘Cement Engineering’ degree 😉
Per California:
Nobody is going to get Governor Moonbeam to listen. He’s too busy with his ear buds full of old Linda Ronstadt recordings … We won’t stop until the last business has been run out of the state (AND nobody will loan more cash…)
noaaprogrammer says: January 23, 2012 at 10:06 pm
The university where I teach is considering dropping its program in environmental engineering. Reason: For the past 2 years there have been no incoming majors – there are no freshmen or sophomores – and after the two majors that are currently in the program graduate, the program will cease for lack of interest.
That’s the best news I’ve heard for months. Firstly, global warming was largely manufactured by universities who used it as a way to justify lots of pointless environmental research on the pretext they were “investigating” something important. Second, it shows that there simply is no demand for environmental engineering – which means that school leavers are getting the message that there are no jobs in environmental engineering, which shows that despite the massive push at children, cold reality is winning out. And finally, it all adds to the growing picture of lack of press interest, lack of political interest, lack of public interest, and a singular failure of the climate to warm … which by now ought to mean that far from getting a job, an environmental degree is a passport to welfare for life.
E.M.Smith said @ur momisugly January 24, 2012 at 12:48 am
Of course you are correct EM — for when we were young men these many long years ago. There has been much splintering of disciplines since.
Energy should be at the top of the list. without energy there is no economy, or much of anything else for that matter.
The AGW grave stone may well read .
R.I.P ClimateDoom , gone but not soon enugh
Died of disinterest .
Surveys like this are important.
Politicians keep half an eye on public opinion. They need to know what policies are lilely vote winners. While tax and spend will always be important to politicians that is a dream scenario when public opinion is behind the so called ‘evil’ and supports doing something about it.
As public opinion wanes against global warming, politicians will find it more difficult to justify policy and the fear of vote losing will gradually cause politicians to put plans on the back burner and may be even ditch them.
I suspect that if the public was made fully aware as to how the USA has cooled these past 15 or so years, there would be even less interest in global warming. Ditto, if it was properly explained to them the economic harm that has been caused by government policy and the loss of industry (and jobs) to China and other developing nations. To nail the lid of the coffin, the case for shale gas needs to be made strongly explaining the economic benefit of cheap energy.
Nobody should be crowing over a dearth of engineering students, of whatever variety.
Isonomia says:
January 24, 2012 at 1:11 am
noaaprogrammer says: January 23, 2012 at 10:06 pm
The university where I teach is considering dropping its program in environmental engineering. Reason: For the past 2 years there have been no incoming majors – there are no freshmen or sophomores – and after the two majors that are currently in the program graduate, the program will cease for lack of interest.
That’s the best news I’ve heard for months. Firstly, global warming was largely manufactured by universities who used it as a way to justify lots of pointless environmental research on the pretext they were “investigating” something important. Second, it shows that there simply is no demand for environmental engineering – which means that school leavers are getting the message that there are no jobs in environmental engineering, which shows that despite the massive push at children, cold reality is winning out
—–
Do you think that’s also the reason that the number students taking Maths and Science is also in decline? Because there are no jobs related to mathematics, physic or chemistry?
Yay! Less people taking science subjects!
/sarc
They kept changing the name of the alleged planetary emergency and as a result the public realised that the climate always changes so there is no emergency after all. Own goal.
You can’t fool all the people all the time.
SteveE says:
January 24, 2012 at 4:33 am
Do you think that’s also the reason that the number students taking Maths and Science is also in decline? Because there are no jobs related to mathematics, physic or chemistry?
Yay! Less people taking science subjects!
/sarc
There is far more demand for nail and hair salons. It seems very unlikely that all the unsuccessful American Idol contestants will enroll in math and physics as their second career choice but I could be wrong.
“Fully 86% say that strengthening the economy should be a top priority for the president and Congress this year, and 82% rate improving the job situation as a top priority.”
Count me among the 86% here.
I have always been struck by the fact that our climate elites like Hansen, Trenberth, Mann, Santer, Schmidt, and their cronies strenuously protest the creation of U.S. energy jobs in projects like the Keystone pipeline or drilling for oil in the Gulf, while collecting their very comfortable six figure government salaries (not including the generous benefits packages). They could care less about other people’s jobs as long as they have theirs…
Did you know that these government climate employees even got generous salary increases in 2009 while our economy was tanking and people were being laid off in droves? And in 2010 these same people received huge blocks of government “stimulus” money borrowed from present and future U.S. taxpayers?
so they shut down one of the games of the federal casino. there are plenty of others and no shortage at all of players.
you’ll still give up your coin as you always have done and always will do – because you have faith.
the state is your religion. it’s strong in you, and you will personally ensure that your children trained to propagate it.
you didn’t win anything. you can’t win. it’s rigged.
however, there is no law against stupid and you are allowed to cry.
Mr. green Obama is still in office and Lisa Jackson is still trying to kill as many jobs as possible with regulatory efforts. Hansen still sits atop GISS while trying, with much success, to kill coal fired electrical plants while fiddling the temperature record. The government grants to prove AGW continue.
The win side of the issue is still in their corner. The interest is now on jobs and money. They have changed the focus of the American people to jobs, and the economy by destroying jobs and the economy but their goals are still to use environmental fraud to restrict energy use and that will further destroy jobs and the economy.
It is good that environmental issues have lost traction with the American people but has it lost any influence with elected politicians?
Out of everything in this post that I noticed, the ad for re-electing Obama was the most disturbing!
trbixler says:
January 24, 2012 at 6:07 am
Mr. green Obama is still in office and Lisa Jackson is still trying to kill as many jobs as possible with regulatory efforts. Hansen still sits atop GISS while trying, with much success, to kill coal fired electrical plants while fiddling the temperature record. The government grants to prove AGW continue.
———————————————————————–
As much as I agree that this is happening and that things look bleak with Mr. Green Obama in office, what are we supposed to do with the two strongest Republican Candidates in the running who are at best going to be just another shade of green?
We all know Newt is another believer in AGW with his infamous commercial with Pelosi and the love-seat. And Romney has remained rather mute on the subject recently but has always been a strong supporter of wind power in the past and his advisors who he will surround himself with are strong supporters of such things as wind power and gas taxes.
I do believe they would be better then Obama, but the truth is that this election will not change anything as far as the AGW machine goes in our country.
We are stuck in other words and whether we want to admit it or not, since the concern on this subject is so low, it works against us on the sceptic side as well. No one cares, and as such the business as usual will continue with the EPA doing its thing like usual.
Will a republican in charge reign that monster in? I really don’t know to be honest. Somehow I really doubt it when the candidates are really nothing more then republican’s in name only.
Odd that lower military spending was 3rd to last. That really sticks out as unusual to me.
Roger Carr says:
noaaprogrammer says: (January 23, 2012 at 10:06 pm) “The university where I teach is considering dropping its program in environmental engineering.” Etc…
That is indeed positive news. Needs remembering and widely re-broadcasting.
What supreme ignorance.
The discipline of environmental engineering is quite valuable to society, and the current decline in the field is nothing to be happy about. The reason that this sector of the economy is declining, is that economy as a whole is in the tank, and hit hardest by the current economic downturn are industries that require environmental engineering services (manufacturing, mining, energy development, land development, etc). Many of these have been in decline for some time prior to the current difficulties, due to offshore outsourcing and greenie success in enforcing their luddite sensibilities on the rest of us by effectively banning resource development in many areas. Nothing in that equation is cause for celebration. A properly functioning economy, with substantial heavy industry and resource development sectors, will require a healthy cadre of environmental engineers.
Oh, and BTW, environmental engineering doesnt have a damn thing to do with “global warming”. That particular fiction is the invention of some heavily politicized and self promoting “climate scientists”.
The entire Pew list of priorities should be highly discouraging to journalists, educators and other Experts of all stripes. Everything the elites find important, everything they’ve been pushing for many years, is seen as unimportant or false by the people.
We’ve stopped listening.
And that gives me a little bit of hope for the future.
The university where I teach is considering dropping its program in environmental engineering. Reason: For the past 2 years there have been no incoming majors – there are no freshmen or sophomores – and after the two majors that are currently in the program graduate, the program will cease for lack of interest.” (Noaaprogrammer, January 23, 2012 at 10:06 pm)
If this is a part of a trend, I’d be nice to know more. Like, engineers being practical types, are they seeing a drying-up of funds for envirnmental sciences work? A monopolization and political control of the field by a tight establishment ? A surplus of radical ideologues and activists who’ve turned off a largely conservative core of engineering and science types? Inability of the big players, including the UN, to deliver on its promises? The collapse of and unsustainibility of green industries and failure of their projects? Is there high status to this field, if so, how high and with whom? So many interesting questions for which it would be nice to have data.
noaaprogrammer says:
January 23, 2012 at 10:06 pm
The university where I teach is considering dropping its program in environmental engineering. Reason: For the past 2 years there have been no incoming majors – there are no freshmen or sophomores – and after the two majors that are currently in the program graduate, the program will cease for lack of interest.
=============================================================
This is the consequence of take-no-prisoners environmentalists and watermelons using AGW to achieve all of their objectives. If AGW fails, then it will take the other environmental isssues with it. I think it is a shame that a legitimate engineering discipline that performs a valuable function is failing as a consequence of this approach. And to laymen, science itself is taking a beating because of the non-scientific stonewalling and advocacy of Jones, Mann, et. al. It will take a while to recover from the ill effects of the AGW era.
That hypothesis has yet to be proven!
When control over the internet is complete and all information is controlled and filtered and when all individuals can be tracked and held accountable, what prevents fooling “all the people all the time”. GK
What exactly is meant by “tax fairness?”
The Occupiers want the few who pay most of the bills to pay even more while those paying the bills would like others to have some skin in the game as well.
Pompousgit@12:29
You don’t need a degree in “Environmental Engineering” to deal with those issue, and some of the others raised earlier. They all fall under the discipline of Civil Engineering and Mining Engineering, and have done for generations.