A new opinion poll commissioned by The Global Warming Policy Forum has revealed that when asked about the overall impact on humanity, the British public are now more concerned about the coronavirus pandemic than climate change.
Carried out by polling company, YouGov, the results represent a massive swing in public opinion since 12thMarch, when the public were first asked: ‘Regarding the overall impact on humanity, are you more concerned about the impact of coronavirus or climate change?’ This time, 54% said ‘coronavirus’, up from 32% in March. Only 30% said ‘climate change’, down from 45%.
There were significant differences in response based on political affiliation. A whopping 67% of Conservative voters said they were more concerned about coronavirus, compared to only 19% who said climate change. Labour voters were evenly split, with coronavirus and climate change both scoring 43%. These differences were reflected in the opinions of different age groups, with older voters relatively more concerned about coronavirus and younger voters evenly split.
The survey also questioned people about how they thought the government should act after the pandemic. Participants were asked which statement came closest to their opinion:
‘The government should prioritise getting the economy moving again even if it could mean relaxing climate change targets.’
‘The government should prioritise both the economy and climate change targets equally.’
‘The government should prioritise sticking to climate change targets even if it could mean a slower recovery for the economy.’
The results revealed that while a plurality thought that both the economy and climate change should be prioritised equally (42%), there were significantly more people who thought that the government should concentrate on getting the economy moving again (34%), compared to those who thought climate change should be prioritised (14%). This was particularly the case among Conservative voters, who by a large margin thought that the economy should be prioritised even if it meant that climate change targets might have to be relaxed (56%).
Sadly, this doesn’t fill me with much hope especially since we have a bunch of sycophantic politicians who just want to kneel and show their obeisance to whatever is the current populist “religion” of the moment, whether it be climate change, Corona madness or BAME identity politics!
Schools once we’re a place of learning, today they are schools of ignorance.
“we’re” should be “were”
Back to school.
More and more, to get the feel of public opinion on world affairs, I am relying on the official tweets from Donald TRUMP.
He seems to have his finger on the pulse of most matters, with many a later check showing he was often right on target. Geoff S
Yes, it seems odd to say that of a politician, but I think you’re right. Mind you, he’s not exactly a politician, but that’s all to the good nowadays.
Are you deceiving yourself.
Incoherent, and lying tweets are not something you should rely on. (examples will be provided if requested)
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EaFYwHYU8AEw6Bo?format=jpg
“Pres. Trump on his coronavirus test today: “I tested very positively, in another sense, this morning. I tested positively toward negative, right? No, I tested perfectly this morning — meaning I tested negative. But that’s a way of saying it: positively toward the negative.””
Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
We have a perfectly coordinated and fine tuned plan at the White House for our attack on CoronaVirus. We moved VERY early to close borders to certain areas, which was a Godsend. V.P. is doing a great job. The Fake News Media is doing everything possible to make us look bad. Sad!
etc etc
Icisil,
Thanks for the image of the one sane person in the room looking at a cluster of the easily-led showing their dedication to the latest, days old trendy religion. If these dullards get to dominate, we are stuffed. Geoff S
“Incoherent, and lying tweets”
Yep, lots of Democrats tweet. !
Incoherent?
You seem to be the only one who has trouble understanding them.
Lying?
Only if you take the standard socialist line that anything they disagree with is a lie.
Hey aren’t you the one who told us to drink bleach….dishonest indeed.
That charge against Trump frustrates me, as well. The man is a businessman, not a science geek. It was abundantly clear to any intelligent person that he was trying to say, ‘wouldn’t it be great if they could isolate the active ingredients in these disinfectants and use them to create an antiviral drug‘. Of course, no intelligent person has ever accused a democrat as being intelligent.
He was asking his experts to investigate getting light into a body to kill the virus.
“Trump appeared intrigued by the research after Bryan’s presentation.
“Suppose we hit the body with a tremendous ultraviolet or just very powerful light,” Trump said, following Bryan’s presentation. “I think that hasn’t been checked but you’re going to test it.””
he was asking to check out injecting disinfectant.
““The disinfectant knocks it out in a minute. One minute,” he said. “Is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside?” He said it would be “almost a cleaning. It gets in the lungs and does a tremendous number on the lungs.””
“Is there a way”
Asking a question. And you were the one who claimed that Trump was recommending it.
When push comes to shove, like the rest of the liberals, you will lie if you think you can get away with it.
The word used was “disinfectant,” not bleach. I’ve seen plenty of people ingest a disinfectant called alcohol. In the old West, they used whiskey to disinfect wounds. If people prefer bleach to other types of disinfectants, that’s on them. Whether it does anything to the virus, I don’t know. But there are plenty who would volunteer to test it…
Well, I am more concerned about coronavirus than climate, but that’s not saying much. With a death rate of about 1%, that’s a risk I can happily live with.
Right now I’m concerned about my 16 yo daughter.
Boys, drugs, alcohol, cars, boys.
Covid or climate change will not hurt her.
Measuring relative fear levels has a limited use, the most significant of which is that it tells our masters how best to manipulate us. If there were a direct correlation between actual threat level and perceived threat level, such polls could provide useful information. But since we lemmings move in emotional groups, we are overly susceptible to the mendacity of our betters.
So “Saving the Planet”is placed on hold.
Faux crisis meets real crisis.
Covid-1984: How dare you. You have stolen my dreams and my childhood.
Poor ol’ Crimate Cha-ching.
Classic dodgy survey with only two options.
Give anyone time to think about all issues and climate change won’t rate.
Example – pick top 3 or 4
1. Education
2. Health
3. Access to jobs
4. Responsible government
5. Freedom of expression
6. Protection from violence ( war or crime)
7. Food security
8. Clean environment
9. Climate change.
Fully agree. It’s a crap poll.
A much better poll is Gallup’s ongoing American poll most important problem. The question is: “What do you think is the most important problem facing the country today?” It’s open ended, you can give any answer you want, and you’re not prompted.
In the latest poll, 40% of people thought Coronavirus/Diseases was the most important problem. 1% of the people thought Environment/Pollution/Climate Change was the most important problem.
It’s much easier to make a poll that will give you the answers you want than it is to make a poll that will give you accurate answers.
I’m guessing that, if you gave the British public a decent poll, climate change would be nowhere near their major concern.
After graduation, I obtained a good paying job, but worked a second job in the evenings to help build up savings. That job entailed cold-calling people and polling/surveying them. We polled for power companies, politicians, bread companies, just about anything.
We had to read the question exactly as written, with no further explanation, and enter the response given. Some of the exchanges went something like:
Do you prefer power to be provided using gas, coal or nuclear?
Oh, my momma made biscuits on a coal stove. I’d love to use coal like her, but my stove is ‘lectric.
Had to put her answer down as coal.
At this time, would you most likely vote for the Democratic candidate, Republican candidate, or are you undecided?
I don’t know. The church hasn’t given me the sheet.
The sheet?
They give me a sheet every election telling me who to vote for.
Had to put undecided as the answer.
Demographics question on every poll, despite my pleading with them to change the wording: About how much is your annual household income, less than $25,000, $25-50,000, (etc).
Oh, I don’t rent rooms out, I don’t get any income from the house.
Yep, I had to enter less than $25,000.
Most polls are worthless. They aren’t written to the comprehension level of a large segment of our society.
Absolutely.
Polls specifically on one problem are likely to exaggerate people’s response to it.
For assessing the importance of problems, it’s far better – as with this Gallup poll – to let people choose from a menu of problems without prompting. Ironically, the UN world poll of concerns also shows climate change right at the bottom.
In this Gallup poll, even before the virus dominated everything, the average figure for climate change was about 4%. In other words, very few people think climate change is a big problem.
Actually, “climate” is a huge problem – I am of course referring to climate change alarmism. Global warming is a huge benefit for mankind and the planet. It is climate change alarmism – a virus so toxic that it puts corona virus to shame – that is the real threat to makind’s future wellfare.
Chris
The GWPF is supposed to be a skeptic organization.
I would say this poll is an own goal. It actually exaggerates the importance of climate change in the minds of the British Public.
The chart “By Age” shows the importance of accumulating wisdom. My personal accumulation effort is well underway, thank you.
no
the virus kills old people.
The old people will be dead (me included) before the climate becomes unmanageable.
It is obvious why old people voted the way they did – it is not wisdom,
Climate change will never become unmanageable.
Nothing bad happened during the Holocene maximum when temperatures were as much as 5C warmer than they are today.
Nothing bad happened millions of years ago when CO2 levels were well over 5000ppm.
The claim that something bad will happen if our dangerously low CO2 levels go up a little bit is just a lie used by socialists to gather more power for government and more money for themselves.
How many cities and what infrastructure was there during the Holocene maximum and “millions of years ago”
Life will go on just not as easy as now.
it is difficult protecting land against rising water (we fail at flood control now)
It is difficult moving crops further north
It is difficult accepting displaced people from locations where it is not possible to grow crops.
How many cities? Not relevant.
Life will go on, it will be even easier. There isn’t a shred of actual science that shows a warmer world has more intense weather.
Would that be the rising seas that have been rising at a constant rate for the last 150 to 200 years?
It is trivial to move crops further north, seeds don’t weigh much.
There is no place where crops are being grown that will be come unproductive in the next 100 to 200 years.
Is the best you can do is repeat disproven rants?
Ghalfrunt,
Your comments are nonsensical. I suggest you start looking at the science and the data rather than the media.
“How many cities and what infrastructure was there during the Holocene maximum and “millions of years ago””
The point is that life thrived during those times. When the familiar animal species first evolved CO2 was far, far higher than today. We live in an era of low CO2, not in an era of high CO2. The idea that a small increase in CO2 is dangerous is completely mad. The increased CO2 is provably making the planet greener. How can that be a bad thing?
“it is difficult protecting land against rising water (we fail at flood control now)”
Oh, please. The rate of sea level rise is about the same as during the Boer War. It has been rising at a remarkably constant rate since 1850, i.e. the end of the Little Ice Age. The rate is so small that you wouldn’t notice any difference during your lifetime.
Overall, sea level has been rising since the end of the last ice age. Mankind has been living with changing sea levels for countless thousands of years.
Global warming isn’t a problem, it’s a huge benefit. The Little Ice Age was about one degree cooler and it was a time of hunger, disease and death. Obviously, when the LIA ended the world would get about one degree warmer again. That’s exactly what has happened.
If it had not been for the modern global warming we would still be in the depths of the LIA. You can’t conceivably want that – unless you want to kill off far, far more human beings than the virus.
Chris
The rate of sea level rise is so slow that buildings near the ocean will wear out and be replaced multiple times before the water reaches them.
All we need to do is wait for the building to reach the end of it’s useful life, tear it down and instead of rebuilding in place, rebuild a few feet inland.
Sorry to disappoint you, Ghoulfart, but I have type “O” blood and it gives me more resistance against the Chicom Virus than my years of accumulated wisdom exposes me to risk. You, on the other hand, do not appear to be accumulating wisdom, perhaps you should go back to your milk and cookies?
Are we really surprised? Despite Disputin above, people here in the UK are facing losing loved ones – losing our next door neighbour and a friend’s mum kind of brings it home to you – so yes they are more concerned with a real here and now problem rather than nebulous issue that may occur sometime in the future. Did they really need to ask the question!
But why are the people worried about the 70,000 + preventable smoking related deaths?
Waza, your comment is right on, and here’s another: In Oregon there have been 160 Covid-19 deaths, and in the same time period there have been just over 500 drug overdose deaths. The world events are being distorted by an out-of-control media throwing gas on the small campfires. Stay sane and safe.
Drug over doses and smoking are things people do to themselves. If you don’t smoke and don’t do drugs, there is no reason to worry about them.
Possibly because smokers choose to commit suicide?
Similarly, the druggies mentioned below.
Fred and Mark
1. Agreed smokers choose to self harm.
2. But non smokers have to contribute to treatment through taxes.
3. Government collect taxes from ciggerette sales.
4. Government can take action to reduce smoking to reduce overall health burden and cost to both smokers and non smokers.
5.emotionally, losing a loved one to smoking is similar to losing a loved one to COVID.
Some years ago when I lived in the UK the claimed cost of treating smoking-related illness was 10% of the amount collected as tobacco duty.
Everybody dies of something. Most of those somethings are more expensive than is lung cancer.
Beyond that, having people die early reduces the strain on the social security system.
If it wasn’t for smokers, SS would have gone bankrupt decades ago.
How many MSM outlets will carry this? BBC? Ch 4 News? Any tabloid? Any broadsheet? Any Social Medium even?
Don’t think so.
If only we could get our boneheaded politicians to listen to and understand the facts
Oh dear. They need to check their thinking.
There is a major problem with this survey which occurs in all surveys regarding climate change. It is a variation of the false premise question exemplified by “Have you stopped beating your wife?” Here, the false premise is that climate change is a major problem which needs to be addressed and the only issue is whether we are doing enough. They ask whether you are concerned about climate change, the clear implication being that “yes” means you want governments to do more to reduce CO2 emissions.
In my opinion, climate change is, indeed, the main issue facing humanity at the moment, but only indirectly. There is no climate crisis, man-made or otherwise. Climate change is gradual, non-threatening, and can be accommodated by modest adaptation measures if and when they become necessary. However, current climate change policies are wrecking the energy generation capacity of the West and pose a serious existential threat to modern civilisation in the West.
You cannot run an industrial civilisation on renewables. You can brainwash the school children. You can organise XR rallies. You can sit around camp fires singing ‘Kumbaya’. But you can’t change the laws of physics, and the physics of a 100% renewables grid doesn’t work. In the absence of fossil fuels or nuclear power, the future of Britain would be that of a third world country and there is no way we could sustain a population of 67 million in these circumstances. Anyone want to speculate on the mechanism by which the population would be reduced ? This is far more serious than a pandemic which will be over in a finite period.
So, how do I respond to a survey like this in a way which gets my opinion across to YouGov ?
David Lilley
Right on, and Germany is showing how it is to be done
Where is the sarc tag ?
😀
Pick a country, USA, UK, Italy, Spain or Sweden.
Now mount a case that COVID 19 is worse than smoking.
I feel sad for the people who have lost loved ones due to COVID, but people are dying right now from many other causes just as bad as COVID.
In 2019, on an average day 8,025 people died in the US, without COVID-19.
The total death count of COVID-19 is less than two weeks out of the average annual death rate in the US.
“British Public Now More Concerned About Coronavirus Than Climate Change”
Might this have something to do with massive Coronavirus propaganda campaign?
Andrew
Forced choice method.
Enough said.
If you notice nowhere on that “opinion” poll was the choice of none of the above. Pollers were forced to pick 1 of the crafted responses. Such polls have their uses but IMO, not for a this or that. There are other choices.
Now ask them about their confidence in modelers and their predictions. Yes, the same modelers that greatly influence their elected leaders and national policies.
As a member of the “British Public” I’m far more concerned about Covid-19. However, it’s NOT the virus itself which concerns me, but the horrendous ramifications of the lockdown policies. The same applies to the subject of “Climate Change”, but so far I don’t think even that has done as much damage as the Covid fallout is going to. As others have said, a crude survey like this is utterly useless…
I’m more concerned about space aliens. Also, zombies who are STILL hording and panic-buying toilet paper, as well as other products. Seriously, what is up with that? People can be such pigs. Then they wear a mask, showing how much they “care” about everyone. Grrrrr!
Given how Covid-19 has stolen climate change’s thunder, how long before the climate Mongers start discounting the seriousness of the Sars-Cov2 virus?
Where’s the “would you like to see governments control over your life dramatically reduced” box, I’ll tick that.
To what do we owe this astounding turn of events?
Is this the first year the poll has ever asked about anything other than climate change?
Better unleash the models to correct this situation. Just let the models run while you have fun at the beach with close friends. They won’t know the difference.
Most of the “British Public” really don’t care about either.
CV19 is an immediate threat, climate-change in a future threat.
If climate change means a decent summer holiday, so be it.
Daily survival is of more interest.