Fewer Americans Believe the Earth is Warming - Technology Review

Fewer Americans Believe the Earth is Warming

New Pew Research Center poll shows a decline in the number of Americans who believe climate change is a serious problem.

Kevin Bullis 10/23/2009

16 Comments

Today President Obama said that climate change skeptics are being pushed to the margins, but that may have been wishful thinking.

Poll results from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press released yesterday say that the number of people who believe "there is solid evidence that the earth is warming" dropped from 71 percent in April of 2008 to 57 percent now. Only 36 percent said there was good evidence warming is due to human activity, down from 47 percent in April of 2008. Only 35 percent say climate change is a serious problem.

The numbers of climate change believers have been declining for the last few years among Democrats, Independents and Republicans. For independents, for example, 79 percent believed there was solid evidence in 2006, compared to 53 percent now. It might not be a coincidence that Al Gore's film, "An Inconvenient Truth," came out in 2006.

Now here's the really odd thing. In spite of these low numbers, 50 percent of Americans believe there should be limits on carbon emissions, even if this causes energy prices to rise. Only 39 percent oppose it.

There's an uncharitable interpretation--that Americans are being inconsistent. But there's also a more hopeful interpretation. Climate change models are full of uncertainties. No one really knows just how much the Earth will warm, or what impact this will have, particularly on regional weather patterns. Maybe Americans are learning about these uncertainties, hence the lower numbers siting "solid evidence," yet concluding that the risk is high enough that we should do something to avoid the worst possible scenarios.

Department of Energy Funds Liquid Battery Research How SuperFreakonomics Gets Climate Engineering Wrong

18 Comments

844 Days Ago
10/23/2009

Surveys and reality

Pew has a reputation for more or less honest surveys, no slant.

Nevertheless, surveys on questions of science are pretty much absurd - in a nation as backwards about science knowledge as the United States.

Americans are more likely to get their "information" on climate change from Fox Snooze or talk radio then peer-review journals or otherwise reputable sources..

130 Comments

841 Days Ago
10/26/2009

Re: Surveys and reality

"...in a nation as backwards about science knowledge as the United States."

Or maybe more Americans have looked to sources other than the television and found that temperatures seem to be flat or slightly declining the last 11 years while CO2 has increased. In other words, the predictions of the fear merchants presented in the MSM *and* Fox and CNN have proven false. It wouldn't be the first time scientists have been wrong.

7 Comments

843 Days Ago
10/24/2009

The failure of telephone surveys

Firstly: 'Global warming' is a misnomer: Climate change is more scientifically accurate.

Secondly: Asking the ignorant what they believe is a waste of time. It bespeaks to America's intellectual poverty: "If everyone agrees with me then I must be right."

28 Comments

843 Days Ago
10/24/2009

Re: The failure of telephone surveys

Considering the amount of coverage and hype global warming has gotten, the default expectation falls to man made global warming, not those who appose it. Clearly, free thinking has led to the terror that is Global Warming Denial.
Don't blur the issue by calling it Climate Change; making the ebb and flow of the environment the fault of mankind doesn't change the fact that the idea of man made global warming is fundamentally wrong.
Carbon Dioxide and Methane are created by warmer climates, not the other way around. The irresponsible amount of money being used to propagate this idea could be used to cure disease or find alternative energy sources. Congresses projected spending for 'Climate Change' (as of last year) was 20 Trillion by 2050.

44 Comments

843 Days Ago
10/24/2009

The solution is to take

it to the Supreme Court.
I'm sure they will deliberate with all the objectivity shown in Bush vs Gore.

1 Comment

842 Days Ago
10/25/2009

Easily distracted

We Americans have lost any semblance of an adult attention span. The early Global Warming stories promised/threatened drama and spectacle. Lacking a "Hammer of God" type event, I'm afraid we've picked up our collective remotes and changed the channel. Didn't a Russian ship actually make it through the North American NorthWest Passage this summer? You would hope that an ice-free Arctic sealane might prove to be a compelling evidentiary story. Perhaps if it had been crewed by 'C' list celebrities, this would gain some attention. Lacking widespread destruction and special effects, nobody is paying attention anymore.

130 Comments

841 Days Ago
10/26/2009

Re: Easily distracted

You're mistaking the Northwest Passage with the Northeast Passage, which has been navigated before in 1878. The arctic ice has been on a two year trend of recovery since it's minimum in 2007. The minimum has only been established in the modern era of satellites and says nothing of the pre-satellite era. There are pictures of US nuclear subs surfaced at the North Pole in drifting sea ice in 1959, so to presume that the arctic is a monolithic sea of ice without ebbs and flows is simply wrong.

The "scientists" that recently promoted and sponsored the "Catlin Expedition" have become C list celebrities. They failed to do much science because they discovered that the arctic is, well, damn cold. Al Gore has become a C list celebrity, and a very wealthy one at that. He has made over $100 million dollars since leaving office in 2000 when his net worth was only a few million dollars. Where has he made it? His movie, his books, his lectures and from selling carbon credits, a commodity which is now essentially worthless.

There is big money to be made by the media, academia, politicians and film makers selling the fear of global warming to Americans and the rest of the world. Billions are being spent that could be better spent on clean water and malaria vaccine. Instead, it's lining the pockets of the well positioned hucksters of today. It's a sad shame.

click here...

130 Comments

841 Days Ago
10/26/2009

I'm very sorry to see that Kevin Bullis feels that skeptics should be marginalized. Skepticism is the cornerstone of Science, but perhaps that's not really his concern. He, like the current US administration he cites, seems far more interested in promoting an agenda rather than looking objectively at the facts. I ask again that he publish an interview with Dr. Lindzen at MIT if possible.

For an objective and admittedly skeptical view of the state of the field, I suggest http://wattsupwiththat.com. If one is really interested in understanding the field, it's important to monitor *both* sides of the debate.

2 Comments

841 Days Ago
10/26/2009

17th century all over again

I wonder if this is what it was like when people were still debating whether the earth circled the sun.

4 Comments

839 Days Ago
10/28/2009

Hold on a minute.....

We need to be careful and not confuse skepticism with ignorance. A knowledgeable debate is quite different from being lead by biased sound bytes. And, we all know that the sun's energy (as measured by watts / M2) on the Earth's surface has reduced by approximately 22% over the last 50 years (light refractance due to air borne particulates from pollution). This fact is offsetting the CO2 buildup effect and reducing the correlative effect between CO2 & Temp. And finally, the numbers are still being calculated as to determine the lag-time between the increase in CO2 and the resultant "total" rise in temperature. If we educate the public, just a little, they will realize the pot will boil unless we turn down the heat.

130 Comments

839 Days Ago
10/28/2009

Re: Hold on a minute.....

A 22% reduction in the sun's energy reaching Earth's surface in the last 50 years would result in an ice planet. Surely your figure refers to something else. Please cite what you're talking about here.

4 Comments

839 Days Ago
10/28/2009

22% Reference...Global Dimming

Kstauff..My apologies for not providing a reference. And the reference I used was measured in "parts of the Middle-East".

Global Dimming

... Global Dimming Geography IB HL Mr. Verity Nils Werner Global Dimming Global dimming is an alarming phenomenon. Visible pollution particles that are released into the atmosphere when fossil fuels are burned cause global dimming. Similar to global warming, this process changes rainfall patterns worldwide.

The amount of sunlight reaching the surface of the earth in the Middle-Eastern region has decreased by twenty-two percent because more sunlight is being reflected back into space.

The visible pollutant particles from burning fossil fuels reflect sunlight and cause an increase in precipitation by causing more droplets to form. This causes clouds to reflect even more sunlight. It is very likely that global dimming has been disguising the negative effects of global warming by stopping some of the sun's energy from reaches the surface of the earth. A worldwide effort is being done to a control or limitation on pollution. There is a very possibility that as the air.......

Read / See more: http://www.coursework.info/International_Baccalaureate/Geography/Global_Dimming_L831161.html#ixzz0VI57KSEc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUD66kjLVNw (go to 4:17 minute mark)

130 Comments

838 Days Ago
10/29/2009

Re: 22% Reference...Global Dimming

"Parts of the Middle East" would reasonably mean some urban areas in the Middle East. This is unsurprising, and it while it's not a problem specific to the Middle East (see China), it is likely localized to those urban areas. Such an effect would only be a minor negative forcing, perhaps undetectable in the noise of natural climate variation.

I do thank you for clarifying though. I wasn't able to watch the video at my current location, but I'll do so when I can.

2 Comments

828 Days Ago
11/08/2009

Well, there's quite a bit of talk about the severity of the problem, and a healthy dose of scepticism, something any scientist would welcome. The reality is that this is not something we can chance, right? One would not normally accept a 5% possibility of a cataclysmic event in their life without a backup plan. If global warming is a reality, will the proposed solutions effect a change in time to be useful? Is the lag on the effect of our changes too late to prevent the destruction of every coastal city? Can we afford to wait another 50 years for the researchers to be "sure"? Are we calmed because our great grandchildren will suffer, not us?

What if we make these changes, what's the worst possible effect, a small decline in GDP? Sounds to me like unless the science supporting climate change is completely spurious, then this is certainly an investment worth skipping the 2-cars-per-household lifestyle. Obviously this sort of "high risk investment" will have to be mandated/funded/driven by governments in our current instant gratification society (who wants to hold options with a 200 year vesting date?!)

One extreme is that all of humanity is saved, we create the early preconditions to live long enough to move off this little planet in a few billion years (if we last that long, and I imagine we all have grand thoughts of our very distant ancestors one day making that leap throughout the now apparently distant universe). The other extreme? We spend a whole lot of money which results in less pollution, fewer cases of asthma, and replacing smokestacks with wind turbines.

We can all breathe easier if we play it safe.

click here...

130 Comments

826 Days Ago
11/10/2009

Re: Solution

Thousands die today because of malaria and dirty water. These are problems that can be addressed *right now* with a 100% probability of success. Instead, money that could help those with these problems is being diverted to "solve" a non-existent problem.

Observation of the climate has already largely discredited AGW theory. Studies supporting the theory have been shown to be faulty and perhaps even fraudulent (Mann and Briffa, respectively).

Your risk assessment of 5% seems incredibly high to my eyes and makes no mention of the considerable benefits of both warming and increased CO2 on plant life, which I will note is the basis for animal life on Earth. I would also add that our climate is not and never has been static. It *will* get much colder in the next few thousand years; our geologic record indicates cycles of warm and cold periods, with ice ages on the order of tens of thousands of years. Right now, we are in a period of warmth. If you'd like to learn more about the paleo-climate, I encourage you to see this article:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/10/16/searching-the-paleoclimate-record-for-estimated-correlations-temperature-co2-and-sea-level/

67 Comments

789 Days Ago
12/17/2009

Too little science being taught in schools?

Let's face it. There is too little science being taught in schools today (at least a lot less on a per-capita basis than North American classrooms a few years after sputnik). The average North American was swayed by the presentation of Al Gore's movie titled "An Inconvenient Truth" but the memories of that presentation have faded and now their opinions are an expression of the popular media rather than scientific publications.

Bio

Kevin Bullis is Technology Review’s energy editor.

Subscribe to the Potential Energy RSS Feed

click here...

Recent Posts From
Potential Energy

The Energy Use of New York City's Buildings, Visualized

Amyris Gives Up Making Biofuels: Update

GM Reveals Dismal Volt Sales in January

Natural Gas: The Next Presidential Transportation Fad

Blog Topics

amyris biochemicals biofuels data analysis energy energy efficiency investors mascoma

click here...

Facebook

click here...