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.

In its 2010 budget, the Obama administration put an end to funding for hydrogen fuel cell vehicle research, but Congress is putting that money back in. In the last two days, the relevant committees in both the House and the Senate have issued their versions of the Department of Energy budget. Both reduce investment in renewable energy compared with the president's budget, and direct money to research into hydrogen programs that the administration deemed too far away from reality to merit funding.

In an interview with Technology Review, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said that hydrogen fuel cell vehicles would require four "miracles" to become practical. Chu supports research into better biofuels and batteries instead.

The massive energy bill that would set a cap on carbon dioxide emissions and provide other incentives and requirements for clean energy has passed the U.S. House of Representatives by a slim margin.

It's far from becoming law, though. Passing the bill in the Senate will be more difficult: many Democrats voted against the bill in the House, something that can't happen in the Senate if it is to pass. What's more, President Obama isn't entirely happy with the bill and will be pushing to get some changes made, including removing a provision designed to encourage other countries to set up emissions goals of their own, according to the Washington Post.

Some experts hope that the bill's passage in the House will prove a strong bargaining chip later this year when world leaders meet to discuss international caps on emissions.