Amidst the chaos of the Inauguration events and Obama administration’s transition, Rasmussen Reports conducted a global warming poll late last week. As I perused through the poll questions and responses I could barely believe what was reported: An increasing number of people do not think global warming is caused by human activity.
According to the poll, 44 percent of all people polled thought long-term planetary trends were the primary cause of global warming as opposed to the 41 percent of people who blamed human activity. In 2006, only 35 percent of people believed that global warming was caused by planetary trends. Overall, 41 percent of people polled stated global warming was a very serious problem, and 23 percent of people polled thought that it was a somewhat serious problem. Interesting though, according to Rasmussen Reports, 64 percent of Democrats think global warming is a serious problem while only 18 percent of Republicans believe the same.
Affiliations aside, this news is not only disheartening, but it is also downright disturbing.
A few weeks ago, I read an article detailing how legislators in Florida were wary to vote on a greenhouse gas reductions act since apparently some of Florida’s politicians were questioning the role of human activity in global warming. Perhaps the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change should mail them a few hundred copies of their 2007 Fourth Assessment Report. I can understand that the average American doesn’t take the time to read the IPCC reports, but politicians? The IPCC specifically made a summary report just for policymakers.
Here’s the breakdown of the IPCC findings: Our atmosphere does go through “natural cycles” of temperature changes, but what people are failing to understand, or perhaps are choosing to ignore, is that the rate of warming that has occurred in the past 250 years has grossly accelerated. According to the IPCC, “The atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide in 2005 exceeds by far the natural range over the last 650,000 years (180 to 300 ppm) as determined from ice cores.” Further, “The atmospheric concentration of methane in 2005 exceeds by far the natural range of the last 650,000 years (320 to 790 ppb) as determined from ice cores.” And finally, “The combined radiative forcing due to increases in carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide .. .and its rate of increase during the industrial era is very likely to have been unprecedented in more than 10,000 years.” The IPCC also clearly notes that these increases are the result of human activities, not “natural cycles.” The colorful IPCC graphs with sharp J-curves of greenhouse gas emissions show the trends quite clearly.
Several hundred of the world’s finest scientists came together to produce the IPCC report that undoubtedly demonstrates that global warming is happening and the result of human activity. Despite this, more Americans now believe global warming is caused by natural cycles than by people. How did this happen? Are they in denial? Have we lost our faith in science? Is the media inaccurately reporting the reality of the situation? We need to open our eyes and see things for what they are, especially as new evidence of global climate change continues to be announced nearly every week.
Wednesday, Nature published research which demonstrates that Antarctica is also warming. For many years scientists were unsure as to whether Antarctica was warming, especially in comparison to the North Pole, which has warmed more than 5°. But this new research shows that Antarctica is warming at about the same rate as the rest of the globe, which could have dramatic consequences for the massive ice shelves in the area. It is just one of the many reports already out this year which note not only warming temperatures, but also potentially dramatic consequences. As President Barack Obama settles into the White House, I hope he heard this news and felt compelled to act.
The Rasmussen poll on global warming found that 46 percent of people polled, compared to an opposing 32 percent, believe that there is a direct conflict between economic growth and environmental protection. I respectfully disagree, and I believe President Obama does as well. I am hopeful that our new administration will embrace independent science and research in a way that promotes effective policies. President Obama has voiced his dedication to managing our economy in a way that will also promote environmental protection.
Our country needs help both economically and environmentally, and no longer should we believe that the two can not happen in harmony. Changing our economic system to one that embraces and promotes environmental protection will not only create jobs, but it also will result in reduced greenhouse gas emissions. Perhaps as more Americans find work in “green jobs,” they will realize the incredible opportunity we have to combat not only global warming, but also our failing economy at the same time. Such recognition will enable us to link our economic development with environmental protection in the public consciousness, and hopefully restore the American faith in our government and economy, and also in science itself.
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Comments
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kmp Posted 2:50 am
26 Jan 2009
It's been very cold in the Northeast and in much of the nation for the past few weeks. These poll results may be a result of timing as much as anything else. People do not equate unseasonably harsh winter with climate change. People think "Global warming my a$$."
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josullivan58 Posted 2:55 am
26 Jan 2009
People are doubting scientific facts because of the war on science is working and not because the science is becoming less certain.
Hopefully this destructive trend can be reversed.
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PeterWinters Posted 3:28 am
26 Jan 2009
We started up a market research agency (Haddock Research), last year, to really get a handle on how people feel and think about climate change. Like you, I have found the public opinion numbers disturbing and really wanted to understand what was going on. We did our own extensive survey of adults in Canada, the UK and the USA - and probably the most important thing to realise is that in each country, public opinion is very divided indeed!
At our site (http://www.haddock-research.com) we produce press releases and free reports (you need to register for these). Last month I wrote a piece about the importance of segmentation - The Importance of Segmentation in Understanding Public Opinion to Climate Change and the Low-Carbon Economy; And a critical review of the HSBC Climate Change Index 2007
- which you can read at:
http://www.brockmann.com/index.php/green/green/guest-blog ...
I would be happy to assist with any questions.
Peter
5764 Monkland Ave., Suite 13
Montreal (QC) Canada H4A 1E9
Understanding people's relationship with climate change and the low-carbon economy
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Alec Rawls Posted 4:06 am
26 Jan 2009
Numerous studies have found a high degree of correlation (.7 to .8) between solar activity and global climate on all time scales, going back hundreds of millions of years. Solar activity was at "grand maximum" levels from 1940-2000. THAT is what caused the warming. From "grand maximum" there is nowhere to go but down. Cooling was inevitable, and with solar activity now suddenly down to rock bottom levels, it has already started.
The 4th IPCC refuses to incorporate solar magnetic effects into their models on the grounds that they don't understand how it works. But that is not science. The scientific method is that data trumps theory. A scientist follows the facts. The IPCC's stand would be like a pre-Newtonian scientist predicting that, if he drops a rock, it will waft away on the wind, because he understands the wind pushing on an object, but he doesn't understand gravity, so he is not going to include it in his calculations. That is how scientific the IPCC is.
Of course there are theories of how the solar-magnetic wind affects global temperature. The leading theory, from Henrik Svensmark, is that it sweeps away the high energy Galactic Cosmic Radiation that would otherwise ionize the atmosphere, seeding cloud formation. In effect, the solar wind blows the clouds away, giving the earth a sunburn. But the theory is secondary. Science is supposed to follow the facts, and the facts are clear: the solar wind is a, perhaps the, primary driver of global temperature. The IPCC is not science. It is religion.
Anybody who really cares about the earth needs to chuck aside this fraudulent religion and start looking at the facts, because nothing is more devastating to flora and fauna than to be buried under a mile of ice, which is the real danger that we should be worried about, and doing whatever we can to forestall.
Do you really want to be the last to know, figuring it out only when the frigid facts finally clobber you upside the head?
My post here:
http://errortheory.blogspot.com/2008/11/my-comment-on-epa ...
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Trebuchet Posted 4:49 am
26 Jan 2009
So now the majority of people, whether they are for or against the science, are barely on one side of the other.
So, since it's been colder here in the Northeast than in years past - mostly due to La Nina, people are swinging toward the "it's not happening" or "it's not our fault" stance.
Remember that most people desperately want it not to be happening. It's terrifically scary and just this big monstrous thing so if there's groups that are saying "there's nothing to worry about", then those groups have a built-in audience.
It could take years before the effects of that assault wear off. Years we don't really have. Every one of us needs to become an educator (many of us on grist are!).
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JMG Posted 4:57 am
26 Jan 2009
I'm reading a really, really great book right now called "Overtreated: Why too much medicine is making us sicker and poorer" by Shannon Brownlee. It's really a very damning, very well documented indictment of our medical-pharmacological-industrial complex, which is very science-based but, at the tip of the spear, where physician/practitioner meets patient, hardly seems to refer to science at all.
It's quite shocking to be reminded how deeply human -- which is to say, totally nonscientific -- many medical people are, how they will continue to do things that harm or even kill people because these actions make intuitive sense, even despite published reports based on controlled studies showing that what the physicians are doing is worse than useless. Add economic pressures to the mix and, well, you see the results all around you -- our health spending is #1 by a huge margin, the actual state of our health is right near Cuba and other poor countries.
I was going to put a post up about it when I finished the book because I think we're losing the race to stabilize the climate and save some biodiversity, despite having lots of good science around (prior comment excepted), and we better figure out fast how to start getting people not to act like people so much ... which is to say, start using that thin overlay of cerebral matter more and the bottom 2/3 of the brain less.
(The hook of the post was to be that, if "men and women of science" have such a hard time acting rationally in a profession where they have labored for centuries but only began to get results when it started using the results of science then we are making a wild lead off first when we expect everyday folks to appreciate science, especially when it conflicts with their everyday experience.)
The scary part is that we have no time for things like "improving science education" to matter.
Someone said that there was no use waiting for proponents of classical physics to adopt quantum theory so that it could be accepted as the standard model, the only thing you could do was wait for them to die off. I fear that we are in the same boat with respect to beliefs about atmospheric chemistry and our ability to alter it meaningfully -- there's a huge majority of people in the world who, at heart, don't believe that humans have the ability to do so even if we wanted to. By the time events prove them wrong, it will be too late to do much about it.
The 5% Project
Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay.
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2wheeler Posted 7:00 am
26 Jan 2009
Historical context: Back in the 1890s there were novel parlor tricks and claims about electromagnetism; static electricity and sparks, magnetism, etc. It was all very charlatan like, in retrospect.
Now, aided by scientific studies, data and methods we know about the earth's Ionosphere and magnetosphere-- about our planet's own electromagnetic field created by the rotation of the molten iron core deep inside earth-- and how it protects us from much of the harmful spectra of radiation that is flying past.
The thermal (IR) type from our sun, is able to pass through and warms our surface; it is aided by the blanketing atmosphere which maintains the temperature higher than, say, that of the moon. It's a rather fine calibration to keep our system between the melting and boiling points of water, which most life as we know it depends on. Venus and Mars are examples of the two extremes beyond these limits...
A friend believes that average Joe's have a hard time distinguishing on a daily basis between weather and climate. Maybe that's what explains this poll finding in the middle of the 10th coldest January on record (in my northern state, anyway). That and how the Weather Channel axed their climate science reporting...
The warm seasons arrive statistically earlier each year. That is a climatic signal! USGS reports released just before the change of administrations underscore the gravity of the situation we're finding ourselves in due to human perturbations of the natural climate system.
The science is happening, despite wingnut attestations to the contrary!
Moving toward sustainability with hopefulness, one revolution at a time.
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Alec Rawls Posted 7:52 am
26 Jan 2009
So how do you jusfity the IPCC refusing to account any of this evidence AT ALL? Solar magnetic effects are not even in their model. That's how defrauded you all are. The IPCC misatributes solar warming effects to CO2, then multiplies the fraud by projecting this misattributed warming forward. It is a flat out lie, a 100% hoax, and you can EASILY determine this for yourself just by examining the evidence for the solar-climate connection that the IPCC refuses to account. Global warming is not just a religion. It is a religion of lies.
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Ted Clayton Posted 5:41 am
27 Jan 2009
A few of us (10-12%?) are natural-born science-types. It helps inform better decisions, by leadership. Very important, it helps tamp down the default buffoonery of being human. (Tho, scientific buffoonery is far from unknown.)
But notice not only are we not one, but there are no Scientocracies. We've had science long enough now, there should be several examples, in the history books and in the current international scene. We have no incipient Vulcan or Romulan cultures. If one does appear, it is unlikely to be stable.
We have obliged certain government agencies to use 'Best available science', instead of various (default) subjective processes, but we are not really going to set policy for our nation by scientific fiat.
Environmentalism & Co. have had great success appealing to scientific argument to win public policy contests, but it would be prudent to remember that science really only informs decisions, and does not force them.
Decisions, especially the more crucial ones, remain primarily a matter of values & principles, not logic & science.
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snedunuri Posted 4:32 am
08 Feb 2009
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JMG Posted 5:16 am
08 Feb 2009
It's not anymore. By any measure, other countries have surpassed the US in many if not most fields.
A declining fraction of "US" scientists are natives. Graduate programs in science in US universities are dominated by foreign nationals.
We do benefit greatly from a great brain drain from other countries -- at least we did until the Bush junta made this country so hostile to foreign nationals that a number of them went home to enrich their nations instead of ours.
The 5% Project
Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay.
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Colin Wright Posted 5:29 am
08 Feb 2009
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Ted Clayton Posted 8:03 am
08 Feb 2009
The public doesn't know specifically how to calculate neutron flux and nuclear resonance energy, but they do understand just fine that two pieces of plutonium driven rapidly together create a positive feedback radiation-increase that 'ignites' the whole mass in a nuclear explosion.
The environmentalist' & Anthropogenic Global Warming community rationale that regular people cannot grasp climate science, or that they are easily misinformed because they are "ignorant" or "unaware", is fallacious.
Sure, we find the willfully ignorant and the perversely wrong-headed among the public. But to assume that the public as a whole is predominantly mentally incompetent, whereas we fine, properly-Green folk are their responsibly-enlightened betters ... this is a conceit, and the classic makings of one's own downfall.
The public are capable of thinking satisfactorily, and they are very familiar with a wide range of manipulative forces brought to bear upon them. The idea that "deniers" will be able to have their way with a defenseless public runs afoul of the simple reality that average folks' lives are one continuous immersion-education in the wiles & ways of manipulators.
Consider for a moment the breadth & depth of influences aimed at the public, conducted by the finest career professionals on Madison Avenue, in Hollywood, on Capitol Hill ... and then compare these honed armies to the relatively meager cadre of climate-skeptics.
Painting the public as rube simpletons at the utter mercy of denier-demons is a red herring. That's not what the problem is for AGW.
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snedunuri Posted 12:58 pm
08 Feb 2009
(2) I can agree with. But so long as the country can keep importing geeks, who really cares? There's still a waiting list as long as my right arm of geeks who want to immigrate here (hell, I myself did that several years ago)
Anyway, my point was really that there's a big disconnect between the general public and scientists, more so than in other countries. And i think that is ultimately bad, since it allows pseudo-science and creationist freaks to set the agenda.
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