The poll suggests there could be a fairly rapid move towards the green side of the political spectrum in the US if we continue to see hurricanes or other climate-related disasters and "unusual weather" in North America continues.

What concerns me on the downside isn't just the weakness and inadequacy of the measures to avert global warming that most Americans would be willing to support now, but that the importance of Katrina and this year's heat waves in changing people's way of thinking betrays how much people are focusing on events over a very short term.

What might look like an upsurge in awareness of the reality of global warming could go right back in the box if there happen to be fewer hurricanes again over the next year or two. What might appear to be a return to more "normal" weather patterns in North America over the next 1-2 years is not impossible, or even unlikely.

People aren't responding to what scientists say, Or if they are, it is only because those messages happen to be in synch at the moment with widely-held immediate, personal perceptions that the climate and weather are changing in bad ways.

Persuading people there may be huge medium- and long-term economic costs if the growth in GHG emissions is not reversed - not just slowed - will clearly be much harder. Getting Americans to acknowledge that their country (among the developed economies of the world) bears primary responsibility for the crisis is probably impossible.

Robert Delfs

   Robert is correct.  But we need to pay attention to the role of the MSM in framing and discussing this issue.

   Unfortunately, we live in a time where television provides most people with most of their information. (This is truly frightening and explains many things!)

   The MSM switches coverage back and forth, and focuses only on the "now".  This tends to encourage this trend in people.

   We really could use a more intelligent serious media and less shows like something called "Lost" (all the rage among my students).

   Otherwise, we have very little hope of getting people to focus until their cars start to melt.

patrick

My husband and I have been talking about this a great deal lately.  Our conversation usually centers around the fact that the news is story based instead of trend based.  So instead of hearing about the declining murder rate or increasing global temperature, we hear about the brutal murder next door and the record breaking cold day.  It's completely absurd, and does a great disservice to the audience.

Does anyone know of any regular old news agencies that do a good job of reporting trends?  I'd love to get my hands (or eyes) on it.  It gets exhausting trying to keep up on my own!

http://groxie.com DIY Environmentalism

"improve the environment without harming the economy"

This is called push polling, you ask a leading question and influence the opinion of those answering the poll.

If fact the renwable energy economy will greatly benefit the economy.  Was that wrong headed question intentional?  Of course, the talking point propaganda spread by media is right out of corporatist think tanks.

Drudge is on the computer screen of virtually every US news oulet.  Pure right wing tabloid corporatist  sludge invading media consciouness.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

I have been researching the climate change of the world for over 30 years.

There is much talk of Global warming being due to carbon dioxide increase in the atmosphere.

However if you impartially look at the unfolding climatic situation you will find there is a confused case for the warming scenario, and a very strong case for drought.

A warmer  and wetter earth is no problem.  A drying Earth is a very serious problem.

First to understand this
The Northern Hemisphere and the Southern Hemisphere of the earth are disconnected when dealing with climate.

The Northern Hemisphere is experiencing a mixture of floods, severe storms and drought.... all within the bounds of the theories about a CO2 greenhouse effect.  This is because the Northern Hemisphere has a very large land mass to dry.

The Southern hemisphere is experiencing severe drought in many areas.

Common to both is ice melt and drought.

There is a molecular thin layer of petroleum oil overlaying the surface of the sea.  This surface micro layer inhibits water evaporation, and upsets the hydrology cycle of the entire Earth.  Removal of clouds accounts for ice melt, and transient local warming by increasing the occurrence clear skies.

If you look at the air temperature records, what becomes apparent is that the temperature range (ie the difference between the maximum and the minimum air temperature is widening.

The earth is slowly becoming a desert... not a wetter and hotter place.

Of course big oil and big coal, set their spin doctors to hide this information, and in truth, you still drive your car.

A carbon dioxide problem is trivial, an oil slick is terminally sick.

The first step in addressing any perceived problem is to determine just what is the problem.

see
omegafour.com/forum/

David, of course it`s useful to keep the political heat up, even though that feeds into the rhetoric of denial, but there`s no way the average Joe is really going to understand this issue - we`ve all got limited time, energy and attention spans.  

On top of that, the fossil fuel producers and users have invested effectively in muddying the science and Republicans have figured out how to make political hay by both taking contributions from indutry and bashing Dems on this issue.

I wonder when the left will consider trying to accommodate fossil fuel industry and manufacturers, and thus directly remove the source of the blockage (and undermine Republican transigence as well).  I have addressed this recently in my last post in the libertarian blog of the Von Mises Institute, which I take the liberty of quoting:

"Climate change falls into this latter type of open-access resource problems. Properly understood, dealing with climate change is not focused on stopping the negative effects or the activity that causes them, but simply in creating rules that allow make it in the self-interest of those who are creating negative effects to take into account the interests of those who are affected.

We are in the middle of community negotiations about the creation of climate change rules. As part of the discussions, it seems to me that everyone is naturally trying to maximize their self-interests. I am sympathetic to all sides, but think that it is clear that we need at set of rules that acknowledge the negative effects, and would like to get past the policy blockage.

It seems to me that at the core of the policy blockage -both nationally and internationally - are distribution issues. These distribution issues need to be resolved in order to move ahead. Those who create the negative effects deny them, when they actually have a fairly strong argument that they have "homesteaded" rights to emit GHGs. For this, perhaps the easiest path to a solution is to expressly provide GHG emissions rights to existing large-scale emitters (contributions by individuals are nominal and can of course be ignored), and to compensate them if their share under any collective cap is less than their current emissions. Likewise, certain developing countries have a point when they argue that the application of any limits to them is unfair in view of the fact that up to now the problem is due wholly to the industrialize economies. How do we get them to agree to a cap, except by a combination of carrots in the form, of subsidies for new technologies (as Bush is doing) and sticks (trade sanctions - which Bush and the EU ignore)?"

TT

   Developing countries are NEVER going to agree to caps that prevent them from developing UNLESS developed countries agree to reduce their emissions to the same levels as the "capped" developing countries.

   And that's per-capita.

   So far, alas, it sounds like developed countries have no interest in getting serious quickly.

   But there is long term hope, maybe.... (flip a coin).

patrick

I'm afraid that the main prescription to address global warming isn't realistic nor is it a solution.

First, with a growing population and with growing per capita greenhouse gas emissions, dramatically cutting emissions is unrealistic.  Currently, policymakers seem content to only prescribe a freeze in overall emissions, because India and China have to catch up to the Western per capita greenhouse gas emissions.

Second, cutting emissions is a mitigation strategy, not a solution.  We are already committed to almost a 1C increase, and some say it is unlikely that there is the political will to stop warming below 3C.

Finally, when forced, the climate doesn't warm gradually and linearly.  Instead, it changes abruptly, going from one stable state to another with little time in between.  Caps is a strategy that is intended to gradually wean us off of burning fuels that emit greenhouse gases.  Yet, it is probable that abrupt climate change will occur in the next decade or two-completely nullifying any attempt to gradually tapper off our carbon emissions.

The only solution is biosequestration, where nature removes the carbon from the air after it has been emitted.  Nature already does this, but we are overwhelming her ability to cope.  Yet, it is predictable that runaway global warming and abrupt climate change will destabilize human civilization, and there will be less than a billion people alive by the end of the century.