Americans are less concerned about global warming today than they were a year ago.
Naw, that can't be right. Where's my glasses?
Americans are less concerned about global warming today than they were a year ago.
Impossible. Another cup of coffee and I'll get right back to you.
Americans are less concerned about global warming today than they were a year ago.
According to a new worldwide study by the Pew Global Attitudes Project. the percentage of Americans who think global warming is a "very serious problem" dropped 5% over the last year, from 47% in 2007 to 42% today.
What's more, of the 24 countries surveyed, Americans rank fourth from last on concern over global warming. Only the citizens of China, Jordan, and Egypt are less informed. It is no surprise the Chinese are poorly informed, as their access to news and information is among the most restricted in the world. Jordan and Egypt are hardly bastions of free press either. Moreover, they are deserts. And their populations don't emit much carbon into the atmosphere (Jordan is ranked 99th in carbon emissions per capita, Egypt 113th).
What is America's excuse?
Did some new study suggest that situation might not be as dire as we thought?
Actually, over the last 12 months evidence has continued to pile up suggesting that the "worst case" scenarios climate scientists have been describing in recent years were not nearly dire enough to describe changes now underway that we can just walk out the door and see for ourselves. Leading a long list of such sights was, the precipitous decline of Arctic sea ice in the summer of 2007. A picture tells more than a thousand words, and this is what climate researcher found at the north pole last summer:
This observational data led NASA climate scientist Jay Zwally to proclaim, "The Arctic is often cited as the canary in the coal mine for climate warming. The canary has died. It is time to start getting out of the coal mines."
What me worry?
Which leads us to another startling observation: as opposed to China, Jordan, and Egypt, the United States is where much (though hardly all) of the best research on climate change is being done. Most research/least informed public. Huh?
But here is an even more stark juxtaposition: this last 12 months in which Americans' concern over global warming has fallen was also the period in which Americans' participation in the political process reached a high point unequaled in many decades. This was the period in which an unprecedented 36 million-plus voted in a Democratic primary. In which Democratic Party candidates spent a half a billion dollars to "get their message out" to the American public.
The sad truth is that the urgency of global climate change, far and above the most pressing issue confronting Americans and indeed the entire world, was simply not part of that message.
Yes, I know, if you go to Obama's web site there is a position paper on climate change. And yes, I am aware that Obama speaks occasionally to this issue. But in general he does so briefly and only when asked. Look through YouTube, Google and Obama's on web sites, and you will find that most of Obama's references to global warming happened way early on, even before Iowa and New Hampshire, and have steadily decreased since.
But really we don't need to go back over all of that, because the fact that Americans' concern for global warming has decreased during the electoral campaign trumps all: whatever the candidates have been saying and doing, it is clearly not enough.
Barack Obama now has a microphone of unprecedented volume. He is addressing crowds of tens of thousands, 75,000 at one event alone. They hang on his every word. His entire come-on is based on the end of politics as usual, on "change we can believe in." He has won the nomination. His opponent, remarkably, is exceptionally informed on global warming as Republicans go. It is time - no, it is long past time - for global warming to become a major campaign theme.
One thing that has hampered the discussion of global warming in our public square is that it is hard to imagine a mobilization of the public on the scale that would be required to deal with it in any real way. Incredibly, Obama now is in a position to do what has seemed impossible. With his piles of cash, a donor base of 1.5 million, a much larger email list , and organizers on the ground everywhere, Obama could lead on this issue in a way I could have scarcely imagined not so long ago. But to do it he will have to integrate the issue into his campaign in a very different way. Not as an afterthought but a main thought.
Yes We Can! Can what? Can deal with global warming? Better start now.
So where is global warming?
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the deniers posting here are scared shitless - and with good reason. cuz they know once obama's elected, we're gonna take all their money and throw 'em in gitmo.
ahhahahahahahahahaha.
re: "...the percentage of Americans who think global warming is a "very serious problem" dropped 5% over the last year..."
apparently, so did their IQs. already in 2008: one of the warmest springs on record. the driest spring on record in california. a killer heatwave in the northeast before summer even arrives. hundreds of devastating tornados ripping through the midwest. iowa and parts of wisconsin under water. a rapidly-melting polar icecap.
but its just another day-at-the-beach for the morons among us.
I'm not certain I get the gist of your post, Bob.
I thought that Democracy was all about following the Will of the People? The Majority rules,. right?
So if only 42% of Americans are concerned about Global Warming, then the Majority wants to ignore it. Why should Obama fight against the will of the People?
Cap and Trade plans, are Undemocratic.
Yes, so when Salk discovered a cure for polio we should have waited to vaccinate children until public opinion agreed that the vaccination would work. Thousands more children would have contracted polio in this way. I guess going by public opinion polls when AIDS first arrived on the scene, society should have quarantined homosexuals. Using TimmySlagle's theory, we would still have slavery in the south.
Public opinion is often very fleeting. The better approach is to educate the public, than hold policy hostage to those who demagogue issues the best. The far right is often very good at demagoguing and very weak at creative policy solutions.
"Using TimmySlagle's theory, we would still have slavery in the south"
If you knew anything about History, you would remember that it was the Democrats who were in favor of Slavery.
Slavery was very Democratic.
If you're lucky to live long enough, you'll see a lot of these "scares" come and go throughout your lifetime.
This is just the latest. When the next one comes the chanting crowd will move over and attach itself to it.
His position on gay rights should make his lack of support for serious global warming legislation no surprise.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7Z1OxX9tW4
In a few more years Global Warming will be shown to be the scam and money making scheme that many already know it to be. I'm not going to argue degrees and post link after link showing the falsehoods. Others have beat me to that and done a great job providing data.
I will argue human nature and greed. Global Warming has become a taboo subject to argue against. Those that do so can expect their reputations ruined and will be greeted with scorn. Apparently everything can be debated but GW. Al Gore certainly is afraid to debate the issue despite the many challenges. By the way, how many know that Great Britian's courts have ruled that 20 minutes of facts must be removed from "An Inconveniant Truth" before it can be shown in British schools? That's 20 minutes of proven falsehoods from a 90 minute documentary. What's left, "Hi, I'm Al Gore."
Why jump on the GW bandwagon? GW is a money tit for hungry researchers. Tie any subject to GW and you increase your chance of grants from the trillions of dollars in research money provided by the US, UN and companies.
Then there are taxes. Everyone from the US gov to the UN wants to levy a GW "Sin Tax" on American companies and individuals while giving developing nations such as China and India a pass.
By the way, why is the coldest decade of the 20th century (1970's) used as the norm for temp comparisons?
3)
Despite finding nine significant errors the judge said many of the claims made by the film were fully backed up by the weight of science. He identified "four main scientific hypotheses, each of which is very well supported by research published in respected, peer-reviewed journals and accords with the latest conclusions of the IPCC".
In particular, he agreed with the main thrust of Mr Gore"s arguments: "That climate change is mainly attributable to man-made emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide ("greenhouse gases")."
The other three main points accepted by the judge were that global temperatures are rising and are likely to continue to rise, that climate change will cause serious damage if left unchecked, and that it is entirely possible for governments and individuals to reduce its impacts.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/corporate_law/article2633838.ece
Besides, I thought right-wingers did not like unelected judges.
1)
Wrong!! The British judge who reviewed the film " "An Inconvenient Truth" said it was was broadly accurate." He identified nine facts in the film that were inconsistent with the science:
The claim that sea levels could rise by 20ft "in the near future" was dismissed as "distinctly alarmist". Such a rise would take place "only after, and over, millennia".
A claim that atolls in the Pacific had already been evacuated was supported by "no evidence", while to suggest that two graphs showing carbon dioxide levels and temperatures over the last 650,000 years were an "exact fit" overstated the case.
The drying of Lake Chad, the judge said, was "far more likely to result from other factors, such as population increase and overgrazing, and regional climate variability". The melting of snow on Mt Kilimanjaro was "mainly attributable to human-induced climate change".
The judge also said there was no proof to support a claim that polar bears were drowning while searching for icy habitats melted by global warming. The only drowned polar bears the court was aware of were four that died following a storm
2).
Similarly, the judge took issue with the former Vice-President of the United States for attributing coral bleaching to climate change. Separating the direct impacts of climate change and other factors was difficult, the judgment concluded.
Mr Gore"s suggestion that the Gulf Stream, that warms up the Atlantic ocean, would shut down was contradicted by the International Panel on Climate Change"s assessment that it was "very unlikely" to happen.
The drying of Lake Chad, the loss of Mount Kilimanjaro"s snows and Hurricane Katrina were all blamed by Mr Gore on climate change but the judge said the scientific community had been unable to find evidence to prove there was a direct link.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/corporate_law/article2633838.ece
The judge may be wrong in some cases. I have read a study that attributed coral bleaching to the higher CO2 levels in the ocean due to climate change. Perhaps 40% of the drying of Lake Chad is due to climaye change and the rest damning. Also, I have seen nature films on television showing the vanishing of some Pacific atolls due to a rise in ocean temperatures. An increase in intensity of hurricanes is still tied to warmer sea surface temperatures with climate change.
What a fool you are. The scientific community is united on the issue of global warming. They, you know scientists, smart people who give up the chance to earn big money in order to persur a career in academia and research, have written thousands of papers backing up their theories as to why the earth is heating up. In fact there has never been such collaboration between scientists on a single issue before. Now let me ask you, is it the scientists who have an agenda, or is it BIG BUSINESS in the form of oil companies? Ummm, this is a difficult one. I mean even your own president, who initially said that the jury was still out on global warming has since come around and accepted it is a problem. Wake up. Are you a scientist that has contrary evidence? If so, publish it. If not, keep your ill informed opinions to yourself please.
freedom of speech is still legal right? ''everyone'' has been wrong before, why not now? why not you?
yay sanity! my fav post here has got to be thedirtman's: ''Volcanoes put out mainly sulfur dioxide which is not a greenhouse gas, and has an anti-greenhouse effect.'' like volcanoes aren't all about heat, gimme a break!
Insightful editorial from Mr. Brabeck-Letmathe is chairman of Nestlé on June 13. Highlights include:
The biofuel craze, egged on by global warming activists, has helped fuel a huge agricultural crisis.
If there's one certainty, it is this: The production of biofuels has stimulated a massive, and destructive, reorientation of the world's agriculture markets. The U.S. Department of Energy calculates that every 10,000 liters of water produces as little as five liters of ethanol, or one to two liters of biodiesel. Biofuels are economical nonsense, ecologically useless and ethically indefensible.
The world's agriculture and water crisis is only going to get worse. As China and India grow, their populations are demanding more and wider varieties of food stuffs, and competition for arable land is intensifying. Food prices are rising, in large part because agriculture suppliers can barely keep up with today's demand
So what is the world doing? Reorienting land away from food production and toward plants cultivated for energy needs. This could be the single most destructive set of policy mistakes made in a generation. From time immemorial, mankind has struggled to produce enough food.
So why introduce a new competitor for this scarce resource? The blame falls squarely on global warming advocates.
Ridiculous.
You and Mr. Brabeck-Letmathe want to blame global warming for the Bush administrations agricultural pork? The Republicans haven't listened to anything but their own greed for at least 7 years.
Oh, and the Democrats have done SOO much better, right??
From 2000 to 2006, gas prices rose about 60%.. 6 years to go up 60%..
From 2006 (when the Democrats became in charge of Congress) to now, gas prices have risen 53%...
Do the math...
6 years, 60%
2.6 years, 53%
Oh yea... The Dems are really on the ball :^/
For the record, I am an NPA (No Political Affiliation) who is leaning towards Obama..
Michale.....
You can also view the post 2002 satellite data showing the cooling:
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Satellite_since_2002.jpg
Here's a nice little write up on the ICECAP group:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Icecap
Far from a scientific organization, this is yet another front group for the ideological base that fears the perceived implication of climate science. But rather than challenge policy on its own merits, they choose to go for the science. Joseph D'Aleo is their stooge, another tv weatherman and grad school dropout who now makes a career as a semi-credentialed shill for the confusion industry.
You can view the current NOAA data
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/cag3/na.html
The average temperature in May 2008 was 60.3 F. This was -0.7 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average, the 35th coolest May in 114 years. The temperature trend for the period of record (1895 to present) is 0.1 degrees Fahrenheit per decade.
Look deeper at NASA
"Recently it was realized that the monthly more-or-less-automatic updates of our global temperature analysis had a flaw in the U.S. data. We wish to thank Stephen McIntyre for bringing to our attention that this flaw might be present."
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/updates/200708.html
Unfortunately, we didn't realize that these corrections would not continue to be readily available in the near-real-time data streams. The same stations are in the GHCN (Global Historical Climatology Network) data stream, however, and thus what our analysis picked up in subsequent years was station data without the NOAA correction.
NASA continues
Also our prior analysis had 1934 as the warmest year in the U.S. (see the 2001 paper above), and it continues to be the warmest year
Yes, it was a cool spring IN THE UNITED STATES.
However, the issue is not US warming, it is GLOBAL warming. Globally, the spring of 2008 was the 7th warmest ever.
http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/weather-extremes-47061601
The NOAA database clearly shows that the average US temperature has increased more than a degree in 100 years! It even indicates that the rate of warming in the US has been increasing in the last 40 years. This data indicates that the US is experiencing a warming trend.
Looking at one month of the year is not a conclusive counter example.
Thankyou for the reference info
this has turned out to be a fun thread, ya'll think? say, in keeping with said fun, i've a hypothetical question: let's say the human race disappeared tomorrow without a trace, would global warming slow, stop or reverse? and for bob ostertag, no matter what side of the argument we all fall on, you should be pleased with the response, no?
Modeling suggests that the disappearance of the human race tomorrow would result in a dramatic drop in interest in the issue. Of course, these are just models.
If, on the other hand, human GG emissions were to disappear, the physics suggests another 4-8 decades for Earth to come into radiative equilibrium ( emitting as much energy as it absorbs), with a concomittant temp rise of around 1.5 deg F. This takes us beyond the highest global temp the human ecosystem has ever experienced.
Is is possible this wouldn't happen? Yes, it is. But very unlikely, based on the observations and modeling. More likely is that additional positive feedbacks, not well understood (but for which there is growing evidence) might kick in and raise the equilibrium temp. further.
Reading SOME of these comments makes it clear. Education in America is sadly lacking. If these comments are written by mainly younger people as they often are then oh dear, oh dear! No child left behind? More like 25% left way, way behind! Too many of you don't even understand that global warming doesn't mean everything just gets a little warmer. Some parts of the world might get colder and, no, that doesn't make it OK. Extremes in weather patterns are only the beginning!
Have to agree. Our biggest challenge today isn't global climate change, peak oil, health care or the economy. It's stupidity.
What we desperately need is a simple home remedy for stupidity!
I don't even think it's stupidity (although it's certainly a problem). I think it's the American public's inability to project anything beyond the next election cycle, if not the next 4-6 weeks. We move from crisis to crisis rather than seeking long-term solutions. Healthcare, education, energy independence, environmental protection, climate change, investment in infrastructure... the list is staggering, and all pale before "tax cuts now" and fear.
How many of that 5% have purchased and installed alternative energy sources for there home??
How many of that missing 5% now feel that fuel prices are up and so is investment and interest so this becomes the issue secondary to feeding the kids, getting to work, How the falling dollar is hurting them, the wars going on and the wars proposed before election day etc etc?
Perhaps 5% of us just feel alittle better about the potential in the near future to curb these problems or have already planned on such steps and seeing them developed .....5% returning to hope from dispair wouldn't be such a bad thing.
Pessimist I am, but this is one situation I would like to credit hope.
I have, having installed solar panels from Day4Energy; of course, I think global warming is a fraud which may explain why temperatures on earth have not risen in 8 years (to say nothing of the brutal world-wide winter we just went through).
CO2 -- it is what plants use for food.
Posted June 13, 2008 | 11:52 PM (EST)