It's not that Americans don't believe in global warming, they are just afraid of what it means to their way of life. The potential economic consequences of climate change are so great in the US that people are willing to deny empirical evidence and make all forms of illogical statements to reject the fact that the earth is warming. Psychologists call this cognitive dissonance.
Europeans and Americans have polar opposite views of global warming. Polls show less than one-third of the US population believes climate change is a "serious problem" compared with a near supermajority of EU voters (31% vs. 63%). 87% of the EU considers global warming a serious problem! Americans rank it 21st in important issues for government while in the EU it is 2nd!
Why this bipolar perspective? There are two reasons why Europeans accept the significance of global warming:
It is easy for voters to accept national policies that minimally affect their pocketbooks and lifestyle. For the US, the Kyoto Protocol, and thus global warming, was an assertion that we in the U.S. should wrap ourselves in sackcloth and ashes for our use of cars and electricity. Fighting global warming means a direct assault on pocketbook issues and our lifestyle.
Europeans can be accepting while preservation of our present way of life makes denial a healthy psychological defense against the potentially dire implications.
Yet, here is the perversity of our thinking. Name one hypothesized economic consequence from accepting the actions necessary to mitigate global warming that have not already happened. Gasoline is up 95% AFTER inflation since the Kyoto Protocol. The price of oil is now $100 a barrel, an increase of 300% since 1997. There is not a food commodity (or any commodity) that has not risen at a rate 5 to 10 times inflation. There really is no economic fear of accepting global warming because we are living the economic consequences without any planning by the government.
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Pay for a deadly lifestyle, or pay for global thriving?
EITHER WAY, WE PAY.
Today, '..A survey in February by the BBC found that only 26 percent of Britons believed that “climate change is happening and is now established as largely manmade,” down from 41 percent in November 2009. A poll conducted for the German magazine Der Spiegel found that 42 percent of Germans feared global warming, down from 62 percent four years earlier. ...'
It is no longer impolite to laugh in someone's face when they say they believe in this hoax. If you break wind in a crowded elevator, just say, "Sorry, it's global warming." (or, "I have cognitive disonance!") and look for the 2 people who don't laugh - they probably still believe in this fairy tale. There are now so many quotes saying "We will probably never see snow in this climate (e.g. London)" but when the snow comes, they say it's to be expected due to GW.
The hoaxers constantly leave out data in their reports - in a 'scientific' article one hoaxer stopped his chart at 2005 (Katrina) to 'prove' cyclones and such were getting much worse. Someone reprinted the chart with all data through 2007 showing a severe decline, not increase in climate patterns. This goes on all the time.
We have heard from the hoaxers this past decade and now their words, predictions and phony science are being exposed to the public almost daily.
BTW the computer you are using is just a hoax created by scientists!
'Sustainable growth' is something never thought of- we never had to- till now. C02 levels are rising at scary pace- at over 2ppm a year- in past climate cycles this would have taken 200-300 years!
If we do not begin to limit C02 emissions- we will in a period of 125 years see C02 rise from 300ppm to 800ppm- which in the PETM greenhouse event took 10,000 years. How can we as a species adapt at this rate of environmental change.?
A great civilization that was born out of a stable climate period like the Holocene of the last 12,000 years could crumble. The vaunted global economy could easily become very local again.
Americans do not know that is going to blindside them very soon- and the aftermath is not going to be pleasant.
Americans by the slowing of increases in emissions are as Climate Change conscience as Europeans when compared to the Asians.
Actively preparing? This preparation referred to started way before any talk of climate change and was obviously motivated by different reasons.
Furthermore, the poll you link to (87%) was carried out in August-September 2009. Currently, for example, less than half the populations of Germany and the UK are afraid of climate change...
Vic Lawson.
Automotive Engineer, Author and Educator.
Builder of the popular, informative & resourceful
http://FuelCell-Tech.com website and author of the Gas4Free books.
Add it all up you have have some strong reasons why the majority of Americans don't want to believe in climate change and will totally ignore the science.
Fan #53
I honestly doubt if much will change in our attitudes but whatever happens we are going to have to learn to adapt, adaption is the key, to argue against that is to argue against the most basic survival instincts of any animal. Anything else is suicidal for the human race.
Says who?
James Hansen
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/02/15/data-corruption-at-giss/
http://climate.nasa.gov/warmingworld/globalTemp.cfm
If Americans are in a state of denial, what about the Asians?
Why isn't the U.N. sending them the Climate Change memo?
First of all the E in EPA stands for "Environmental", not "Economy".
As the leader of the free world, how can we put a price on allowing this blatant scientific fraud to continue?
And while we're talking, how about getting the fluoride out of my tap water?
How do you explain the rapidly increasing acidification of the oceans? It is happening faster now (the past 150 years) than in the past 65,000,000 years. The oceans absorb much of the co2 in the 'eco system'