Nearly half of USA citizens believe climate change threat is exaggerated
12/3/2010 Guardian Public belief in climate science has seen a precipitous slide in the US, according to new polling that suggests fewer Americans are concerned about the threat posed by global warming.Nearly half of Americans – 48% – now believe the threat of global warming has
been exaggerated, the highest level since polling began 13 years ago, the poll
published today by Gallup said.
It directly linked the decline in concern to the controversies about media
coverage of stolen emails from the University of East Anglia climate research
unit and a mistake about the Himalayan glaciers melting by 2035 in the UN’s
authoritative report on global warming.
“These news reports may well have caused some Americans to re-evaluate the
scientific consensus on global warming,” Gallup said.
Half of Americans now believe there is a scientific consensus on climate change.
Some 46% believe scientists are unsure about global warming, or that they
believe it is not occurring. A UK poll last month showed adults who believe
climate change is “definitely” a reality had dropped from 44% to 31% over the
past year.
“The last two years have marked a general reversal in the trend of Americans’
attitudes about global warming,” Gallup said. “It may be that the continuing
doubts about global warming put forth by conservatives and others are having an
effect.”
The poll feeds into fears among some environmentalists that the furore over the
hacked emails has given new fuel to opponents of action on climate change, and
stopped short the momentum in Congress for passage of a clean energy law.
A troika of Senators trying to draft a compromise climate bill that could get
broad support said this week they may not be able to produce a draft until after
the Easter recess, further reducing the chances of enacting legislation in 2010.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration faces lawsuits from Virginia, Texas, Alabama
and a dozen business lobbies challenging its authority to act on greenhouse gas
emissions through the Environmental Protection Agency.
Tim Wirth, a former Colorado senator who led the campaign against acid rain,
told a conference call the science squabbles resembled a re-run of efforts to
discredit that earlier effort for an environmental clean-up.
He said the scientists who worked on the IPCC report were woefully outmanoeuvred
in PR by business groups which have the funds to employ legions of lobbyists and
communications experts. “It’s not a fair fight,” he said. “The IPCC is just a
tiny secretariat next to this giant denier machine.”
A majority of Americans continues to believe that climate change is real, but
they are less convinced of its urgency. Only 32% believe they will be directly
affected by the consequences of a warming atmosphere, despite a major report by
the Obama administration last year that climate change could bring flooding,
heat waves, drought and loss of wildlife to the US.
Go to: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/11/americans-climate-change-threat