Americans Believe Global Warming is Making the Weather Crazier

Comments

Since when has anyone given two shits about what the majority of people think?

Fifty-Two-Eighty on April 18, 2012 at 6:39 AM

You may also find a poll that shows the majority of Americans believe that bad weather can be mitigated by prayer.

How about a SLOG poll on the subject?

Sir Vic on April 18, 2012 at 6:47 AM

Better hope we don't have a cold winter then. P

on April 18, 2012 at 6:57 AM

Climate change can eliminate entire species. And it is now believed has played pivotal roles in our own evolution.

Vince on April 18, 2012 at 7:09 AM

Most Americans believe in God.

I get that this is a positive step, but that facts and knowledge are matters of belief in our country is shameful.

Allyn on April 18, 2012 at 7:10 AM

@ 1, it's like Allyn says - it's a positive step. But Allyn's right. The fact that this stuff is subject to belief is shameful; it has been exploited by interests who don't want to change, and now it's probably too late to stop the process and repair the damage.

Matt from Denver on April 18, 2012 at 7:21 AM

@5: Actually, a number of evangelicals take global warming serious….

Phoebe in Wallingford on April 18, 2012 at 7:21 AM

I have long since stopped accepting "Most Americans believe X" as conclusive proof of anything.

Foghorn Leghorn on April 18, 2012 at 7:27 AM

@7 as well they should, but that wasn't my point. My point is that knowledge takes a back seat to belief in our country and what people believe doesn’t always represent the facts.

Tangentially, I’ve always wondered at the apparent disconnect of people who believe God made this earth Exactly As It Is Now and told us to Take Good Care Of It, yet still pave every possible surface, drive everywhere, fight EPA, etc. And then there’s the reverse of people who believe that our earth is ever-changing and accommodating yet want to minimize human interference and impact on the natural world. ….always makes me wonder.

Allyn on April 18, 2012 at 7:39 AM

Polls are 100% affected by how the questions is asked.

If you ask "should illegal immigrants get free education in America," almost no one says yes, but if you ask "should illegal immigrants be barred from public education," people say no.

Same question, different phrasing. This is why widescale polling is essentially useless. It is all engineered to get the answer the pollster/group originally wanted.

Theodore Gorath on April 18, 2012 at 7:39 AM

This, if anything, is a step in the WRONG direction. It is further evidence of general scientific ignorance. Climate is not weather. Global warming might lead to changes in general weather patterns - sometimes better, sometimes worse, depending...

BLUE on April 18, 2012 at 7:42 AM

Doesn't matter what people think. Wake me up when the SuperPACs, whom the government now serves, say something like this.

modrachlan srarmons on April 18, 2012 at 7:43 AM

And what percentage of that majority believe that global warming is a sign of the End of Days?

bleedingheartlibertarian on April 18, 2012 at 8:14 AM

Baylor Religion Poll:
blog.beliefnet.com
6 hours ago – A new study shows that a majority of Americans believe God is the guiding force that is leading America's economy and the government is too ...

Half of Americans are below average.

bedipped on April 18, 2012 at 8:32 AM

Thanks to the brainwashing most Americans now think that slightly warmer summers and mild winters represent the Second Coming.

Good job, agitproppers!

Supreme Ruler Of The Universe on April 18, 2012 at 8:46 AM

Most Americans can't find the Middle East on a map, so I don't put too much heed into what they believe.

suddenlyorcas on April 18, 2012 at 9:06 AM

It won't matter when JESUS cums and saves us all!!!

Cato the Younger Younger on April 18, 2012 at 9:16 AM

I don't think the cynicism on this thread is warranted. Did anyone read the story?

The poll suggests that a solid majority of the public feels that global warming is real, a result consistent with other polls that have asked the question in various ways.
. . .
While many online polls are not representative of the broad public, Knowledge Networks is noted for its efforts to overcome this problem, including giving computers to households too poor to have them. The survey reveals public attitudes that are at least roughly consistent with scientific understanding of how the climate is changing.

For instance, when people were asked whether they attributed specific events to global warming, recent heat waves drew the largest majorities. Scientists say their statistical evidence for an increase of weather extremes is indeed strongest when it comes to heat waves.

We need to remember that cynicism generally leads to hopelessness, while optimism leads to action. This is a great opportunity to get people focused on the most pressing problem of our time.

Irena on April 18, 2012 at 9:28 AM

Well, people generally care about shit that directly affects them, so I expect this new trend to continue to skew upwards as global warming continues to contribute to more natural disasters.

OuterCow on April 18, 2012 at 9:33 AM

there are a lot of things that a majority of americans believe &/or want, but they don't get because business interests don't want anything to change. action on climate change is just one of those things, like federal regulation of fracking.

Max Solomon on April 18, 2012 at 9:35 AM

I'd also point out that much of what we consider rational thought -- evaluating, decision-making -- takes place in areas of the brain that govern emotion, not logic. The pre-frontal cortex acts as observer more than active agent when we're shopping, for example. Even when it seems we're weighing value against cost in a rational way, our emotions make the final decision (hence the illogic of the supposedly logical free hand of the marketplace). We really need to accept this fact about ourselves and incorporate it into our problem-solving strategies, rather than bemoaning our flawed humanity (which is in itself an emotional rather than logical response).

Irena on April 18, 2012 at 9:51 AM

@19 You nailed it. People don't give a shit about the world's problems unless/until those problems show up on their doorstep.

Hernandez on April 18, 2012 at 9:58 AM

@21 Irena,

Did you hear the RadioLab story "Choice"? Reading your comment, I can see that nothing would be new to you from their episode, but it is interesting.

http://www.radiolab.org/2008/nov/17/

Allyn on April 18, 2012 at 10:03 AM

@23

Oh yay, I'm going to listen to this over breakfast. Sounds like they're using different research that supports the stuff I was reading. Cool.

Thanks for the link!

Irena on April 18, 2012 at 10:33 AM

This is good, but probably comes too late to forestall the inevitable: catastrophic changes in future years. Granting for a second that carbon is in fact the culprit, we're so far behind in taking action that it will continue to build up in higher and higher concentrations. The climate is going to change. The past two years are just a warmup for truly scary changes. Mass droughts. Dust bowls. Shrinking freshwater supplies as all glaciers evaporate.

The time to discuss whether we can do anything to prevent it is past. The time to figure out how we will respond to it is coming. (Hint: as mean-spiritedly and clumsily as we responded to its onset. I picture mass die-offs among the vulnerable in every nation on earth, with the US leading the head-in-the-sand someon-else's-problem response. But at least the earnings of companies owned by the Koch Brothers will be safe for the next decade, up until the point when emaciated child warriors start feasting on regular citizens when they stop to fill up at the pump.)

on April 18, 2012 at 10:41 AM

http://ifglobalwarmingisrealthenwhyisitc… gives me amusement

undead ayn rand on April 18, 2012 at 10:49 AM

Of course it matters what most people think. Because some of those people vote. Yes, most people believe in god, so we have it on our money, in our pledge, and in our courts even though we're supposed to have a secular government. People not beilieving in global warming was the main obstacle (well, that and corporate power) in our way to actually pass a carbon cap.

Matt the Engineer on April 18, 2012 at 11:37 AM

Now that it's too late to prevent massive changes from occurring, the majority of America's dumbasses are finally starting to realize that, Holy Shit! It's True!.

Fucking retards. This planet is populated with retards.

Urgutha Forka on April 18, 2012 at 11:41 AM

@27, you're either very young or very delusional (or both, as is often the case). It matters not one whit what the majority of people think. What matters is what the people with money think.

Fifty-Two-Eighty on April 18, 2012 at 11:54 AM

@16: Most Americans can't find Mexico on the map.

tiktok on April 18, 2012 at 12:09 PM

The frog has been boiling very slowly. Now that more and more people have seen some personal anecdotal support for climate change, it's becoming harder to for many of them to reconcile the cognitive dissonance of the far more pleasing belief that it isn't really happening.

However, it's unclear what can be done; Humanity has no record of addressing problems on this scale, and current suggested responses aren't offering a lot of hope. It stands to reason that we won't see any kind of concerted response until we are well into the "mitigating damage" phase of this. We're way past the "averting catastrophe" phase.

Proteus on April 18, 2012 at 2:58 PM

You're getting nowhere.

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/04/2…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0Ct6MZvV…

Spindles on April 18, 2012 at 3:53 PM

@31: "The frog has been boiling very slowly."

I wish that analogy would die already.

http://www.snopes.com/critters/wild/frog…

undead ayn rand on April 18, 2012 at 8:36 PM

Americans Believe Global Warming is Making the Weather Crazier

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