The United States of Denial
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The United States of Denial
There's a big debate -- and it's one worth having -- over whether people spend too much time worrying about Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and company. As some have pointed out, the most popular primetime host on the Fox News Channel, Bill O'Reilly, draws just a fraction of the ratings that the supposedly dying network nightly newscasts receive. That's true, but the cumulative exposure to these right-wing gabbers -- especially Limbaugh, who even critics admit gets about 13 million daily "Dittohead" listeners -- is huge; they tend to control the conversation at places like the Thanksgiving dinner table, and they can influence the millions of folks mostly watching "American Idol" instead of American politics.
Case in point: Global warming. These conservative voices have been out on a limb these last few years, disputing what most of the world's top scientists report, which is that manmade pollution from greenhouse gases is warming the planet, with serious likely consequences. Are folks getting the conservative message? You bet.
There has been a sharp decline over the past year in the percentage of Americans who say there is solid evidence that global temperatures are rising. And fewer also see global warming as a very serious problem – 35% say that today, down from 44% in April 2008.
The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted Sept. 30-Oct. 4 among 1,500 adults reached on cell phones and landlines, finds that 57% think there is solid evidence that the average temperature on earth has been getting warmer over the past few decades. In April 2008, 71% said there was solid evidence of rising global temperatures.
Over the same period, there has been a comparable decline in the proportion of Americans who say global temperatures are rising as a result of human activity, such as burning fossil fuels. Just 36% say that currently, down from 47% last year.
I wouldn't put this all on talk radio and Fox News Channel alone. While the mercury remains above average where it counts most, at the polar extremes, it's been more often cooler than normal in the United States, and the fact that stricter anti-pollution measures would have an impact on the not-recovering-so-much economy has a lot of people wishing that the whole notion of climate change would go away. Also, as many have noted, misinformation about climate change is heavily funded by industry groups -- but average citizens wouldn't know about their work were it not for the likes of Rush and Glenn.
The U.S. has long been the outlier around the world when it comes to public opinion about global warming -- but the fact that belief in the body of scientific evidence has declined even more is pretty astounding. Here's the latest news from the reality-based world:
Air temperatures over the Arctic Ocean reached an unprecedented 7 degrees Fahrenheit (4 Celsius) above normal in October-December of 2008.
_There is evidence that the higher air temperatures are causing changes in the air circulation in both the Arctic and northern mid-latitudes.
_The area covered by sea ice this summer was 25 percent below the average from 1979 to 2000...
But the forecast for any U.S. action is pretty cloudy, and I do think we can thank the folks on the right side of your radio for that. I'm sure they're very proud. Meanwhile, people can get worked up about Limbaugh and the bogus tale of the Obama thesis, but a saga like that is pure comedy gold, nothing more. What El Rushbo and his ilk have to say about the science of climate is deadly serious.
Global warming is not real because it's not in the Bible.— HandNik- Sloboat has Sarah Palin "Goin' Rogue" posters plaster all over his bedroom walls.— Talking point sleuth
- Bunch, you are the king of misinformation. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8299079.stm— Phillyrussian7
Comment removed.- Will, you tried this global warming attack before and failed miserably. GISS (a dvision of NASA) got dinged for overstating the the October-December 2008 temperature data. Like good little liberals they adjusted the data to fit the theory (or rant, take your pick). The corrected data was within normal ranges for the last 30 years and cooler than most of the last 7 years. Plus, please check out http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/vapor_warming.html where even some high priests of Gorism conclude that water vapor, not carbon dioxide, controls climatic shifts. To quote the article: "This study confirms that what was predicted by the models is really happening in the atmosphere," said Eric Fetzer, an atmospheric scientist who works with AIRS data at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Water vapor is the big player in the atmosphere as far as climate is concerned." When do you suggest we should start deep welling water to decrease atmospheric levels? This global warming BS damages the US because it draws attention away from our real problem, imported energy. We need coal and nukes so that we stop funding those who would directly or indirectly fund terrorists. Also, the Oakland debacle rests squarely on the offense, from top to bottom.— Joe Funk
- Willy, the truth of the matter must be that the MAJORITY OF Climatologists admit we don't have any clear evidence either way. But before the lefties gets they undies in a bunch, consider this simple fact: Noone and yet defined what the "normal" temperature should be. What if normal is hotter than the last 100 years? Secondly, we have not yet determined why things are happening. For instance, 80% of the largest reduction in Artic ice cap has occurred over a series of giant erupting vulcanos. These vulcanos were only discovered in 2006. They generate massive heat, maybe they are the reason the ice is melting? Third, the envirnmentalists have actively been workign to change the debate from "global warming" to "climate change". If the world were really going to melt, why change the name in a coordinated campaign world wide? Fourth, the environmental crowd has never told the truth about the role CO2 plays in global warming. Ask yourself this question: if there were only 15 Eagles fans at Giant Stadium for a game out of about 100,000, would anyone even notice them? Those 15 fans represent the mathmatical equivalent of the impact of CO2's TOTAL global warming effect rolled into the total of all other global warming greenhouse gasses. That amounts to 0.015% of the impact of greenhouse gases. The real truth is the Conservatives like Limbaugh have kept up a steady drum beat and opinion has been changing because THERE IS NO HARD VERIFIABLE SCIENTIFIC DATA. The public your scorn Willy is a lot smarter than you. It is increasingly looking like a ponzi scheme.— Dutch-wayne
Jeez you flogging this old nag again ? , yeah yeah we are all gonna fry or drown or whatever else you say happy now ? . Lets ignore every study that says temperatures have not risen for seven years , lets ignore the leader of Greenpeace admiting he lied about the plight of polar bears , lets ignore a British court agreeing that 9 points in Al Gores film were untruthfull . Lets all agree we are doomed thanks to global warming , I mean climate change , or have they changed it again ? .— PAEnglish
Well, it was either this or another Reagan/Bush/Cheyney ate my homework screed. How's that book doing?— georgel- And Gordon Brown said we have 50 days to do something or the world would end as we know it... I remember 30 years ago hearing all the sceintific facts & doomsday scenarios around global cooling.— Norton
If CO2-induced AGW turns out to be true, and all of human civilization is eradicated, we can blame conservatives and leftists alike. The left have botched the job of convincing the public by trying to politicize the potential risk into another of the many centralized government power grabs. The left's voracious appetite for government power at the expense of people's freedom has weakened their credibility, and they can't sell the idea when it is so thinly veiled in the gauze of central planning. Conservatives are to blame for reacting to defend freedom from the statists. The reality probably is that were more at risk from a massive tectonic event or meteor strike. But at least we'll all be able to have taxpayer funded abortions, so it's all good.— Mr. Smith- Will Thhe question as to the origin og global warming is open for debate. One thing that is not debatable is that if current carbon tax legislation is passed ,the company that I and 500 of my co-workers are employed by WILL go out of business. This is not an opinion,just a cold fact.Another fact is that the products we produce will be imported from China and India where no environmental taxes hinder their businesses.— webster2006
- Comment removed.
- ---}}} (cause the earth has actually been cooling over the past 8 yrs)...{{{--- LOL! You guys are hilarious. http://www.realclimate.org/wp-content/uploads/GISStrends.jpg— Talking point sleuth
- --snip-- Figure 1. Global temperature according to NASA GISS data since 1980. The red line shows annual data, the larger red square a preliminary value for 2009, based on January-August. The green line shows the 25-year linear trend (0.19 ºC per decade). The blue lines show the two most recent ten-year trends (0.18 ºC per decade for 1998-2007, 0.19 ºC per decade for 1999-2008) and illustrate that these recent decadal trends are entirely consistent with the long-term trend and IPCC predictions. Even the highly “cherry-picked” 11-year period starting with the warm 1998 and ending with the cold 2008 still shows a warming trend of 0.11 ºC per decade (which may surprise some lay people who tend to connect the end points, rather than include all ten data points into a proper trend calculation). --snip--— Talking point sleuth
- --snip-- The blogosphere (and not only that) has been full of the “global warming is taking a break” meme lately. Although we have discussed this topic repeatedly, it is perhaps worthwhile reiterating two key points about the alleged pause here. (1) This discussion focuses on just a short time period – starting 1998 or later – covering at most 11 years. Even under conditions of anthropogenic global warming (which would contribute a temperature rise of about 0.2 ºC over this period) a flat period or even cooling trend over such a short time span is nothing special and has happened repeatedly before (see 1987-1996). That simply is due to the fact that short-term natural variability has a similar magnitude (i.e. ~0.2 ºC) and can thus compensate for the anthropogenic effects. Of course, the warming trend keeps going up whilst natural variability just oscillates irregularly up and down, so over longer periods the warming trend wins and natural variability cancels out. (2) It is highly questionable whether this “pause” is even real. It does show up to some extent (no cooling, but reduced 10-year warming trend) in the Hadley Center data, but it does not show in the GISS data, see Figure 1. There, the past ten 10-year trends (i.e. 1990-1999, 1991-2000 and so on) have all been between 0.17 and 0.34 ºC per decade, close to or above the expected anthropogenic trend, with the most recent one (1999-2008) equal to 0.19 ºC per dcade – just as predicted by IPCC as response to anthropogenic forcing. --snip--— Talking point sleuth
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