Climate Change as a National Threat in Next 10 Years: Critical, or Important but not Critical?

Question

Scan down to page 7 on the link below and see if Americans answered (in 2006) the way you thought they would.

Then go ahead and read or skim through the paper, which is titled, "International Public Opinion, Perception, and Understanding of Global Climate Change." I thought it was pretty interesting.

http://environment.yale.edu/uploads/IntlPublicOpinion.pdf

Answer 1

Very interesting report.  I found it a bit disheartening to see the USA so far down on so many of the awareness charts, but was happy to see our awareness on the rise.  Unfortunately it's clear that our media (trying to be "fair" and giving both sides equal coverage) and high levels of misinformation have successfully resulted in the US being more poorly informed and less concerned about global warming than most other developed nations.

Regarding the Page 7 graph, I was happy to see that at least most Americans (~80%) recognize that global warming is at least important, and 40% viewing it as critical was definitely lower than I'd like to see, but not as bad as I expected.

I'm not sure why evans views this report as confirming the high number of 'skeptics'.  It shows the vast majority as at least recognizing that global warming is a significant problem.  The percentage of people not viewing it as a problem at all was very low.

Answer 2

They answered pretty much exactly as I figured they would.  I've stated several times the level of skepticism on this site is not merely an internet phenomenon but an indicator of public sentiment throughout the country.  Down here in the South, global warming is a running joke told by everyone but the transplants (D*** Yankees).

Great link!

BTW:  Given climate change has been predicted to be a national threat "in the next 10 years" for over 20 years now, NO ONE who's ever heard "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" story should be surprized, either.

Answer 3

I wrote a 29 minute speech on why it is false... we as humans do not cause it

EXTRACT:

--Email [e-mail] for the whole thing--

I.  For a long time people have been looking through glasses that have foggy lenses of deception regarding global warming.  In the next couple of minutes I intend to show you a more accurate eye chart and update your prescription.

A. My point for this response is to try and persuade you to see the light at the end of the dirty tunnel of humanities’ lies.

II.  Global Warming is the most debatable topic that was probably ever around.  You need to know this information.  If you don’t educate yourself properly on this topic you will live the rest of your life in fear of something that doesn’t exist.

A.  Global Warming is a natural cycle.  Everything about it is natural.  Carbon dioxide levels vary throughout time.  Humans can make little or no impact on the environment.

1.  In reality….  There is about one person who doesn’t believe in Global Warming to two people who do.  This means that only 60% of the world believes in global warming.  My goal by the end of this response is to have the 60% be persuaded that they do not believe in the accurate thing.  With the following facts, I am 100% sure that this goal is possible and will be achieved.

2.  Al Gore stated this quote in his movie “…The 10 hottest years ever recorded were within 15 years of today.”  Now this point is valid and true, but we have not been measuring the temperature or anything since the early nineteen hundreds.  Can we go down and see how the polar ice caps were doing in the early 1800’s?  We can not do that because temperature was not recorded.  You may say that they guessed using carbon dioxide levels, but whose to say that they are right?  I heard that scientific measures were not always accurate because they took a hundred year old log and did some carbon 14 testing on it.  Scientists thought that it was thousands of years old.  It was later proved to be younger after more tests were ran.  Who’s to say that our method of discovering weather is right?   We have been measuring temperature for only a short period of time.  Earth right now is in a heating process.  Thousands of years ago we were cooling which is when we had an Ice Age.  Now we are doing the opposite and are starting to warm up before cooling again. Look at this political cartoon.  What is one thing that you notice?  I notice it being freezing then gradually getting warmer. As my next point is about to prove, we have no effect on the environment no matter what we do.

3.  In 1990 a volcano in the Philippines erupted violently.  It was by far one of the biggest explosions of the century.  We all have read about how volcanoes let off carbon dioxide, but did you know this… When the volcano erupted, it put more carbon dioxide in the air than all of humanity has ever produced…. More than humans have made since the creation of time.  All in just a matter of hours. Look at this picture (not included).  See all of this carbon dioxide being put into the air?  While, with all of this there was no temperature increase or decrease at all… just some carbon dioxide level changes, but nothing major.  If volcanoes put off this much carbon dioxide with no effect, then how could we be doing this?  When all this happened, then how could you be persuaded that humans who produce fractions of that amount could impact the environment in fractions of the time?  Humans if we tried could not severely impact the environment.  It is just too big.  Even if we are letting some off, plants and other natural recyclers of Carbon Dioxide are just transforming them to oxygen.

4.  During World War II, we dropped two nuclear bombs on Japan.  We spilled tons of harmful green house gasses into Mother Nature.  This includes radiation, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide.  After all of that happened, again there was no effect to the environment that was found.  Hiroshima has been having radiation problems still, but there is no significant temperature problem.  Nothing humans do can severely change our environment.  We only occupy about 50% of the globe.  The other 50% is the ocean, ice caps, and land that are not suitable for humans.  How could two nuclear bombs not have an impact on the environment, but changing a light bulb in your house to fluorescent can save the environment?  It is just impossible that we could have an impact.  

5.  Another point is that if you look in your text book, I promise you that you will find these words… “When Washington was marching his troops, it was bitterly cold outside” Bitterly cold means freezing.  I know that they didn’t have supplies but Virginia in the summer (which is when they fought) is warm.  As you can see by these charts, it was 106 degrees outside in the summer.  This is without humidity too.  Now when we look at this chart it shows us that the battle was fought in Yorktown.  There isn‘t much of a distance between Yorktown and Richmond, were this was recorded.  How was it bitterly cold a few hundred years ago when now it is normal?  The conclusion is that it is a natural cycle.  The cycle changes every several hundred years.  It was cold then, and now it is slowly warming up.  We have nothing to do with it.  This is perfectly natural for our environment to do.  We would like to believe that humans are the dominate species.  Have we ever thought to wonder if what we believe in is caused by nature?

6.  One of the most important factual information is still on our planet.  Greenland is one of the most misunderstood places around.  People like to believe that the reason that it got it’s name is because the settlers didn’t want people to move there so they called an icy land Greenland so that settlers would move their instead of Iceland were it really was green..  After I saw a show on the discovery channel,  I concluded that it was actually green.  When the first settlers went there,  they dined on grapes and cows.  I don’t think that I am mistaken, but how could a cow live on an icy land with nobody to feed it.  Grapes grow in warm environments which is not ice.  Greenland fits that exact description.  Also as you can see on this picture, there is still some green left in it.  All of it was green once, which proves that it once was green and now it is ice because of the natural cycle, it is starting to freeze.  Now Greenland is melting to start the process all over again.  In a few hundred years, Greenland will begin to freeze.

NOTE TO READER: FOR POINT 67-8 IT MAKES NO SENCE UNLESS POWERPOINT IS VISIBLE… THANKS!

7.  Ok…  Phoenix is known as a hot dry desert place.  You think that it keeps getting hotter and hotter here each summer.  Take a look at this display on the screens.  As you can see, during the day the sun is radiating energy to a large city… lets call it Phoenix.  It does this all day until the sun starts to go down.  As you can see now,  the buildings are built up with radiation while the desert area barely got any radiation build up.  Now it is night and as you can see the buildings are radiating heat forming a heat bubble.  Now in Phoenix at night it is around 95 degrees.  That is because of the buildings radiating.  We are made of concrete and steel so we absorb heat.  Take a look over at the desert.  See how the temperature there is lower?  This is because it is not trapped in the heat bubble of radiation.

8.Many people relate global warming with long citywide droughts.  Like in Phoenix, we are in a drought.  There are many reasons why this is not caused by us. Have you ever watched the news and heard the following phrase “… and people of Chandler are getting pelted by rain, many individuals are putting up sand bags to protect their homes…?”  What this is saying is that small little cities are getting poured on.  Look at the power point and see why,  The big glob in the center is called Phoenix, Glendale, and Peoria.  Ok now imagine that we are in the middle of a storm.  The red indicates heavy rain and the yellow indicates moderate rain.  As you can see from this animation that I made,  the storm is going around Phoenix.  We are a giant blob and the storm is just simply avoiding us.  Smaller cities like Chandler and Mesa are being pelted by this continuous down pour.  So in smaller cities they may say, “We got rained on the most we ever have” and the airport were they measure the amount of rain says there were only a few drops of rain.  This proves that we did not cause the drought by carbon dioxide, but we did it by industrializing.  

9.  Global Warming is also just a political trap.  Who are the only ones who want to try and do something about global warming besides tree huggers?  Politicians do.  When somebody is running for office this makes a better point, I am going to save the world!  Who would you rather vote for… Mr. Free Dental Insurance or Mr. I am Going To Save The Planet From Destruction!  The choice is pretty clear.  Which, that was Al Gore’s main election motto.  They want you to vote for them do they are scamming you.  Al Gore doesn’t believe in global warming himself!  When he was running for elections, he rented private jets which emit 800 pounds of CO2 per passenger instead of commercial for 88 pounds of CO2 per passenger.  He didn’t even own a private jet either; he flew this way for 20 trips.  If he would have flown on a commercial plane he would have saved 14240 pounds from the environment.

III.  Global Warming is all natural.  We do not have an effect on it.  If we tried there is nothing that we could do that would impact our society.

1.  We have nothing to do with what is going on in the world.  There is no reason that just because our planet is warming, we are to blame.  This has happened before and will be continuing to happen for the rest of the history of out planet.

Answer 4

yes Bob that or an abundance of unneeded expenditures now

Answer 5

Interesting article

I tend to agree with Furier who suggested it probably won't be that bad even with a doubling of CO2.  There has been a tendency to focus on negative consequences and exaggerate them and ignore any potential benefits.  

I was struck by the study on Mona Kea where they noted a rise in CO2 yearly and assumed that it was from man.  CO2 levels fluctuate with temperature naturally so assigning all the CO2 to man was odd but perhaps that was just the way I read it.

Answer 6

Not important.

Answer 7

The wording of your question makes an answer difficult.

Global warming will likely not cause critical impacts in the next ten years.  However, the failure to start action now will require much more expensive and disruptive action later.

That complexity is a big reason reason why some people think it's not critical.  Long term planning is not common, and it's an area where America is particularly weak.  For example, Europe has been preparing for high oil prices through various government actions, for many years.  While we charged on, as if oil was always going to be cheap.

Answer 8

Personally I still don't see the logic of describing a global problem as a national threat.

Answer 9

IF "global warming" was a problem, and IF "global warming" was going to affect the climate in 10 years, and IF we had to act fast on "global warming", then even the believers would be pushing the use of nuclear power as this is the only and quickest solution as a substitute for coal and gas fired turbines.

But the believers do what they can to insure that a nuclear reactor never gets built.  That indicates that the problem isn't so bad and the need isn't urgent.

Answer 10

Wow......I guess it was never hot before 2006.

How did we ever survive in the 90's.

Oh, I forgot........It was Hammertime.

Answer 11

The real national threat is what the alarmist will do the our nation in the next 10 years,

If some have their way, God help the working people.

Answer 12

I noticed the graph on p 16 - up until 2004 it seems to be in line with temperature patterns - - - the percentage of Americans that thinks global warming is a serious problem increases in years with prolonged summer heat waves and mild winters.    

There's a decoupling after 2004-2005 - each successive year from 2005 has been a little cooler, with a return of real winters and milder summers in most of the country - particularly in 2007-2008 - but the percentage has increased.    

I think the reason is Katrina - or rather, the media's irresponsible linking of Katrina to global warming.    

At the end of the day, you can't food all the people all the time, and I think that the global warming scare has reached its high water mark.

I think it's telling that some posters blame "denialist propaganda" for the USA's independent thinking on this issue.    Pro-AGW media still dwarfs skeptical media dramatically in this country - - tv ads with kids on train tracks, that sort of thing.  Even subtle but misleading media spin like a news story about global warming immediately before or after a news story about a storm - implying that they're related, when in fact there's no causal connection.    Indeed, most US media outlets have openly declared in the last few years that they will no longer make any effort to cover "both sides" of the issue.    Yet somehow, this isn't enough for the pro-AGW side.     Unless they have a complete monopoly on the media reporting of the issue, unless the other side is completely muzzled, they feel like they're at a disadvantage.    That doesn't show a lot of faith in the pure logic of their position, in their ability to convince people that they're right.    In Europe, the difference is that they have that complete monopoly - and even there the public isn't 100% behind them, or even 90%.

I think there is a cultural difference that gets too little attention.  

This is a nation founded on liberty - we value liberty so much that we think that limits on individual freedom of action should be based on real, proven threats - rather than having a scale that says well, it's not proven but if it's real, it's serious, thus we should cede some freedom of action.    That's just a difference in approach, and it's that difference in approach that spurred us to fight for, and win, our independence.    

For generation after generation, the Europeans whose attitude was "I just want to be left alone, I don't want anything from, and don't want to owe anything to, the government" left Europe to come here.   That's a big reason for the differences in attitude on any number of issues.

An America-vs-Africa comparison is difficult.   In most of Africa, they get very little information either way.    There are droughts - there have always been droughts.    The UN tells those Africans that it can reach that the droughts are new - even though they aren't - and that they result from US-created global warming, which is unprecedented - - even though the droughts 1000 years ago were much worse.    And the cultural difference is not the same as between America and Europe - - the Africans who came to America were brought here against their will, and now their descendants must make the best of it.    Freedom has, like food, never really been on the table for Africans, at least as individuals.    While both are on the table for African-Americans, one has to forget the historical context to make it work psychologically.

I've always found it amazing how well the libertarian / conservative free-market message has done given the degree of control over education and the media by various groups leaning in an anti-liberty direction.     Economics, for example, is not taught in public schools, yet consistently a good 35-40% of Americans oppose the minimum wage - which, once one has taken economics and understands how price floors work, one realizes is an issue that is neither subjective nor uncertain.

I think there is a passive/active difference among us as well.  It never ceases to amaze me how many people hold strong opinions without having read up on an issue.    They sit through a few hours of JFK and conclude that he had a secret plan to pull out of Vietnam and was killed over it by a giant conspiracy (which would, of course, mean that the plan wasn't so secret).    They listen to a few snippets on the news and conclude "I think it's like this."     They can't pick Najaf out on a map (the province on Anbar's southern border) but they're sure they understand the causes of the latest episode of violence there.   Half an hour of Lou Dobbs and they think that despite the fact that their finances are in pretty good shape, the rest of the country looks like France in the day of Marie Antoinette, all apparently because of illegal immigration and free trade.  Couple of images of melting arctic ice (in July) or melting antartic ice (in January) and they conclude that the world's coming to an end.  

Not all but most people who actually read up on these issues disagree with these views.    People who actually read economists' studies on incomes and income mobility, and even sift through BLS reports and raw Census Bureau data, don't conclude that the poor are getting poorer, that there are a few very wealthy people and the rest of us are standing in line at soup kitchens.   Many  people who actually read up on the climate issue end up asking "where's the beef?" on causation - - - after two decades and billions of dollars being spent to prove man-made global warming, the fact that the present warming has occurred during roughly the same period as the Industrial Revolution, give or take a few decades, remains the only evidence of causation.

That's why I find it odd that the article would conclude that it is possible that the increase globally in concern over global warming between 2000 and 2006 has stemmed from "more certainty in the science" - - what "more certainty" would that be?      There is no more proof of causation than there was then.   And it's not even warmer now than it was then.   What's changed is the AGW-proponents' huddling up and declaring victory, their decision to just declare the debate over and refuse further discussion and "move on to solutions" without ever proving what the problem is.   What's changed is that most media outlets have opted to provide cover to this presumptuous position by refusing to cover both sides of the issue.

But there's only one problem - it's hasn't gotten any warmer for a few years now, and one thing the media cannot change is the weather.     You can change your coverage of the weather - - you can change the argument from "global warming" to "climate change" and try to argue that "oh, we realize it's not scorching hot this year but, all that rain, THAT'S what we're talking about."   But people aren't stupid - they know that that's not what you've been talking about all along, that you started talking about it being "climate change" and "wild weather resulting from CO2" rather than heat resulting from CO2 only when it stopped being hot.    We know we've always had "wild weather."    

Another few years like the end of 2007 and 2008-to-date and concern will recede - - - the AGW-proponents know that and that's WHY they're in such a rush, that's WHY they say "there's no longer time to debate, we must act now."      That must means, empower us now before more weather that is contradictory to our theory and our agenda happens and more people jump off the bandwagon.

My money's on the weather, not the bandwagon.   Mother Nature has a funny way of winning those showdowns.

EDIT - Evans the transplants are experiencing summers in the South and can't understand that it's hotter than they're used to because they moved to a hotter domicle, not because it's hotter than it used to be.   Yes, they're that stupid.   You have people in Cambridge worried about population density - when they could just take route 2 west, 93 north or 95 north for 2-3 hours and soon realize that there's no such problem.

Answer 13

I thought page 9 was interesting. The USA worries very little compared to other countries. We havw the greatest level of denialist propaganda diminishing the actual severity of the issue in the public eye, all set up for one reason only- to prevent government regulation that would effect the wealth of big businesses. No surprise.

Answer 14

Interesting... not so different than what I had thought although the %age of Americans considering a UN lead on battling CC was much higher than I thought it would be.

Strange to see the disparities though especially as the multinational fora tend to be much more bearish over the challenges CC will present, especially with respect to potential conflict - not just the UN but also the EU and even NATO