There may be no country in the world that harbours as much skepticism over climate change than the United States.
From April to November, 2013, the number of American respondents who believe global warming isn't happening shot up by 7% to 23% overall. 63% do believe the reality of global warming and slightly more than half of the respondents said they were worried or very worried about it.
"People who prior said don’t know are increasingly saying they don't believe it," said Anthony Leiserowitz, the director of the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication, which released the new results today (Jan. 16).
42 percent of Americans correctly believe that most scientists agree that global warming is happening. Only 22 percent, however, know that more than 80 percent of climate scientists agree on that basic fact. The rest of the survey respondents perceive more disagreement than actually exists.
These numbers illustrate how effective America's denialism industry has been in spreading misinformation and sowing confusion and doubt. That means their financial backers are getting real value for their money.
That the GOP-dominated House of Representatives just appointed a climate change denier to head up the House Science subcommittee on the environment doesn't help. Republicans are making it very clear that their priority is in protecting special interests, notably their big oil masters.
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It's almost mind-boggling, isn't it Elliott? Why is it so many of these clowns come from jurisdictions like Arizona or, in Tony Abbott's case, Australia? Could it be early-onset, heatstroke induced dementia?
ReplyDeleteUpton Sinclair's quote is practically the political and economic driver of our era:
ReplyDelete"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."