According to a new study, concerns about the environment, and specifically global warming, have reached a 20-year low, falling dramatically since 2009.
According to The Independent:
Fewer people now consider issues such as CO2 emissions, air and water pollution, animal species loss, and water shortages to be “very serious” than at any time in the last two decades, according to the poll of 22,812 people in 22 countries including Britain and the US.
Of that number, only 49 percent of people consider global warming a serious issue. This lack of concern is also happening in developing nations and industrialized countries such as the United States and the U.K.
GlobeScan Radar, which conducted the study, shows the substantial decline in climate-change concern over the last two decades. Some speculate it is part of a backlash against higher fuel prices, which have been instigated by governments forcing power companies to rely more on renewable energy.
Doug Miller of GlobeScan said, “Evidence of environmental damage is stronger than ever, but our data shows that economic crisis and a lack of political leadership mean that the public are starting to tune out.”
When respondents were asked to consider each of six environmental problems to be—air pollution, water pollution, species loss, automobile emissions, fresh water shortages, and climate change—fewer people now consider them “very serious” than at any time since tracking began twenty years ago. (see chart)
With less than one out of two people considering climate change a pressing issue, political leaders are also wary of tackling the issue, especially as the world digs itself out of a worldwide financial crisis.
Renewable energy is becoming less and less an alternative to fossil fuels, as subsidies mask their true cost, are consistently unreliable, and you still need to spend just as much on backup power.
As the United States uses regulation to stifle and cripple the coal industry, China continues to use coal to produce 70 percent of its electricity. Those living in industrialized nations have also become dubious about the need for carbon dioxide reduction when China emits "more carbon dioxide than all the nations in the Western Hemisphere combined."
Add to the fact that the planet hasn't warmed in any statistically significant way for nearly 15 years as predicted it would by NOAA and the UK's Met Office, and you have a wearisome population leery of higher fuel costs and the proclamations of doom from climate hysterics.
As Miller notes in its press release: "Those who care about mobilizing public opinion on the environment need to find new messages in order to reinvigorate a stalled debate.”
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