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Source: Pew Research Center for the People & the Press
Global warming ranks dead last in a list of national priorities, according to a recent poll conducted by the Pew Research Center for the Public & the Press. The Americans polled rank the economy, unemployment, and terrorism as (respectively) the top three priorities that need to be addressed.
The number of Americans who say that strengthening the economy should be a top priority has risen from 68% in 2007 to 75% last January and 85% today. Global warming finds itself at the bottom of a list of twenty national concerns, which includes Social Security, education, immigration and crime.
Similar to global warming, protecting the environment also appears to be a low priority for many job-minded Americans. In fact, the enivronment took the biggest tumble between last year’s poll and this year’s. Only 41% of the poll’s participants rate the environment as a top priority -- falling from 56% just a year ago. The Pew Research Center notes that the fall can be seen across both sides of the aisle:
The large decline in the percentage of Americans citing the environment is seen across the political spectrum, but Republicans (20%) remain far less likely than Democrats (54%) or independents (41%) to say that protecting the environment should be a top priority for the president and Congress. The only policy that ranks lower than protecting the environment among Republicans is dealing with global warming (16%).
The poll’s findings resonated with global warming skeptics today at the International Climate Change Conference in New York. Skeptics have long been vilified by James Hansen, head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Today, Hansen called for the chief execs of fossil fuel companies to “be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature,” charging them with disinforming the public about the threat of global warming.
At the conference, retired NASA climatologist John Theon regretted the fact that he hadn’t fired James Hansen before. Theon called Hansen “an embarrassment,” criticizing Hansen of turning global warming into a public policy issue before Congress in 1988. Theon also told conference attendees that he was silent about global warming after retiring from NASA, but was compelled to voice his opinion. “This whole thing is a fraud,” said Theon. “We need to educate the public about we’re going to get into unless we stop this nonsense.”
The Pew Research Center poll is encouraging to skeptics who continue to fight the dangerously misguided assumption that global warming is a man-made phenomenon. As the conference ends, skeptics are undoubtedly more resolved than ever about global warming -- especially since the general public is beginning to demonstrate genuine doubt about it, as evidenced by the survey.
Comments
No surprise there. Losing your job and your home is impacting more people than those losing their generationally owned farms.
I think 30% is pretty good for our little human evolved brain considering it suffers from mercury poisoning from coal fire plants.
People are definately impacted by what you write, they look for reason not to worry since they are overwhelmed right now.
At least you give them a new false hope, not a religion based on Demons and Angels, rather just tidbits of misinformation that gently allow them to focus on that next paycheck or where they can find food for the kids.
I thinking using a PEW opinion poll as a method to prove that man has no impact on his environment is a sound strategy.
It just feels good. And we all need to feel good right now.
The cattle ranchers out west are going to feel better after they slaughter their remaining herds since the can then start that vegetarian diet they always knew was in their best interest anyway.
Also we knew those levies wouldn't hold in New Orleans if a Katrina hit. We should feel good knowing we were right.
30% of Americans who are losing their economy and their way of life still think global warming is a big problem.
That's worrisome.
This is a very disapointg poll, but surprising for people who eat themselves into diabetes and drive their cars to their mail boxes.
Even under a best case scenario, global warming will cause much more harm than terrorism. Under a worse case scenario, the harms of global warming are unimaginable to most people.
More than 90% of the peer reviewed scientific papers addressing global warming and the effects of manmade carbon dioxide in the atmosphere published in the last 10 years that are based on actual data (ice core samples, historical temperature records and proxy data, studies of lake sediments, sea temperature measurements, studies of impact of CO2 on coral, measurements of the amount of sea level rise, negative feedback mechanisims etc. do not support the global warmests theories and predictions. However it is also true that about 90% of the papers based on climate models do support their position. Since the models can't predict correctly even 10 years into the future, I think I'll go with the real data.
More and more scientists and thinking people all over the world are realizing that man-made global warming is a hoax that threatens our future and the future of our children. More than 650 international scientists dissented last year over the man-made global warming claims. They are more than 12 times the number of UN scientists (52) who authored the media-hyped IPCC 2007 Summary for Policymakers.
In addition to the 650 dissenting international scientists, 32,000 American scientists have signed onto a petition that states, "There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate…"
"Progressive" (communist) politicians like Obama seem determined to force us to swallow the man-made global warming scam. We need to defend ourselves from the UN and these politicians, who threaten our future and the future of our children. Based on a lie, they have already wasted billions and plan to increase taxes, limit development, and enslave us.
If not stopped, the global warming scam will enrich the scammers (Gore and Obama’s Wall Street friends), increase the power of the U.N. and communists like Obama, and multiply poverty and servitude for the rest of us.
found this interesting.
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