Call it a case of extreme optimistic bias: Many climate advocates point to polls that show when the public is asked directly, a majority say they are "concerned" about global warming and favor action. But what's missing from this poll assessment is where global warming sits relative to other political priorities. When you examine this comparison, public support for action turns up as soft, even among Dems and Independents, suggesting that it will be very difficult for Obama to rally the needed public input to pass meaningful legislation through Congress.
One way to assess the strength of public resolve on the issue is to see where global warming or the environment sits in the classic open-ended question asking the public to name the most important problem facing the nation, or alternatively what the President and Congress should focus on. As I noted a few weeks ago, global warming and the environment surfaces as a top of mind priority among just 1% of respondents compared to more than 40% who say the economy.
Pew offers a different and more revealing comparison. On more than 20 issues, the polling organization asks respondents to agree or disagree whether each should be a "top priority" for the president and Congress. For the past three years, global warming has been a bottom tier issue, with fewer Americans agreeing it should be a "top priority" than most other issues. This year, in an analysis released today, as depicted above, it ranks dead last.
In the context of an economic recession and two wars, absent a shift in the polls and a surge in input from a diversity of constituents, it is unlikely over the next four years that a strong majority in Congress will make climate change a top agenda priority or be willing to take the political risk to pass major policy initiatives. Indeed, climate change threatens to become for Obama what immigration reform was for former President George W. Bush.
In 2007, the White House and leaders in Congress had reached a consensus on immigration policy and polling showed a favorable public. Yet soft majority support in the surveys could not trump the strong opinion intensity of minority opposition, especially when it was mobilized by conservative media outlets and leaders. For fence sitters in Congress, the voice of the public that was loudest--via phone calls, emails, and letters--was that of opponents to immigration reform
At his blog Dot Earth, the NY Times Andrew Revkin has additional thoughts on the climate communication challenge with more to follow in print later this week.
I have an article forthcoming that explores this communication challenge in more detail, but if you are a reader of this blog, you can guess what's at the core of my analysis. Put simply, the problem has little to do with science literacy, a lack of respect for science, poor reporting on the part of journalists, or a decline in the science beat at news organizations. Indeed, it's time to stop blaming the public, journalists, and the media.
The communication burden instead rests with political leaders, scientists, advocates, and policy experts. Only by "reframing" the relevance of climate change in ways that connect to the specific core values of key segments of the public - and repeatedly communicating these multiple meanings through a variety of trusted media sources and opinion leaders- can the Obama administration and allies generate the widespread public engagement needed to move major policy action forward. This shift in public outreach, however, will first take a re-examination of the assumptions that have traditionally informed climate change communication efforts.
it's time to turn the page on the "war on science," "inconvenient truths," and "denier" rhetoric that were battle cries for the Left during the Bush administration and 2008 election. These public accountability frame devices rally the base and appeal to emotions, but they are also likely to be re-interpreted among the wider public as just more elite rancor.
It's also time to stop focusing narrowly on remote polar impacts, looming environmental disaster, or symbols such as polar bears. These examplars are either not personally relevant enough to most audiences, are dismissed as remote and far off in the future, or easily re-framed as "alarmism" sending interpretations back into the mental box of lingering scientific uncertainty.
Not every citizen cares about the environment or defers to the authority of science, yet among climate change advocates, these mental points of reference continue to be the dominant emphasis. In order to generate widespread public support for meaningful policy action, the communication challenge is to figure out how to shift the climate change focus away from the traditional frames and devices towards a new perceptual context that resonates with the values and understanding of a specific intended audience. These new meanings for climate change are likely to be key drivers of public resolve and eventual policy action.
Last summer at Big Think (video below), I previewed this climate change communication challenge and some of the emerging new meanings that are likely to unlock public engagement. Stay tuned for more on this in an upcoming article. [Update: Video embedding at Big Think is currently down. Will repost embedded video when available]
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Wow.... nice share...
You called you a holocaust denier? Surely not the AGW proponents, as you were on their side?
Most energy arriving at Earth's surface is in the form of visible radiation, while most of the energy leaving is as infra-red radiation. CO2 is transparent to visible radiation but not to infra-red radiation (these points have been well known for 150 years). Since about 1960 it has been known that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has been increasing and that this is due to human activity. Water vapour acts as a positive feedback mechanism. Given the above, and that there is no known negative feedback mechanism that is remotely close to the magnitude required, how could the global temperature be doing anything but increase?
If you actually look at the data (e.g. hadley data) and calculate the line of best fit you will find that this claim is complete and utter rubbish. Whoever told it to you was lying.
Climate and weather are not the same. Climate is the average weather over a period of at least a couple of decades. I know that here in Canada it will be warmer in July than it is now even though I do not know the exact temperature. Similarly, I am convinced that the next 30 years will be warmer than the past 30 years.
If this was the case, we wouldn't have trouble with Creationism. And yet, we do.
I find the comment on the illegal immigration aspect interesting as I seem to recall CNN stating that polls on their website had indicated that the majority of people did not support it, rather than a majority feeling that 'immigration reform' is a good idea.
brannigan:
That doesn't even make sense. If you believed in global warming, then why would they call you a denier?
If you're going to make stuff up, at least put a little more thought into it.
I never died, but this do not mean I will never die. Humankind never faced a climate or environmental collapse, but something like that can happen. Obama in his speech said that US people has to be independent without changing their lifestyle. He intends to get energy from sun, wind and other sources. This seems to be an ecological speech, but it is not. Without changing lifestyles everywhere, there is no way to avoid the collision route with the planet. Earth can sustain US lifestyle for only 200 million people. We do not have only a problem of energy, we also have a problem of matter: countries territories are finite, like ecological services that we are ruining. Forty years ago, Keneth Boulding was very sharp: "Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist."
Best wishes,
Hugo Penteado
hugopenteado@uol.com.br
How can people be so unskeptical and be taken in by such big lies as those stated by Eve Stevens?
Their worldview and self-identity depend on it, Chris.
Best,
D
very good sites
The planet has been cooling at a rate of 11 degree's F per century since 1998. The warming trend which is now over was only .5 degree F per century. Which one is more scary?
So let me get this straight: You see that the general public largely doesn't care about hearing that there could be major climate disruptions to their own lives and social support systems.... and you think this is because they care so much about the word "denial"?
The planet has been cooling at a rate of 11 degree's F per century since 1998. The warming trend which is now over was only .5 degree F per century. Which one is more scary?
www.flatkolik.com
www.flatkolik.com/forum
The planet has been cooling at a rate of 11 degree's F per century since 1998. The warming trend which is now over was only .5 degree F per century. Which one is more scary?
Very good point; I myself believed in Global Warming until I was called a Holocaust denier. Besides the unbelievable creepiness of the accusation, it made me instantly skeptical to what they were saying. If they are so desparate not to engage in debate that they will level the most dire personal attacks, what are they hiding from me? Do they know that they have no proof and attack me because of it?
Thats what started me being a skeptic. Honest, empirical answers to why Global Warming is real would change my mind.
The planet has been cooling at a rate of 11 degree's F per century since 1998. The warming trend which is now over was only .5 degree F per century. Which one is more scary?
I don't suppose it ever occured to you that 99% of the public recognizes bullcrap when it hears it and is therefore not very concerned about "man-caused global warming" ?
My prediction which is probably at least as accurate as the weatherman's is that 98.5 % of the public will continue to be thinking "bullcrap !!" as you try to better communicate your concerns about AGW.
When weather forecasters can accuraely predict weather 3 or more days from today, accurate global predictions of climate cant possibly be more than several centuries away or even closer !!!
Sorry to hear about your troll infestation - take some comfort in knowing it isn't as bad as Hrynyshyn's.
It's not surprising the Pew poll returned an emphasis on financial problems: after all, of the 20 questions, over half explicitly focus on economic issues, and quite a few of the rest (crime, immigration, energy) have money-related impacts. A wider range of interest on the part of the pollsters would have shown a wider range of concerns among the pollees, no?
Eve Stevens:
The scariest thing is how anyone can be taken in by such big fat whopping lies. The surface excluding the Arctics has been cooling at an average rate of 0.13 deg C per century since 1998 which had the biggest El Niño in more than a hundred years (HadCrut3). That El Niño boosted the 1998 surface temperature by at least 0.2 deg C. The average warming rate over the last hundred years was 0.75 deg C per century.
How can people be so unskeptical and be taken in by such big lies as those stated by Eve Stevens?
Is Obama's action permitting application of California's CO2 reduction to automakers, drected at concerns with global warming or energy?
Mike
I am not surprised if people put economy,employment,social security,health care as greater priorities above climate change since the impacts are firmer,clearer ,more factual and perceptible and the consequences more direct and dearer in the former,than is the case with climate change issues.Moreover in the latter case local,regional or even national level consensus and actions are insufficient to address the problem and the effects of whatever actions re taken in this regard are not directly measurable or visible apparently to the extent required ,for conviction.The immediate impacts of climate change need to be made more convincingly apparent to people so that they can relate to it in terms of coherent actionable programs that yield relief that can be effectively gauged.Moreover there are still segments who argue vociferously and with data support on aspects challenging the AGW view being proposed by agencies like IPCC etc.It is true that the dialogues like Copenhagen,Posnan,Bali and the future of Kyoto agreement are all deriving from concerns on climate change impacts that are being widely shared globally. But such concerns are yet to percolate down to national or regional level planning and development deliberations as seriously as it should in the light of the emerging global concerns on this issue.
SURESHKUMAR,SCIENTIST AND ADVISER,POLICY,NIIST,CSIR,INDIA
The public have been bludgeoned by the MSM, politicians and the global warming industry for at least ten years. They don't believe the hype. Its over for the warmists.