No disrespect intended - well, not much anyway - but this New York Times report of an emerging bipartisan consensus that the world is getting warmer and something must be done about it says nothing useful. That's not exactly right. Public opinion can and will be used to move public policy in support of a climate change agenda. The poll is, then, a good gauge of the political climate, but not the, well, global warming climate. (On that, you've got to like the way "climate change" has replaced "global warming" - now it's no longer necessary to predict the direction of the change, just posit that it's changing. Nifty.)
Anyway, here's what the Times reports.
Ninety percent of Democrats, 80 percent of independents and 60 percent of Republicans said immediate action was required to curb the warming of the atmosphere and deal with its effects on the global climate. Nineteen percent said it was not necessary to act now, and 1 percent said no steps were needed.
Several recent international reports have concluded with near certainty that human activities are the main cause of global warming since 1950. The poll found that 84 percent of Americans see human activity as at least contributing to warming.
Not that we're inclined to do too much about it.
Respondents said they would support higher gasoline prices to reduce dependence on foreign oil but would oppose higher prices to combat global warming. By large margins, respondents opposed an increase in pump prices of $2 a gallon, or even $1, to deal with environmental and energy-supply concerns.
There's a lot more, so I'd recommend reading the story, keeping this in mind from a recent column by Johah Goldberg.
Huge numbers of Americans don’t know jack about their government or politics. According to a Pew Research Center survey released last week, 31 percent of Americans don’t know who the vice president is, fewer than half are aware that Nancy Pelosi is the speaker of the House, a mere 29 percent can identify “Scooter” Libby as the convicted former chief of staff of the vice president, and only 15 percent can name Harry Reid when asked who is the Senate majority leader.
Any reason to believe they know more about climate change?
