rssEconomic Crisis Sidelines Global Warming Concerns
Tuesday, March 17, 2009 at 12:26 pm
- 27 Comments
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As the Obama administration moves forward with its green agenda, climate change concerns have been elevated to a top priority. Yet in the midst of the deepening economic crisis, public opinion appears to be moving in the opposite direction.
Illustration by: Matt Mahurin
A Gallup poll released last Wednesday found a six percent drop from last year in the number of people who are worried a “great deal” or a “fair amount” about global warming, after that number had been increasing for the previous five years. It also showed that after a similar five-year climb, the percentage of respondents who believe that the effects of global warming have already begun had decreased by eight points over the past year. A record-high 16 percent of Americans now believe that global warming will never occur; in more than ten years of polling, no more than 11 percent of respondents had ever expressed this opinion.
The day after the poll was released, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the ranking Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and a leading climate change skeptic, took to the Senate floor and celebrated the results as a triumph of information. “You should never underestimate the intelligence of the American people,” he proclaimed. “Sadly, that is exactly what the promoters of man-made climate fears have been consistently doing, and the American people have consistently rejected climate alarm.”
Inhofe attributed the shift in public opinion to new studies from prominent scientists that he said contradicted the prevailing climate change arguments embraced by former Vice President Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “A steady stream of peer-reviewed studies, analyses, real world data and inconvenient developments have further refuted the claims of man-made global warming fear activists,” he said.
Gallup (click to enlarge)
On the other side of the climate debate, the Center for American Progress’ Joseph Romm, an acting assistant secretary of energy under Bill Clinton and an influential environmental activist, also chalked the changing attitudes up to a change in propaganda, albeit with a different slant.
“Objectively, in the last two years, the science makes painfully clear that climate risk has grown sharply,” he wrote on his blog, Climate Progress. “That means if the public has come to the reverse view, it must be due to the messaging and the media and the misinformers.” While “the vast majority of scientists are consistently bad at messaging,” he explained, global warming skeptics have “never stopped their single-minded disinformation campaign.”
Yet public opinion experts have a different explanation for the poll results.
Michael Dimock, associate director of the Pew Research Center, argues that the economic downturn has trumped all other concerns. “In a time of economic crisis, people are less willing to focus on an issue like global warming because they see other, more pressing issues,” he said.
A similar phenomenon took place after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Dimock explained. “In January 2002, a few months after 9/11, the public’s sense of priority on a whole host of important issues just fell through the floor,” he said. “They expected the government, almost to the exclusion of other important things, to focus on this issue.”
Karlyn Bowman, who studies public opinion at the American Enterprise Institute, published a comprehensive report in April 2008 that tracked polls on the environment and global warming over the past several decades. Her data showed that in the three years following the 9/11 attacks, fewer people said they were worried about global warming than in any other year in the past decade.
Similarly, she argues, the economic crisis has now pushed environmental considerations aside. “The economy is just swamping all other issues right now,” she said. “Nothing else comes close.”
According to Paul Mohai, a professor of environmental policy and public opinion at the University of Michigan, this trend fits into historical patterns. “It’s not unusual at all that when there are economic problems in the country, concerns about the environment drop off,” he said.
Pew Research Center (click to enlarge)
The current economic crisis, of course, is the most severe in decades, and the Gallup poll is not the first to show its effects on public attitudes toward climate change. Every January, Pew conducts a poll to assess people’s “top priorities” for the government to address. This year, global warming came out on the very bottom of the list.
“Out of the 19 things that we ask people to rank as priorities, it’s number 19,” said Dimock. Only 30 percent of respondents considered global warming a “top priority,” down from 38 percent in 2007 and 35 percent in 2008. Other non-economic concerns likewise tumbled down people’s list of priorities, including crime, immigration and “protecting the environment” generally.
While the economy is likely the leading cause of reduced concern about global warming, these experts also posit a number of other possible explanations. Bowman and Mohai argue that Americans tend to feel less worried about a problem when they believe that the government is addressing it. In this case, confidence in President Obama and the Democratic congressional leadership to tackle global warming has led people to feel less personally worried about the issue. “During Republican administrations, people’s concerns about the environment go up, and during Democratic administrations they go down,” said Mohai.
Bowman’s 2008 study backs up this claim. In every poll she recorded since 1971, people have had greater confidence in the Democratic Party to protect the environment. In the latest poll included in her study, a February 2008 Pew poll, 65 percent of respondents expressed greater confidence in Democrats on this issue, compared to just 21 percent for Republicans.
Dimock, on the other hand, points to Al Gore’s Oscar-winning 2006 documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” as a possible complement to the economic causes of the change in public opinion. He hypothesizes that as a highly polarizing figure, Gore may have solidified Democratic support for his environmental agenda while turning off some Republicans and independents. “You can imagine how, with people feeling like Al Gore was lecturing them on global warming, so to speak, they might have some sort of backlash, because it was no longer coming from a neutral source. It was coming from a political source.”
Nonetheless, Dimock believes that the struggling economy is far and away the primary cause of the shift in public opinion. “The 800-pound gorilla is this economic crisis,” he said.
Inhofe’s claim that the change stems from the propagation of new scientific studies that cast doubt on man-made global warming theories garnered little support from these experts. “If that is indeed happening, I haven’t seen it on the news, and I follow it pretty closely,” said Mohai.
So what might cause Americans to renew their global warming concerns? In the lingo of Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign, it’s the economy, stupid.
“If and when people feel more comfortable about the economy turning around, their focus can turn to other issues,” said Dimock.
Just as President Obama has tied his economic agenda to an environmental one, it appears that Americans’ global warming concerns will rise and fall with their 401(k)s.
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27 Comments
Comment posted March 17, 2009 @ 11:35 am
People rationalize rating the issue lower in importance by saying they're less confident it's happening. Kinda sad.
Comment posted March 17, 2009 @ 12:39 pm
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. The over 700 dissenting international scientists that just met in New York are now more than 13 times the number of UN scientists (52) who authored the media-hyped IPCC 2007 Summary for Policymakers. http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseActi…
Additionally, 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…” http://www.petitionproject.org/index.html
“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.
Comment posted March 17, 2009 @ 3:18 pm
Herr Sosa,
I find chuckle-worthy the argument that global warming “hoaxsters” are in this for the loot. Has green industry taken such a foothold in America that a public-opinion shift in favor of sustainable energy will gild the pockets of enviro-entrepreneurs? Or are their putative profits but a ripple in the oilfields of those who'd stand to make a great deal more by prolonging our reliance on oils foreign & domestic?
Then again, if Obama's green fiendery is the only thing keeping you up at night, count yourself lucky. As the article observes, many of our patriotic brothers & sisters are losing their livelihood.
To say nothing of the scourge of homosexuality!
Pingback posted March 17, 2009 @ 4:32 pm
[...] Post By Google News Click Here For The Entire Article Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and [...]
Pingback posted March 18, 2009 @ 7:00 am
[...] MORE THAN ONE KIND OF GREEN: The Washington Independent argues that the spiraling economic crisis has deflated public interest in the issue of global warming. [...]
Comment posted March 18, 2009 @ 4:06 pm
Baubles McGee: You're a communist hack whose either an undisclosed ally of Aaron Wang and the rest of the Left Coast Crunch Lobby, or a pawn in their twisted, religiopolitical game. (And yes, rabid environmentalism IS A RELIGION).
John B. Tater, out.
Comment posted March 18, 2009 @ 7:51 pm
It would be good if that's all it sidelined.
The world is watching as more and more evidence of what we all know anyway about the past administration is coming out. Unfortunately for the reputation of a nation that says its a nation of laws and where no man is above the law the world is beginning to wonder when it starts.
President Obama said no man is above the law. He also said if there is clear evidence of lawbreaking we will prosecute the lawbreakers. Its beginning to look like talk is cheap. There is more and more evidence of torture by the US, approved at the top of government and done by those in the field. There is less and less action or even talk about torture by our government.
Maybe some folks are saying the silver lining to the economic melt down is it is a good distractor.
Comment posted March 18, 2009 @ 8:41 pm
Well, you can't blame the populace for worring about their economic security. We tend to only look at the most pressing issue and leave everything else. When the oceans come lapping at our doors, THEN it will be time to take climate change seriously.
Comment posted March 19, 2009 @ 11:07 am
Don't be an alarmist Roger. Only people on the coast have to worry about rising waters, and even then, coastal living won't move inland for a couple of generations.
Somebody has spent too many hours watching “The Day After Tomorow.”
IDIOT.
Pingback posted March 19, 2009 @ 1:19 pm
[...] Aaron Wiener placed an observative post today on The Washington Independent » Economic Crisis Sidelines Global …Here’s a quick excerptWhile the economy is likely the leading cause of reduced concern about global warming, these experts also posit a number of other possible explanations. Bowman and Mohai argue that Americans tend to feel less worried about a problem … [...]
Comment posted March 19, 2009 @ 2:10 pm
It's not only our 401(k)s that are in danger. It's our country, our world, our children and our grandchildren who are threatened by the global warming hoax.
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. The over 700 dissenting international scientists that just met in New York are now more than 13 times the number of UN scientists (52) who authored the media-hyped IPCC 2007 Summary for Policymakers. http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseActi…
Additionally, 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…” http://www.petitionproject.org/index.html
“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.
Comment posted March 19, 2009 @ 2:18 pm
You are right, John. Pope Benedict XVI attacked the climate change prophets of doom, warning them that any solutions to global warming must be based on firm evidence and not on dubious ideology. He suggested that fears over man-made emissions melting the ice caps and causing a wave of unprecedented disasters were nothing more than scare-mongering. He asked the international community to base its policies on science rather than on the dogma of the environmentalist movement…
Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic, who just assumed the presidency of the European Union, is right when he states that “environmentalism is the new communism and climate change is a dangerous myth.” http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/eur…
Lord Christopher Monckton, expressing the opinion of an increasing number of scientists, said, “The environmental movement has to be outlawed, because their policies have murdered 40 million people, mainly children, with the ban on DDT.” He added, “They have caused mass starvation and food riots with their nonsensical drive for bio-fuels. The forces of darkness in the environmental movement want create a new dark age in which humanity is pushed back to the Stone Age and without the right to light a fire.”
Comment posted March 19, 2009 @ 2:53 pm
I'm glad we're of a like mind on this, Mr. Sosa. Nothing irritates me more than false prophets masquerading as scientists promoting a theory that lacks scientific merit.
Re DDT: Who gives a flying fuck about bird eggs, anyway? And why do we continue to prioritize the lives of animals over human beings?
Comment posted March 19, 2009 @ 2:55 pm
Right. So as long as Pope Ratzenberger is attacking others for being driven by “dubious ideology” and “dogma,” we don't have to worry about AIDS spreading in Africa thanks in part to the Catholic Church's wholesale rejection of the idea that condoms prevent the spread of filthy disease.
Gosh, when I need environmental, economical, or—for that matter—sports news, I go straight to the Pope.
Comment posted March 19, 2009 @ 2:59 pm
Enough with your progressive bullshit, Baubles McDickface.
Even the eggheads at “Hah-vahd” support the Pope:
‘We have found no consistent associations between condom use and lower HIV-infection rates, which, 25 years into the pandemic, we should be seeing if this intervention was working.” So notes Edward C. Green, director of the AIDS Prevention Research Project at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, in response to papal press comments en route to Africa this week.
“The pope is correct,” Green told National Review Online Wednesday, “or put it a better way, the best evidence we have supports the pope’s comments. He stresses that “condoms have been proven to not be effective at the ‘level of population.’”
Jesus, you people never let up with your agendas.
Pingback posted March 19, 2009 @ 5:16 pm
[...] not clear why the trends have reversed this year, but a likely explanation is the economic downturn. Certainly concern about global warming among experts has only sharpened. Posted by moxiepapa [...]
Comment posted March 20, 2009 @ 8:40 am
Like the economy, those polled have a simplistic view of science in general, and climate change in particular. We just had winter; it was cold; global warming is a hoax. I bet that, after a hot summer, the same poll would show an increase in those who “believe in” global warming. If it's not hitting them in the face, it isn't real.
Pingback posted March 21, 2009 @ 2:38 am
[...] new Gallup poll: A record-high 16 percent of Americans now believe that global warming will never occur; in more [...]
Pingback posted March 30, 2009 @ 4:31 pm
[...] printed in The Washington Independent on March 17, [...]
Comment posted May 21, 2009 @ 9:50 am
Why people think that the economics crisis are so important than the global warming ?? and especially the top priorities!!! The Global Warming is the last choice which people are concern about !!!!
while the world is dieing, people just care about money !!???
what would happen, if it's too late to secure the world after the economics got improve???
will the money make any sense to the world ?? will the money buy the world back from the disaster??
Will the money buy food or product when there's nothing left on Earth??
the answer is no !!!! why?? Because it's already too late !! and money can't buy or use to any thing any more !! all is left is the piece of little paper and it's mean nothing at all !!!
Comment posted May 21, 2009 @ 4:50 pm
Why people think that the economics crisis are so important than the global warming ?? and especially the top priorities!!! The Global Warming is the last choice which people are concern about !!!!
while the world is dieing, people just care about money !!???
what would happen, if it's too late to secure the world after the economics got improve???
will the money make any sense to the world ?? will the money buy the world back from the disaster??
Will the money buy food or product when there's nothing left on Earth??
the answer is no !!!! why?? Because it's already too late !! and money can't buy or use to any thing any more !! all is left is the piece of little paper and it's mean nothing at all !!!
Pingback posted July 28, 2009 @ 1:05 pm
[...] for consequences being dire, they’re only dire if you agree that the challenges are urgent. Many people don’t. In fact, Obama already had his chance at the one current issue that people do agree is urgent, and [...]
Comment posted September 5, 2009 @ 12:27 am
Globe warming has always occurs! Yes, you hear that right. The problem with the globe warming we having now is men made globe warming! All these crazy chemicals that are release to the atmospherics are cause the planet to heat up faster.
We already have glove warming and it occurs long before United State was found! The question is how should we slow down globe warming.
Comment posted September 5, 2009 @ 3:13 pm
I wonder if there is an excessive amount of pessimism about the economy and the job loss. Without a doubt the economy is in a very tenuous position but isn’t now the time to believe in our inherent ability to overcome, survive, and thrive?
Instead of wasting too much time figuring out where blame lies (analysis of past mistakes is necessary to a degree) lets spend time developing solutions for ourselves and perhaps more help the people around us.
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