# I weep for Americans (Global warming poll). **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 23, 2009, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-weep-for-americans-global-warming-poll/514881 "2009-10-23T17:24:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_fun_ball/32/17664_2.png) [@Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Fun_Ball)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2009, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-weep-for-americans-global-warming-poll/514881/1 "2009-10-23T17:24:09Z")
Just released today is a poll by the [Pew Research Center](http://people-press.org/) showing that belief that there is evidence for global warming has fallen to its lowest level ever. [Only 57% of US citizens believe that their is solid evidence that the earth is warming.](http://people-press.org/report/556/global-warming) Look, we can disagree whether or not climate change is man made (though I personally think people demonstrate stupidity in this area also) and we can have reasonable disagreements on what we need to do about it if anything or whether or not it will be bad for everyone. But the evidence the earth is warming is incontrovertible. We have direct temperature measurements of the land, sea and air. We have [disappearing glaciers](http://matadorchange.com/9-disappearing-glaciers-worldwide-a-photo-essay/), [melting permafrost](http://www.thewe.cc/weplanet/news/arctic/permafrost_melting.htm) and [melting poles](http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/green/articles/2009/10/13/melting_ice_caps_open_up_shipping_routes/). We have [species migrating northward](http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/6255181.html) or [up in elevation](http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/01/climate-change-biodiversity-elevation.php). We have [earlier](http://www.nj.com/homegarden/garden/index.ssf/2009/04/signs_of_spring_are_emerging_e.html) and [longer growing seasons](http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/archive/2008-06/2008-06-16-voa7.cfm?CFID=306214367&CFTOKEN=11274207&jsessionid=00309a376d1dc871ff1e70717e1c626e6471). We have lakes and waterways [melting earlier](http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18725135.200-global-warming-brings-earlier-spring-thaw-to-great-lakes.html) than the did in the past. The evidence of a warming world is everywhere and does not rely on just one or even several measurements. I blame the right wing who would (in my not so humble opinion) say anything to fire up the base or make democrats look bad. One of my closest friends is a right winger who thinks it is all a scam. I don’t know who he thinks it is a scam by (he has no answer for this), but he thinks someone is trying to get rich off of it. He thinks that scientists are a bunch of ivory tower elites with an agenda (never mind that I am a scientist :rolleyes:) and science is just a collection of opinions. What the fuck has happened to this country? We used to be the undisputed world leaders in scientific knowledge. Now we have large fractions of the populace doubting science on all fronts, from global warming to evolution and the efficacy of vaccination. Science is not made up of opinions morons! Polio and small pox were eliminated for a reason. People used to die all the time from measles and mumps. Vaccines are good things. Why do you believe Glenn Beck over 50,000 scientists? Why do you believe that scientists have an agenda but Exxon Mobil doesn’t? Yeesh. I blame Fox News and their commentators (and pundits like Rush and Anne) who would say anything to demonize the left. I blame George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Karl Fucking Rove who would have said black is white if it allowed them to consolidate their power and advance their agenda. I blame people like **Intention** , who while intelligent and (probably) well meaning, places doubt in the minds of the masses over the big picture because of one questionable measurement or model. Look guys, just because the models are questionable, or that some polar bear populations are rising, or that it was colder in Chicago last year, does not fucking mean all the evidence that the earth is warming is bullshit! Even if the sun was getting warmer (it’s not), or we are capturing more energy from the Magellanic clouds (we aren’t), this doesn’t change the fucking indisputable physics behind the greenhouse effect. Assholes! Fucking Assholes I tell you! Fucking morons need to fucking go to school and stop listening to Faux News. Fucking irresponsible journalism, all in the name of profit. By the way and for the record: I not a big fan of the left on certain fronts either. I can get behind most conservative ideas when it comes to the economy. But this anti-science thing I cannot tolerate! It is beyond the pale. ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2009, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-weep-for-americans-global-warming-poll/514881/2 "2009-10-23T17:29:10Z")
God is my scientist. j/k ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2009, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-weep-for-americans-global-warming-poll/514881/3 "2009-10-23T17:32:35Z")
I wonder how much overlap there is between global warming deniers and creationists. Probably a lot. ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2009, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-weep-for-americans-global-warming-poll/514881/4 "2009-10-23T18:00:43Z")
I believe there’s global warming. I just get a little sick of all the doomsday scenarios being hurled at us by the environmental types. Some of these folks act as if we aren’t composting our own shit and watering our plants with our own filtered urine, it’ll be our fault when New York is under water. Get a grip, people. Most reasonable folks agree we need to work towards clean energy and away from fossil fuels. We can adjust. We have been adjusting to our environment since the beginning of time. It’s what we do. And who’s to say in the end that global warming is absolutely a bad thing? Agriculture on the tundra maybe? ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2009, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-weep-for-americans-global-warming-poll/514881/5 "2009-10-23T18:07:09Z")
It won’t be a tundra by then, but areas which are now good for cultivation will have turned into dry deserts. ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2009, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-weep-for-americans-global-warming-poll/514881/6 "2009-10-23T18:14:32Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats](#): > > I believe there’s global warming. I just get a little sick of all the doomsday scenarios being hurled at us by the environmental types. Yeah, that’s kind of a turn off. Watching Gore’s _An Inconvenient Truth_ he makes it seem like if we don’t act immediately we’re all dead in about 50 years. I think most people agree that there needs to be regulations kept in place and an “anything goes” attitude is a bad one but that the alarmist angle is a bit over the top. ---
**Author:** ![intention](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e95f7d/32.png) [@intention](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/intention)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2009, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-weep-for-americans-global-warming-poll/514881/7 "2009-10-23T18:30:40Z")
From [Science Magazine](http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/326/5949/28-a) (subscription required): > [@](#): > > … The latest response from the climate community comes in State of the Climate in 2008, a special supplement to the current (August) issue of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. Climate researcher Jeff Knight and eight colleagues at the Met Office Hadley Centre in Exeter, U.K., first establish that—at least in one leading temperature record—greenhouse warming has been stopped in its tracks for the past 10 years. In the HadCRUT3 temperature record, the world warmed by 0.07°C±0.07°C from 1999 through 2008, not the 0.20°C expected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Corrected for the natural temperature effects of El Niño and its sister climate event La Niña, the decade’s trend is a perfectly flat 0.00°C. > > So contrarian bloggers are right: There’s been no increase in greenhouse warming lately. … Now, please notice that Science Magazine agrees that there has been no warming over the last ten years. They go on to explain that this cessation of warming occurs in some 2.7% of the ten year climate runs of a particular model, so there’s nothing unusual about it. Riiight … funny how 97.3% odds that the models are wrong is suddenly meaningless. But I digress. So, rather than weep for Americans, you might congratulate us on being much more aware of the science than you are. Because the scientific evidence says that global warming has not been seen for a decade, and you’re strutting around saying people are stupid for noticing that scientific fact, and saying that your claim is “incontrovertible”. Guess what? Science Magazine just controverted it. The contrarian bloggers are right. The American people know more about science than you do. Get used to it. ---
**Author:** ![Philster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/13edae/32.png) [@Philster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philster)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2009, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-weep-for-americans-global-warming-poll/514881/8 "2009-10-23T18:47:03Z")
See, it stopped because of all the carbon credits and hybrid technology. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2009, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-weep-for-americans-global-warming-poll/514881/9 "2009-10-23T19:13:21Z")
> [@intention](#): > > Guess what? Science Magazine just controverted it. The contrarian bloggers are right. The American people know more about science than you do. Get used to it. As someone who has bounced back and forth in my belief of how much man’s activities have contribued to the warming trend, I will be very interested in reading the reasoned rebuttal to this post. My shoot from the hip opinion has been to note that we’ve had ice ages before; presumably the woolly mammoths didn’t die out because of the primitive SUVs being used at the time. So the Earth has clearly experienced warming trends before now, and cooling trends as well. Against that decidedly simplistic analysis we have a lot of people who know what they’re talking about. So my problem is that I don’t understand the science. If that makes me an idiot, so be it. ---
**Author:** ![Si\_Amigo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/si_amigo/32/2877_2.png) [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2009, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-weep-for-americans-global-warming-poll/514881/10 "2009-10-23T19:34:59Z")
And one good volcanic eruption can throw all of the predictions in the waste basket. Is mankind contributing to climate change? Of course he is by the mere fact that he exist. I don’t think that most Americans beleive than man does not have an impact, but that many realize that the Earths climate goes through cycles as well. That’s hard to capture in a yes/no or either/or type poll. ---
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2009, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-weep-for-americans-global-warming-poll/514881/11 "2009-10-23T19:38:39Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > My shoot from the hip opinion has been to note that we’ve had ice ages before; presumably the woolly mammoths didn’t die out because of the primitive SUVs being used at the time. So the Earth has clearly experienced warming trends before now, and cooling trends as well. Forest fires are natural, too. Does this mean that we can’t cause forest fires? ---
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2009, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-weep-for-americans-global-warming-poll/514881/12 "2009-10-23T19:42:20Z")
To continue, since I will probably miss the edit window if I try to add this to my previous post: I hope that global climate change isn’t happening, I really do. But if it \*is \*happening, I hope we’re causing it- so that we can try to prevent it. I’m afraid, though, that it is happening, and that we’re causing it… and self-centered propaganda is going to screw us all. I mean, the anti-AGW crowd is using the same arguments that the cigarette industry used, and we can see how well that worked out. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2009, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-weep-for-americans-global-warming-poll/514881/13 "2009-10-23T19:43:39Z")
> [@Lightnin](#): > > Forest fires are natural, too. Does this mean that we can’t cause forest fires? He’s not saying that. He’s saying more along the lines of “there’s a forest fire. Are we sure it’s caused by people? No, it might be natural.” To me, the issue is not whether global warming is happening or not, or whether it’s caused by humans or not. The issue is that the cost associated with one of those outcomes (yes and yes) is large enough that we can’t afford to be wrong about it. Another outcome (no and no) we \*can _afford to be wrong about. If we do things to limit carbon emissions and it turns out they weren’t causing global warming, so what? The air’s still cleaner. If we don’t do things to limit them and it turns out they do contribute to global warming_, we’re fucked. \*SPOILER: They do. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2009, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-weep-for-americans-global-warming-poll/514881/14 "2009-10-23T20:04:51Z")
> [@intention](#): > > Now, please notice that Science Magazine agrees that there has been no warming over the last ten years. I’m not more scientifically literate than Bricker, but I can google and see what the climate scientists say in response. They say: > [@](#): > > (1) This discussion focuses on just a short time period – starting 1998 or later – covering at most 11 years. Even under conditions of anthropogenic global warming (which would contribute a temperature rise of about 0.2 ºC over this period) a flat period or even cooling trend over such a short time span is nothing special and has happened repeatedly before (see 1987-1996). That simply is due to the fact that short-term natural variability has a similar magnitude (i.e. ~0.2 ºC) and can thus compensate for the anthropogenic effects. Of course, the warming trend keeps going up whilst natural variability just oscillates irregularly up and down, so over longer periods the warming trend wins and natural variability cancels out. > > (2) It is highly questionable whether this “pause” is even real. It does show up to some extent (no cooling, but reduced 10-year warming trend) in the Hadley Center data, but it does not show in the GISS data, see Figure 1. There, the past ten 10-year trends (i.e. 1990-1999, 1991-2000 and so on) have all been between 0.17 and 0.34 ºC per decade, close to or above the expected anthropogenic trend, with the most recent one (1999-2008) equal to 0.19 ºC per decade – just as predicted by IPCC as response to anthropogenic forcing. [Link](http://www.realclimate.org/) ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2009, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-weep-for-americans-global-warming-poll/514881/15 "2009-10-23T20:06:12Z")
> [@bup](#): > > To me, the issue is not whether global warming is happening or not, or whether it’s caused by humans or not. The issue is that the cost associated with one of those outcomes (yes and yes) is large enough that we can’t afford to be wrong about it. Another outcome (no and no) we \*can _afford to be wrong about. If we do things to limit carbon emissions and it turns out they weren’t causing global warming, so what? The air’s still cleaner. If we don’t do things to limit them and it turns out they do contribute to global warming_, we’re fucked. Except that the changes needed to cut emissions to 1900-type levels are not a matter of trimming here and there; they are massive, alter-the-way-of-life-of-hundreds-of-millions type changes. At that point, you have to start doing the sorts of cost-benefit analysis that people like Bjorn Lomborg do. IME, that isn’t a conversation many environmentalists are willing to entertain. ---
**Author:** ![shiftless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9c0ed/32.png) [@shiftless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shiftless)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2009, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-weep-for-americans-global-warming-poll/514881/16 "2009-10-23T20:08:24Z")
I feel for you but I have to say that I don’t think the global warming folks have made a good enough case yet. This isn’t a big issue for me so I haven’t done any reading on it, therefore I haven’t seen the proof that it is a problem. Not that I dispute the question. There seem to be lots of folks saying it is real so I will take it seriously I guess. BTW, I am an American, I’m not right wing and I saw Al’s dire but unconvincing movie. If global warming is such a problem then why didn’t Al do anything about it in his 8 years in power? I mean, if he didn’t think the vice President of the most powerful country in the world could do anything about the problem then who exactly does he think has that power, his movie audience? ---
**Author:** ![Oregon\_sunshine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/50afbb/32.png) [@Oregon\_sunshine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oregon_sunshine)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2009, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-weep-for-americans-global-warming-poll/514881/17 "2009-10-23T20:38:00Z")
I’m not a right-winger by any means (my actual political category is hard to explain) but I am American. I’ve seen statistics like [this](http://www.theresilientearth.com/files/images/sea_temperature_vs_sunspots.jpg) which lead me to wonder what, if any, influence human activity has on the Earth’s temperature. It seems to me that the biggest driver of our planetary temperature would be the Sun, and not our relatively miniscule activities. I’m all for less pollution and all, I’m just not sure that it’s the main reason Earth is becoming warmer (or not)! ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2009, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-weep-for-americans-global-warming-poll/514881/18 "2009-10-23T20:53:57Z")
> [@shiftless](#): > > If global warming is such a problem then why didn’t Al do anything about it in his 8 years in power? I mean, if he didn’t think the vice President of the most powerful country in the world could do anything about the problem then who exactly does he think has that power, his movie audience? How much “power” does the Vice President have over the energy industry? ---
**Author:** ![heatmiserfl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/df705f/32.png) [@heatmiserfl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/heatmiserfl)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2009, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-weep-for-americans-global-warming-poll/514881/19 "2009-10-23T20:59:10Z")
> [@intention](#): > > From [Science Magazine](http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/326/5949/28-a) (subscription required): > > Now, please notice that Science Magazine agrees that there has been no warming over the last ten years. > > They go on to explain that this cessation of warming occurs in some 2.7% of the ten year climate runs of a particular model, so there’s nothing unusual about it. Riiight … funny how 97.3% odds that the models are wrong is suddenly meaningless. But I digress. > > So, rather than weep for Americans, you might congratulate us on being much more aware of the science than you are. Because the scientific evidence says that global warming has not been seen for a decade, and you’re strutting around saying people are stupid for noticing that scientific fact, and saying that your claim is “incontrovertible”. > > Guess what? Science Magazine just controverted it. The contrarian bloggers are right. The American people know more about science than you do. Get used to it. I’m sorry if this sounds rude but **intention** left out the relevant part of that Science article. The very part where **intention** ends with (…) in the quote continues as such, > [@](#): > > There’s been no increase in greenhouse warming lately. That result came as no surprise to Knight and his colleagues or, for that matter, to most climate scientists. But the Hadley Centre group took the next step, using climate modeling to try to quantify how unusual a 10-year warming pause might be. In 10 modeling runs of 21st century climate totaling 700 years worth of simulation, long-term warming proceeded about as expected: 2.0°C by the end of the century. But along the way in the 700 years of simulation, about 17 separate 10-year intervals had temperature trends resembling that of the past decade—that is, more or less flat. > > From this result, the group concludes that the model can reproduce natural jostlings of the climate system—perhaps a shift in heat-carrying ocean currents—that can cool the world and hold off greenhouse warming for a decade. But natural climate variability in the model has its limits. Pauses as long as 15 years are rare in the simulations, and “we expect that [real-world] warming will resume in the next few years,” the Hadley Centre group writes. And that resumption could come as a bit of a jolt, says Adam Scaife of the group, as the temperature catches up with the greenhouse gases added during the pause. In other words, climate scientists were not particularly surprised because flat trends have been seen before and were able to simulate it. More importantly, they say that when the flat trend ends, there will be a larger jump in temperature as the larger global warming trend continues. [http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/326/5949/28-a](http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/326/5949/28-a) ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2009, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-weep-for-americans-global-warming-poll/514881/20 "2009-10-23T21:02:35Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats](#): > > I believe there’s global warming. I just get a little sick of all the doomsday scenarios being hurled at us by the environmental types. Some of these folks act as if we aren’t composting our own shit and watering our plants with our own filtered urine, it’ll be our fault when New York is under water. Get a grip, people. So you’re saying that global warming is unlikely to lead to any significant flooding in coastal areas? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-weep-for-americans-global-warming-poll/514881.md?page=2)