New York Times:

An overwhelming majority of the American public, including nearly half of Republicans, support government action to curb global warming, according to a poll conducted by The New York Times, Stanford University and the nonpartisan environmental research group Resources for the Future

 

In a finding that could have implications for the 2016 presidential campaign, the poll also found that two-thirds of Americans say they are more likely to vote for political candidates who campaign on fighting climate change. They are less likely to vote for candidates who question or deny the science of human-caused global warming.

 

Although the poll found that climate change was not a top issue in determining a person’s vote, a candidate’s position on climate change influences how a person will vote.

So what’s a conservative to do who is a denier? Supporting a candidate who denies probably isn’t such a good idea. Many people think that NOT doing something is irresponsible and immoral. The question becomes, are you willing to take the risk on your own sense of being right? What if you aren’t right? What if it’s too late to make the necessary changes in human behavior?

Maybe we do nothing. Maybe we simply start regulating human beings and how many kids they have. Yes. Population control. Somehow, governments regulating energy consumption, the auto industry, and fossil fuels seems a lot less intrusive.

28 Thoughts to “Majority of Americans support Government action to curb climate change”

  1. Cargosquid

    A majority also voted for Obama a second time.

    The wisdom of the voting public is suspect.

    There has been no warming for over 18 years. The public is misinformed.

    The public may vote that way on a poll, but then, the public signs petitions to ban H2O, repeal the Bill of Rights, and other stupid things.

    1. Oh dear God. Help this man.

  2. Cato the Elder

    Did anyone else see Bigfoot on PW Parkway this morning?

  3. Pat.Herve

    the Glaciers are melting.
    The oceans are warming.

    Something is happening. Stick one’s head in the sand and do not worry about it or try and understand what is happening and see if we can do something about it – our yet to be born family tree will thank us.

    But instead we will make this a political football much the same as we are doing with Keystone – all this wangling over 35 long term jobs – seems like Congress should focus on something more constructive.

  4. blue

    The same people who predicted the Philly-NY Blizzard and agreed that everything should be shut down for two days are ready to testify that global warming, if it is real at the .03 percent margin, is man-made. Give me a break. Spend some money on those short term predictors first.

    To all of you who would shut down every manufacturing plant and stop every car on earth, please tell me it was worth it when that first volcano goes off – for a day or two.

    The question is; Other than Al Gore, the army of government regulators and the people they hire to do their studies, and the technology guys who get hugh govenment subsidies to make energy stuff, who makes money from this chicken little stuff.

    1. So this still about Al Gore? 2014 was the warmest year on record.

      Weather and climate aren’t the same thing. Weather still if far from being an exact science.

  5. blue

    If you can’t explain the 18 year ‘pause’ in predicted global warming, you can’t explain the cause…

    1. *I* can’t. You are right. It isn’t my field. I also can’t explain why the earth revolves around the sun and the same time it rotates on its axis. Someone else can explain that theory that is accepted science–NOW.

  6. Kelly_3406

    The large warming trend associated with persistent El Niños in the 1990s gave rise to the view that human-induced warming dominated the climate and that catastrophic climate change would inevitably result. The statistically flat temperature trend that has occurred since the 1990s has shown that natural variability remains firmly in control of short-term variability. Much of the scientific literature now acknowledges that the time scale for significant human-induced climate change is on the order of ~50-100 years, which represents a comeback for the consensus viewpoint that existed before the 1990s. This long time scale shows that there is no immediate imperative for the government to address climate change, because it may take decades before the climate signal is large enough to allow for attribution of any destructive consequences.

    1. It makes sense, just from an environmental point of view, to start addressing the obvious problems before they become an issue. I am not suggesting we set hair on fire over the issue of climate change but we do need to be mindful and monitor continually and avoid things we know are environmentally unsound.

  7. Pat.Herve

    What I find funny is that most of the developed world agrees that something is happening with regards to human influence on climate change – and most governments (including China) have agreed to try and do something about it. Only here in the US have we politicized it to a point that we have some that deny science.

    http://www.environment.no/Topics/Climate/
    http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2014/nov/28/chinese-scientific-revolution-tackle-climate-change

    Denying that humans have an impact on the climate is just lying to oneself and others. http://www.newrepublic.com/article/120889/evangelical-james-inhofe-says-only-god-can-cause-climate-change

    Looking out at the snow and the cold weather outside is another form of denial and lack of understanding of what is happening. But on a world basis 2014 was the warmest on record.

  8. Wolve

    Did not the Goddard Institute for Space Science (GISS), the ultimate source for the claim that 2014 was the hottest year ever, say that it is only 38% confident of its own statement? That calculates out to a 62% lack of confidence. Settled science, you say?

    1. I believe anyone here said “settled science.”

      I am not sure science is ever etched in stone. Look at Pluto. I am not ready to say that there are only 8 planets.

  9. Wolve

    Al Gore, the erstwhile patriarch of the global warming movement, always say that the science is settled.

    Be that as it may, those who echo that 2014 was the warmest year on record must be only 38% correct.

    1. It either is or it isn’t the warmest. I have read in many different periodicals that it was. If anyone can find a warmer year, then I would say that 2014 wasn’t. The key seems to be “on record.”

      Al Gore is off getting richer and fatter and without Tipper. Is that a good thing? Probably for him.

  10. Wolve

    Well, Moon, my long ago Viking ancestors used to grow feed and raise cattle in Greenland. Hot enough to qualify? And not a single coal-fired power plant or gas guzzling vehicle in the whole neighborhood.

  11. Kelly_3406

    @Moon-howler

    There is quite a bit of uncertainty in global temperature estimates. There are always issues with instrument siting, missing data, and instrument performance, especially in places like Russia where the network is sparse. The true uncertainty is probably worse than half a degree Celsius. So when mean temperatures between two years are within 0.1 degree C, then the means are statistically equivalent and no assertions can really be made as to which was warmer. That is what happened in 2014; what it really shows is that global surface temperature has been amazingly steady over the past few years.

    1. I would say that is good news.

  12. George S. Harris

    I won’t be here to see it but when the all the islands in the Chesapeake Bay disappear and the Barrier Islands are gone, we probably will figure out that something really is wrong. But by then, it may be too late to stop what is taking place. In addition to global warming, tectonic plate shift will, over eons, change everything-permanently. Of course, some will deny that is happening also.

  13. Cargosquid

    @George S. Harris
    None of us will be here.
    The sea level is rising, on average, 3 mm per year, unless there is subsidence, like that in the Chesapeake.

    Unless you know of a way to stop the land from sinking…….

  14. middleman

    Sea level rise, drought, monsoon rains, animal habitat and crop changes are all part of climate change and are all already happening, but possibly the most detrimental effect is often missed, and that’s acidification of the oceans. The oceans provide sustenance for over a billion people all over the world and acidification from CO2 along with over fishing is a major threat to the ocean’s health.

    Even ignoring everything else, protecting the oceans is reason enough to reduce CO2 production.

    1. We need to start with those factory fishing trawlers that the Russians and the Japanese rape the seas with.

  15. middleman

    You don’t have to “shut down every manufacturing plan and stop every car” to reduce CO2. Limiting deforestation and restoring deforested lands could have a major effect on mitigating human produced CO2 impacts.

  16. middleman

    Kelly_3406 :The large warming trend associated with persistent El Niños in the 1990s gave rise to the view that human-induced warming dominated the climate and that catastrophic climate change would inevitably result. The statistically flat temperature trend that has occurred since the 1990s has shown that natural variability remains firmly in control of short-term variability. Much of the scientific literature now acknowledges that the time scale for significant human-induced climate change is on the order of ~50-100 years, which represents a comeback for the consensus viewpoint that existed before the 1990s. This long time scale shows that there is no immediate imperative for the government to address climate change, because it may take decades before the climate signal is large enough to allow for attribution of any destructive consequences.

    Lots of falsehoods to address here. In order: 1. Study after study shows coorelation between CO2 in the atmosphere and warming. Clearly NOT normal variability. 2. The temperature trend is NOT flat, but the rate of increase has not met projections. Interestingly, the effects of warming are actually WORSE than predicted in many areas, such as polar ice melt. 3. The time scale actually shows that no matter what we do now there will be increased impacts. If we don’t act now, the effects will be worse.

  17. Kelly_3406

    See the plot from the RSS dataset at the link below showing a flat temperature trend for the past 18 years:

    http://www.lordmoncktonfoundation.com/blog

  18. Rick Bentley

    IF one believes that we are a primary cause of irreversible warming, then population growth is clearly the driver.

    Liberals support policies that de facto encourage people to have children by providing subsidy to poor people with kids. (I do too).

    Those policies are driving “global warming” to a greater degree than particulars of oil consumption, or potential fuel taxes.

    Discussion on this issue is always completely divorced from what is actually real or rational.

  19. Rick Bentley

    “I also can’t explain why the earth revolves around the sun ”

    Gravity causes things of mass to settle into orbits around each other. It’s a well-established science and we can predict results. We understand exactly where to launch a satellite, and how to best adjust it via periodic emissions of fuel. It’s not guesswork.

    “and the same time it rotates on its axis.”

    Everything out there (or, most everything) is “rotating” relative to everything else. The root cause is movement that dates back to the initial explosion outwards from the big bang, and collisions since then. The movement doesn’t stop. Here’s a writeup – http://www.universetoday.com/14491/why-does-the-earth-rotate/ . Again – pretty well understood.

    If some climate scientist tells you that orbits and planetary rotation are caused by global warming, I hope that you won’t believe them.

    1. Yes, established science but that wasn’t a very good explanation.

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