What Does the American Public Want Done to Fight Climate Change?

by Fabius Maximus, FabiusMaximus.com

Summary: For roughly 15 years public policy initiatives to fight climate change has been one of the Left’s major goals. They’ve expended vast resources of time and money (like this) to convince the public about the urgent need to take a wide range of measures – both new regulations and and expenditures.

They’ve concealed data (forcing Freedom of Information suits), smeared opponents, and produced exaggerated and often misleading propaganda (see the last section for examples). All for nothing. So far little has been done in the US, and support appears to be fading. Perhaps taking the high road, a more honest approach, would have done better.

This is a follow-up to yesterday’s Look in the polls, as in a mirror, to see America drift to the Right. The Left gambled big, and so far appears to have lost.

Contents

1. How high a priority is fighting climate change?
2. How much does the public know about climate change?
3. For More Information

(1) How high a priority is fighting climate change?

Poll by Hart Research Associates

Commissioned by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal
Done 22 – 25 January 2014.

Question #13:

As President Obama prepares to deliver his State of the Union address, there are many important issues facing the country. I’m going to list some of these issues. Recognizing that all these issues may be important but that not every single one can be a top priority for the President and Congress, for each one please tell me whether you think it should be an absolute priority for the Obama administration and THIS year’s Congress, it is something that can be delayed until next year, or something that you think the Obama administration and Congress should not pursue.

The answer is clear. Among the 15 priorities listed, climate change …

• gets the lowest ranking for “absolute priority for this year”: 27%
• gets the third highest raking for “can be delayed until next year”: 41%
• gets the highest ranking for “should not be pursued”: 29%

Harris Research Associates

(2) How much does the public know about climate change?

Fear-mongering propaganda

Survey of Climate Change in the American Mind

By the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication and
the George Mason Center for Climate Change Communication
Interview dates: November 23 – December 9, 2013.

They ask a wide range of questions to learn how Americans feel about climate change, and what action they want taken – but without context about people’s willingness to pay for it, or comparison of this issue with other priorities. As such it tells us little.

Also, as usual for such polls, the questions show the designers’ limited knowledge of climate science.

What does this question (below) ask? Does “warming” means the increase of the surface atmosphere temperature (SAT, the usual definition in the past century of research and news stories), or some other (and more obscure) definition? Do they ask about past warming or current warming? The SAT warmed during the past 150 years, but has not warmed during the past 14 – 17 years (depending on the data set and method of analysis used); see the research here.

Climate Change in the American Mind Poll

The following question is even more poorly constructed. Of the 150 years of warming described in the previous question, only in the past 60 years were anthropogenic factors (our actions) the major driver (see the research listed in When did we start global warming? See the surprising answer.).

Climate Change in the American Mind Poll

(3) For More Information

(a) Results of climate change propaganda

• Climate change sinks the Left, while scientists unravel mysteries we must solve, 24 January 2014
• Watch the Left burn away more of its credibility, then wonder why the Right wins, 29 January 2014

(b) Climate change propaganda

1. The hidden history of the global warming crusade, 19 February 2010 – At the beginning
2. A real-time example of the birth and spread of climate propaganda, 9 March 2010
3. Lies told under the influence of the Green religion to save the world, 30 July 2010
4. A new video about global warming, a Leftists’ wet dream pretending to be humor, 1 October 2010
5. Run from the rising waves! (The latest climate catastrophe scare), 27 June 2012
6. Ignorance and propaganda about extreme climate change, 10 July 2012
7. Mother Jones sounds the alarm about global warming! This time about the north pole., 10 December 2012
8. Lessons the Left can learn from the Right when writing about climate change, 12 December 2012 – Propagandist Phil Plait
9. Fierce words about those “wacky professional climate change deniers”, 20 January 2013 – More by propagandist Phil Plait
10. We can see our true selves in the propaganda used against us, 14 May 2013 – Skillful actually inaccurate article in The Guardian
11. A powerful story about global warming in Alaska that’s set Twitter aflame, 23 June 2013
12. Climate lies are the tool of choice by both sides to influence your opinion. Why is that?, 11 July 2013
13. The North Pole is now a lake! Are you afraid yet?, 3 August 2013

(c) Looking in the mirror to see America

1. How the Iraq and Vietnam wars are mirror images of each other, 7 February 2008
2. Let’s look at America in the mirror, the first step to reform, 14 August 2008
3. The housing crisis allows America to look in the mirror. What do we see?, 9 March 2009
4. Another look in the mirror, through the eyes of Fred, 16 June 2009
5. A valuable but disturbing look in the mirror: comparing My Lai to Lockerbie. 26 September 2009
6. Lewis Lapham holds a mirror so that America can see itself, 22 October 2009
7. An opportunity to look in the mirror, to more clearly see America, 10 November 2009
8. Another look in the mirror at America, 19 November 2009
9. An insightful look at the Tea Party Movement, and how it’s a mirror to America, 16 May 2010
10. Our prisons are a mirror showing the soul of America. It’s not a pretty picture., 28 March 2011
11. Let’s look at ourselves in the mirror created by the conflict with Iran, 20 January 2012
12. Some important articles. Mirrors in which we can see America., 19 April 2012
13. A look in the mirror at America, 29 May 2012
14. Rep Schultz shows how to avoid seeing the ugly America staring at us from the mirror, 22 October 2012
15. Look in the mirror at America and see the world brotherhood, 30 October 2012
16. Look in the polls, as in a mirror, to see America drift to the Right, 31 January 2014