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An Inconvenient Poll

By: Josh Painter (Diary)  |  January 19th, 2009 at 03:10 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Bad news for Nobel laureate Al Gore and his not-too-merry band of tree huggers. Rasmussen Reports has released the results of its latest opinion poll, and for the first time, a majority (51%) of Americans are not buying into the Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) myth:   

Forty-four percent (44%) of U.S. voters now say long-term planetary trends are the cause of global warming, compared to 41% who blame it on human activity.

Seven percent (7%) attribute global warming to some other reason, and nine percent (9%) are unsure in a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

The percentage who believe that global warming is the result of long term cyclical warming and cooling of the earth has jumped ten points since Rasmussen last polled on the issue:

In April of last year, 47% of Americans blamed human activity versus 34% who viewed long-term planetary trends as the culprit. But the numbers have been moving in the direction of planetary trends since then.

Dr. Stephen Chu, who will be Secretary of Energy in the Obama Administration, will no doubt take a dim of view these poll results:

Dr. Chu is a Nobel Prize-winning professor of physics and molecular biology and Director of the famed Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He is quietly passionate about the challenge and dangers of climate change, and has reoriented his research to pursue work on the subject. He understands it is difficult for people to see climate change as a clear and present danger, and is trying to challenge conventional wisdom and teach people to see how global warming is a crisis for our society. He is disturbed that despite the highly publicized release of the most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for global warming education, the public’s grasp of the crisis seems weak.

The likely reaction of the new Energy Secretary and the other AGW true believers on Team Obama to the results of this poll, will be to better “educate” the “ignorant” majority. Expect a flood of public service announcements on television and radio warning the great unwashed of the impending climate “crisis.”

Remember, government always knows better than the citizens what is good for them, and there’s no limit to the amount of the citizens’ money it will spend to constantly remind us.

- JP

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COMMENTS

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  • 10ksnooker

    Is we are whistling ourselves into a food crop shortage. Cold is bad for crops.

  • Praying

    And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set ye free. Finally, Finally the message is getting out – AGW is a hoax – a scientific farce, a slur to all real scientists everywhere. The only scientists for whom there is a consensus about global warming is the “social engineers” – and I use the term engineer VERY loosely! There have been some excellent articles published lately – that show fairly conclusively that when one considers the entire history of the earth (not just the past 200 years) there have been warming and cooling periods throughout time, and in fact, carbon dioxide levels are at about their LOWEST point since the Cambrian era. Yes, the truth is inconvenient, especially when a liberal has to say that they were wrong – oh, wait, liberals never admit they were wrong, nor do they ever say I’m sorry. I forgot. Liberal rule book.

  • Mike gamecock DeVine

    Global warming is a growing joke and Obama better be careful with his greenie stuff while prmising jobs from the stimulus, lest he get caught only creating jobs for job killing enviromental impact statement lawyers.

    He can lose his magic with real folks.

    • NightTwister

      …but will probably hold off on the carbon tax at least until (if) the economy improves.

      • Mike gamecock DeVine

        lawyers and bureaucrats and their job delaying and job killing actions that are taking place now and will take place after the pork govt job stimulus bill passes and call Obama out to clear the way for real jobs. Pit Obama against his greenie allies in full view of the people that voted for him because he promised jobs for non-lawyers. And see that his yak yak about getting this bill passed on day one urgency was a crock as environmental impact studies are all the rage as lawyers get jobs.

        • NightTwister
          • izoneguy

            McCain fell for it, he got TARPED

          • Mike gamecock DeVine

            pushed for Cantor or Forbes or Newt’s solutions at the time.

          • Mike gamecock DeVine

            something had to be done with urgency then given the freexing of bank to bank loans, but I get your point!

        • icbm

          ya got brains, boy

          • Mike gamecock DeVine
  • Vegas_Rick
  • http://www.scottbomb.com scottbomb

    Algore’s hybernating. He’ll be busy again come July.

    And if Obama and Congress want to pass “green” laws, there’s not a darn thing we can do about it except wait ’til 2010 or 2012 when we can make our case to the American people. Nothing gets their attention like their empty wallets ($4 gas tax anyone?). In fact, it’s starting to seem like money is the ONLY thing that gets their attention. [Unless of course we get another wishy-washy candidate like McCain who's just as willing to "do something" about "climate change".]

  • ColbyS

    We are in the bottom of the ~10-year solar cycle [source below], and as a result we are bound to have a couple of cold winters resulting in fewer people believing in AGW.

    I guess the true question is whether this low spot is colder than the last low spot (around 1997), the trend of the previous 50 low spots before that, and whether this whole mess can be linked with reasonable confidence to CO2 levels.

    Source:
    http://www.pmodwrc.ch/tsi/composite/pics/comp06_d41_61_0812.png

    • ColbyS

      sorry for the image jack, here is a meatier source
      http://www.pmodwrc.ch/pmod.php?topic=tsi/composite/SolarConstant

    • zuiko

      I guess the true question is whether this low spot is colder than the last low spot (around 1997), the trend of the previous 50 low spots before that, and whether this whole mess can be linked with reasonable confidence to CO2 levels.

      Remember 1998 being the hottest year on record? The only thing you can state with reasonable confidence is that the “climate experts” have no idea what they are talking about and just making things up to fit their pre-determined outcome.

  • George Claghorn

    On Global Warming:

    Al Gore is a Greenhouse Gasbag

    • Vladimir
      • George Claghorn

        :)

        • Praying

          I’m a geologist, not a climate expert, but Dr. G of the article has dedicated most of his adult life studying climatic change, so in this case, he is both. Still, from all I’ve read on the subject, I’m willing to be on the record for saying AWG is a hoax, a propaganda conspiracy theory by the left to further their desire to destroy our economy. Is it just me, or are most on the left so far removed from any connection to or experience with actual capitalism that they can’t possibly understand it? I mean what does a government employee, a college professor, or a lawyer know about running a business (and apologies to any RS members out there who are in those fields and have taken the time to educate themselves).

          • Vladimir
          • woodsman

            is that the Carboniferous period has the word carbon in it, so some idiot might think it was named because of excess carbon. They way they ignore facts and draw conclusions it would not be surprising…

          • Vladimir

            … (aka the Mississippian & Pennsylvanian in the U.S.) is so-named because of the abundance of coal beds of that age worldwide.

            That means there was a lot of vegetation — that’s one way Mother Gaia works off an excess of atmospheric carbon dioxide: it stimulates the growth of green plants.

            Another mechanism is the increased uptake of carbon dioxide in the ocean, which in turn gets precipitated as calcium carbonate, or limestone. All those high concentrations of atmospheric CO2 turned into massive carbonate rock layers back in Paleozoic time. Just ask John McCain.

          • http://impudent.blognation.us/blog kyle8

            I admit that I was fooled for a long time into believing there was something to this hoax.

            But I should have been more wary. All the warning signs were there.

            (1) Scare tactics and sensationalist articles, just like with “ozone hole, population bomb, Y2K “scares and others before this one.

            (2) Reliance on computer models and consensus with scant real evidence, and some of that contradictory

            (3) Adapting to the ever changing situation, Real scientific theories don’t adapt, they are either reinforced, or discarded. They don’t change when contradictory evidence is found, so that the conclusion can be kept.

          • 6eorge Jetson

            As long as the silliness is going to exist, maybe we can make some use out of it.

            I’m forming a team to sneak into Al Gore’s spacious mansion as that day approaches to turn the heaters up to max upon the clock striking zero.

            Lord knows there’s enough room in that place to hide. I just hope the heaters have enough power to heat that cavernous place.

        • Vladimir

          See my previous comment here:Au contraire, Praying, AGW is your area of expertise

          We have not heard from enough geologists. This is the only scientific discipline that understands time frames & previous cooling cycles.

  • Jaded

    and smacks otherwise apathetic Americans in the face and they go “hmmm that doesn’t sound right”….one battle in a long war with the idiots on the left my friends there are many more to go!

  • izoneguy

    after the coal companies go bankrupt and millions are left freezing in the dark.

  • septembergurl

    hoax created by the left in order to gain some control over the economy, it’s no longer necessary since we now have a real economic crisis that invites nationialization, subsidising & so on. I suspect that Obama will quietly drop this part of his program since it’s (a) something only a moron could believe and (b) no longer necessary in the era of bailouts and government takeovers. Oh sure, there will be some bitterenders, but when Obama puts out the new party line, his braindead followers will adopt it immediately.

    • DerKrieger

      if Obama takes no direct action to curb CO2 emissions by passing a cap and trade bill. He will indirectly work toward the same goal by reimposing drilling bans, making the permitting process for new coal plants expensive and nearly impossible to navigate and he will subsidize wasteful alternative energy programs.

  • mbecker908

    HT to the guys at Powerline…

    Dr. Takeda Kunihiko, vice-chancellor of the Institute of Science and Technology Research at Chubu University in Japan:

    CO2 emissions make absolutely no difference one way or another. … Every scientist knows this, but it doesn’t pay to say so.

    I find it interesting that finally scientists are standing up to the lie. They’re showing real professional courage doing it, now the question is, will our politicians (note: I didn’t say political leaders…) stand for truth as well?

  • Vladimir

    This news means that TV & print media really have to turn up the heat, as it were, on the propaganda.

    The National Geographic Channel, Discovery Channel, Science Channel, Animal Planet, PBS… We used to joke that were it not for Hitler and Vietnam, there’d be no “educational” TV. Now the same can be said for AGW.

    And the new administration has economic policy centered on carbon-reduction policy.

    Us clingers out here in flyover country are just too thick to get it.