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Americans don't give a fuck about global warming (article)
| vigorous hissy fit box office | 06/19/18 |
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Date: June 19th, 2018 4:55 PM Author: vigorous hissy fit box office Are Americans Losing Interest in Global Warming?
There are many stories about global warming in the media, and some politicians are talking about the issue in increasingly strident tones.
But what do the American people really think about the subject? Are they increasingly worried about the threat of global warming? Have the apocalyptic warnings encouraged folks to take global warming seriously, or do folks tune out the scary headlines as noise? What is the most effective communication strategy to promote society's attention to both mitigation (reducing CO2 emissions) and adaptation (preparing our civilization for the changes producing by a warming planet)?
This blog will take a look at those questions.
Let's start by using the highly useful googletrends tool, which allows one to view the frequency with which folks have searched on any phrase or word from 2004 to today. Below I will show some results for U.S. google inquiries.
A plot of the frequency of folks searching for the phrase "global warming" is shown below by the blue line (100 represents the maximum frequency over the period). There was increasing interest in the term early in the period, with a peak in 2007. But interest greatly declined after the 2008 election of President Obama and remained at a steady, but low-level, since approximately 2011.
Frequency of search for "global warming"--blue line-- and "climate change"--red line
The term "climate change" has become more heavily applied in recent years, and often is used as a replacement for "global warming." Googletrends statistics shows much less interest in this term than global warming early in the period, with a weak upward trend during the past decade. In fact, there is a small preference of climate change over global warming during the last few years.
What about the use of the term "carbon footprint", which often is used to promote more individual responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions (see below)? Almost no mention early in the period, a huge surge during 2006-2008, a rapid decline after President Obama took office, and a steady level over the past decade.
carbon footprint googletrends
Next consider the term "extreme weather", which is often described by the media as being connected with global warming. Pretty steady until 2010, followed by slow growth over time. There tends to be a peak in winter, and a narrow huge peak occurred during the winter of 2013-2014, when there were severe cold waves and snow in the U.S. (which are NOT expected outcomes of global warming by the way).
The bottom line of the googletrends statistics is that after a period of increasing interest in global warming in the run up to the 2008 election, there was a profound decline in global warming related searches, declining to a steady state of low interest during the past 8-9 years.
How do the google trends compare to national polls?
A recent Gallup poll of the American people asking about the issues they cared about most revealed that environmental concerns (including global warming) were 13th on the list, noted by only 3% of those polled (see below). Pretty small.
There is a climate communications group at Yale University that provides detailed geographical maps of the interest of the US population regarding global warming.
When asked whether they think global warming is happening (irrespective of magnitude), most Americans say yes. (see graphic). There are hot spots of global warming "belief", such as King County, Washington, the San Francisco environs and in sections of the southwest US (like southern Texas and Colorado/ New Mexico). Only about half the folks in the central Plains states think global warming is happening.
But if ones asks whether global warming is mostly caused by humans, the answer changes substantially (see below).
In most of the country, less than fifty percent of the folks agree with a predominant human origin to global warming. Even in the most liberal/progressive areas, the percentiles only climb into the 60-65% range.
But now get ready to be shocked. When folks are asked whether global warming will harm them personally in the future, only a small percentage (typically around 30%) answer affirmatively, even in the most liberal/progressive areas of the country. Even western Washington.
People do not believe that they personally have been or will be harmed by global warming. If they had asked whether they would be harmed by global warming caused by humans, the percentages surely would have been less.
Perhaps some people feel that global warming will be a positive in their lives...but that question was not asked.
The above numbers should have a profound impact on the climate debate and what climate actions will be taken. Since most folks do not believe global warming will be a negative for them, it is unlikely they will make any real sacrifices to deal with the issue.
Thus, carbon taxes/fees that would result in substantial costs to individuals and that are used to address global warming have very little chance of passing. My prediction is the proposed carbon fee initiative (1631) in Washington State is virtually certain to fail. A revenue neutral approach (folks get all their money back) would have a better chance, or an initiative that hardwired real benefits (like rapid completion of mass transit). Folks won't sacrifice to deal with global warming--they have to perceive some personal benefit for any actions.
The above numbers also show how ineffective the gloom/doom climate communicators have been, and will continue to be. Folks sense the exaggeration and hype, and turn off/don't believe the highly political/apocalyptic messages. That is why I spend a lot of time dealing with the hypsters (like some comm Seattle Stranger, and "activist" scientists like Michael Mann) and work hard to produce a fact-based climate message. It is the only way one can earn trust. Folks won't sacrifice if they don't trust your information.
Americans sense the truth about climate change is more nuanced than they are being told by the media, activist groups, and politicians. And they are right.
The scientific community must better police its own communication, putting more emphasis on transmitting our best understanding of climate change and refraining from advocacy in scientific publications and in our transmission of information to the media.
http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2018/06/are-americans-losing-interest-in-global.html
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