American Acceptance of Climate Change Approaching All Time High

Following extensive misinformation campaigns from corporate misanthropes and the GOP, American support for the veracity of climate change is now approaching an all time high. Awareness about global warming is almost equal to the highest levels of support achieved in 2008. Although it may seem like it has taken an eternity, the American people are once again waking up to the reality of climate change. This view is supported by two major surveys which indicate that Americans are making the connection between extreme weather and global warming.

Researchers at the University of Michigan conducted a survey [PDF] last fall in which they asked about 1,000 people whether there is solid evidence that the world has been warming during the past four decades. More than two thirds (67 percent) agreed with that statement. To put this in context only slightly more than half (52 percent) of Americans agreed with that statement in 2010. The 2013 surveys are approaching the 72 percent mark that was recorded in 2008 before the onslaught of a nation wide propaganda campaigned intended to deny the veracity of anthropogenic global warming.

More than 80 percent of Americans who acknowledge that the world is getting warmer attribute this to human causes. Less than one fifth (19 percent) of Americans now attribute climate change to natural patterns.

What is most interesting is that even among Republicans, well known for their climate denial, more than half (51 percent) agree that global warming is a fact, In 2010 only one third of Republicans accepted that the planet is warming.

These findings were corroborated by another survey from Global Warming’s Six Americas, an ongoing joint project of Yale University and George Mason University.

They surveyed 1,000 people that put Americans into one of six categories based on their climate-change views. The six categories are:

1.alarmed
2. concerned
3.cautious
4. disengaged
5. doubtful
6. dismissive

This survey concluded that while there was a sharp decline in “public engagement” between 2008 and 2010, these numbers appear to demonstrate a “rebound.” According to their September 2012 survey that rebound continues as the concerned and cautious group now comprise 70 percent of the American public just as they did in 2008.

© 2013, Richard Matthews. All rights reserved.

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