87 Percent of Americans Unaware There's Scientific Consensus on Climate Change

Nearly 90 percent of Americans are unaware that there is a consensus within the scientific community that human-caused climate change is real and threatens the planet, a new report says.

According to the report published last week by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication, only 13 percent of Americans were able to correctly identify that more than 90 percent of all climate scientists have concluded that climate change is real.

The annual survey of 1,266 adults compiled in May and June failed to note that it is actually 97 percent of climate scientists that concur that human-caused global warming is happening. 

The most common but incorrect response from the survey was that there is a 50 percent consensus among the scientific community that global warming is real and human-caused. One in four responded that they did not know.

Read the story from The Weather Channel by Pam Wright - “87 Percent of Americans Unaware There's Scientific Consensus on Climate Change."

Air Conditioning Is the World's Next Big Threat

The vast majority of Americans have air conditioning but in Germany almost nobody does. At least not yet. 1 

Air conditioners help keep people cool, but at
the same time can worsen climate change. 

So when temperatures in Berlin rose to an uncomfortable 37 Celsius (99 Fahrenheit) this week – a record for the month of June – I was uncommonly delighted to go to the Bloomberg office, where it’s artificially and blissfully cool.

By letting people in overheated climates concentrate on their work and get a good night’s sleep, air conditioning has played a big part in driving global prosperity and happiness over the past few decades – and that revolution has still barely begun. About half of Chinese households have this modern tool, but of the 1.6 billion people living in India and Indonesia, only 88 million have access to air conditioning at home, Bloomberg New Energy Finance noted in a recent report.

For many, relief is in sight. Because of the combination of population growth, rising incomes, falling equipment prices and urbanization, the number of air-conditioning units installed globally is set to jump from about 1.6 billion today to 5.6 billion by the middle of the century, according to the International Energy Agency.

Read the story Bloomberg story by Chris Bryant - “Air Conditioning Is the World's Next Big Threat.”

Americans Increasingly Say Climate Change Is Happening Now.

Nearly half of Americans say people in the United States are being harmed by global warming "right now"—the highest point ever in a decade-long national survey called Climate Change in the American Mind.

"It's when they get the fact that it's not just a polar bear
problem, that's when they come to deeply care," said
George Mason University Professor Edward Maibach.

The climate communications researchers who conducted the survey believe the results released Tuesday mark a shift in perceptions on the urgency of the climate crisis, with far-reaching implications for the politics of what should be done to address the issue.

"For the longest time, we have been saying that while most Americans understand that the climate is changing, most systematically misunderstand it and misperceive it as being a distant threat," said Edward Maibach, a professor at George Mason University. He is one of the principal investigators of the survey, conducted by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication.

Read the Inside Climate News story by Marianne Lavelle - “Americans Increasingly Say Climate Change Is Happening Now.”

Australians as anxious about healthcare costs as Americans, more anxious about climate change

Australians report higher levels of anxiety than Americans on issues like climate change, and virtually identical levels of anxiety about the affordability of healthcare despite Australia’s stronger social safety net, according to new research from the United States Studies Centre (USSC) at the University of Sydney.

Australians as anxious about healthcare costs as
 Americans, more anxious about climate change.

The comparison of self-reported anxiety in both Australia and the United States was conducted as part of an ongoing polling partnership between the USSC and YouGov. The survey asked respondents how often they felt anxious about scenarios including losing their job or business, not being able to afford healthcare, failure at work and climate change.

USSC Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program Director Claire McFarland said that despite the common perception that healthcare costs in the United States are out of control and highly stressful for many Americans — and that Medicare provided Australians with a safety net — respondents in both countries showed similar levels of anxiety about this issue.

Read the story from The United States Studies Centre at the University of New South Wales “Australians as anxious about healthcare costs as Americans, more anxious about climate change.”

Trump Wants to Expand Oil Drilling to 90 Percent of Our Seas. We’re Marching on June 9 to Stop Him

Summer beckons—and with it, the season’s first trip to the beach, which remains the number-one outdoor recreational activity for Americans of all classes and ideologies. It may be one of the last truly nonpartisan activities we do together. But thousands will come out of the water on June 9 for the first ever March for the Ocean—and that should be nonpartisan too. 

A worker removes oil from the sand at Refugio State
Beach in California after an oil spill in May 2015.

True, the Trump administration has proposed expanding offshore oil drilling to more than 90 percent of our public seas while at the same time eliminating many of the safety measures on oil-rig blowout preventers and offshore operations that were put into effect after the BP/Deepwater Horizon disaster of eight years ago, which killed 11 oil workers and became one of our most protracted environmental nightmares.  

Read the story by David Helvag and Bill McKibben from The Nation  - “Trump Wants to Expand Oil Drilling to 90 Percent of Our Seas. We’re Marching on June 9 to Stop Him.”

Why climate change may be to blame for dangerous cold blanketing eastern U.S.

Biting Arctic air — bringing wind chills as low as 30 below — will make the outdoors miserable for more than 130 million Americans in the Northeast, as well as parts of the Southeast and Great Plains this weekend, forecasters warn.

The polar vortex is a large area of low pressure and cold air
surrounding the Earth's North and South poles.

But before folks file this cold snap away under "typical winter weather," scientists say the potentially record-breaking temperatures in store for Friday night through Sunday are being fed, at least in part, by a warming climate.

Confused?

It might seem like the effects of "global warming" would herald an end to these frigid conditions. President Donald Trump suggested so in a mocking tweet before the New Year, writing, "In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year's Eve on record. Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming ... "

Read the NBC News story by Eric Ortiz - “Why climate change may be to blame for dangerous cold blanketing eastern U.S.”

Study: Katharine Hayhoe is successfully convincing doubtful evangelicals about climate change

Approximately one-quarter of Americans identify as evangelical Christians, and that group also tends to be more resistant to the reality of human-caused global warming. As a new paper by Brian Webb and Doug Hayhoe notes:

Katharine Hayhoe speaks about climate change
to students and faculty at Wayland Baptist University on
November 9, 2011, in Plainview, Texas.

“a 2008 study found that just 44% of evangelicals believed global warming to be caused mostly by human activities, compared to 64% of nonevangelicals (Smith and Leiserowitz, 2013) while, a 2011 survey found that only 27% of white evangelicals believed there to be a scientific consensus on climate change, compared to 40% of the American public (Public Religion Research Institute, 2011). 

These findings appear to stem from two primary factors. First, evangelicals tend to be socially and politically conservative, and climate change is among the many issues that have become politically polarized in America. Second, there is sometimes a perceived conflict between science and religion, as Christians distrust what they perceive as scientists’ “moral agenda” on issues like evolution, stem cell research, and climate change. As Webb and Hayhoe describe it:

“theological conservatism, scientific skepticism, political affiliation, and sociocultural influences have reinforced one another to instill climate skepticism into the evangelical tribe mentality, thus creating a formidable barrier to climate education efforts.

Read The Guardian story - “Study: Katharine Hayhoe is successfully convincing doubtful evangelicals about climate change.”

Medical alert! Climate Change Is Harming Our Health

Most Americans understand that climate change is real and are concerned about it.

The Medical Society Consortium
on Climate Health report.

But most still see climate change as a faraway threat, in both time and place, and as something that threatens the future of polar bears but not necessarily people. The reality, however, is starkly different: climate change is already causing problems in communities in every region of our nation, and from a doctor’s perspective, it’s harming our health.

Most Americans are not aware of the health harms of climate change. A recent survey showed that most Americans have not considered how global warming might affect people’s health, and few (32%) can name a speci c way in which climate change is harming our health. Few are aware that some groups of Americans—including our children, our elders, the sick and the poor—are most likely to be harmed by climate change.

None of these survey findings is surprising. There has been relatively little public discussion of the health harms of climate change. But we also know people are eager to hear from us. Most survey respondents said, in fact, that their primary care physician is a trusted source for information about this topic.

Read this special report by the Medical Society Consortium on Climate Health - “Medical alert! Climate Change Is Harming Our Health.”

(This is obviously American, but climate change is a global matter and so what is happening in the U.S. is being replicated similarly here - Robert McLean) 

Trump’s energy plan doesn’t mention solar, an industry that just added 51,000 jobs

The White House website may not even mention it as part of Trump’s “America First Energy Plan” — but the U.S. solar industry continues to post dramatic job growth numbers.

Solar panels are part of the
Wright-Hennepin Cooperative Electric
Association’s community
gardens in Rockford, Minn. 

According to a new annual report by the nonprofit Solar Foundation, more than 51,000 solar industry jobs were added in 2016, a 24.5 percent increase over 2015. Overall, the foundation finds, some 260,000 Americans now work in the solar industry.

“Jobs have nearly tripled since we first started tracking them in 2010 and this is the fourth consecutive year that the solar industry increased its jobs number by 20 percent or more,” said Andrea Luecke, president and executive director of the Solar Foundation. (The latest numbers are as of November 2016 and are compared with November 2015.)

Read The Washington Post story - “Trump’s energy plan doesn’t mention solar, an industry that just added 51,000 jobs.”

John Cook discusses the 'consensus on consensus'

John Cook - a friend of
Beneath the Wisteria.

Climate activists frequently bump into people who don’t know about climate change, consider it a scientific matter of no import to them, or retreat to refuting it as a myth and something about which the only consensus is among those advocating its existence.

A Climate Communication Fellow for the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland, John Cook, who is also a critical part of the “Skeptical Science” website, has thought deeply about this matter for many years.

On the website he says: “Expert consensus is a powerful thing. People know we don’t have the time or capacity to learn about everything, and so we frequently defer to the conclusions of experts.

“It’s why we visit doctors when we’re ill. The same is true of climate change: most people defer to the expert consensus of climate scientists. Crucially, as we note in our paper:

Public perception of the scientific consensus has been found to be a gateway belief, affecting other climate beliefs and attitudes including policy support.

“That’s why those who oppose taking action to curb climate change have engaged in a misinformation campaign to deny the existence of the expert consensus. They’ve been largely successful, as the public badly underestimate the expert consensus, in what we call the ‘consensus gap.’ Only 16% of Americans realize that the consensus is above 90%,” he says.

Check out what, John Cook has to say on his website, Skeptical Science - “Consensus on Consensus.”

Many Americans stopped from using their 'solar-powered' clothes dryer

Many in American communities are
prohibited from using their clotheslines.

Running a clothes drier sucks up 6% of a household's energy usage.

So, as Americans across the country sought to save money and conserve electricity, many turned to clotheslines--only to discover that they weren't allowed in their communities.

In fact, hanging clotheslines was against the rules in so many communities nationwide that state governments are being forced to step in and make it against the law to ban them. And states like Vermont and Utah have already succeeded. But the fight for the right to hang clotheslines is just getting started.

Some 60 million Americans live in private communities--the majority of which don't allow their residents to hang clotheslines. And why not? Because they "erode property rights" and "undermine the autonomy of private communities," according to real estate groups and private community associations. Because as an alleged indicator of poverty, clotheslines lower property values.

Read the Treehugger story - “Fight to Legalize Clothes lines Sweeps the US.”

The Time was right, a decade ago

Ten years ago this week, Time magazine published a landmark cover on global warming with the headline, “Be Worried. Be Very Worried.”

The main story was a very solid, even prescient, piece of reporting — warning about polar ice loss, sea level rise, severe drought, and other extreme weather.

Indeed, Time warned that “global climate systems are booby-trapped with tipping points and feedback loops, thresholds past which the slow creep of environmental decay gives way to sudden and self-perpetuating collapse” — tipping points that a decade of inaction has brought us right to the edge of. The article even warns of the possible ramifications if warming shuts down the Gulf Stream or if our dawdling locks in multi-meter sea level rise — much the same concerns that James Hansen and 18 leading climatologists warned of in their recent bombshell peer-reviewed paper.

Except Time magazine laid it all out for all Americans to see 10 years ago when the possibility of avoiding the worst impact would have been far easier to achieve.

Read the ClimateProgress story - “Time Magazine Got Global Warming Right In 2006: ‘Be Worried. Be Very Worried’.”

Pope's support of accuate science under attack

F

Pope Francis - he's being attacked for
his support of accurate science.

rom George Will to the Heartland Institute, climate science deniers are a one-trick pony when it comes to responding to effective climate change communicators: smear, smear, smear.

They are at it again, shamelessly, on the eve of the U.S. visit by the widely-admired Pope Francis — who issued a ground-breaking Encyclical on the moral urgency of climate action back in June.

George Will, the Donald Trump of deniers, wrote of the Pope, “Americans cannot simultaneously honor him and celebrate their nation’s premises.” In other words, all you folks out there who honor the Pope, Will wants you to know that you really hate America.

Read the ClimateProgress story - “Pope Francis Attacked By Climate Deniers Over Support For Accurate Science”.

'War' on liveable climate could result in real conflicts

S

ome see climate change as so divisive that a rise in conflicts will coincide with the unfolding of climate and so weather related difficulties.

US Senator, Mitch McConnell
declares war on 'livable climate'.

The behaviour of U.S. Senator Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who is taking extraordinary measures to block the most modest efforts aimed at preventing catastrophic climate change, seems certain to disaffect many people and ignite conflicts.

ClimateProgress reports, “He has begun an “aggressive campaign to block” EPA’s carbon pollution standards “in statehouses and courtrooms across the country, arenas far beyond Mr. McConnell’s official reach and authority.”

The story - “McConnell Declares War On A Livable Climate, Aims To Stop National And Global Action” – says “Tragically, while his efforts can’t save the coal industry, which is “dead man walking,” as Deutsche Bank has explained, McConnell can certainly make it much harder for Americans to save ourselves from Dust-Bowlification and the loss of our coastal cities.”

U.S. polls tells us to worry about climate change

Australia’s politicians, despite what they might say, are driven by polls.

Here is one, admittedly from the U.S., but it is one they should most definitely be taking notice of – “Americans Are Getting More Worried About Climate Change, According To New Polls”.

The Huffington Post reports that Americans are getting increasingly worried about climate change and its impacts, or at least that is what nation-wide polls reveal.

Grasping the reality that is climate change is a 'bridge too far' for many

Intellectually grasping the reality of climate change is simply a “bridge too far” for many.

Mentally aligning yourself with the injuries our atmosphere has suffered at the hand of humans demands the surrendering of some fanciful beliefs mostly taken on, almost unknowingly, to preserve values allowing for a life that careful analysis has shown are beyond earth’s capacities to provide.

Science is almost a dirty word and even simple realities appear eschewed from the minds of many.

A report from the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science notes that “1 in 4 Americans thinks the sun goes around the earth, survey says”.

Scott Neumann reports on “The Two Way” for NPR that many Americans believe the sun goes around the earth and not the other way.

Most Americans want action on climate change, whatever the cost

Efforts to ease worsening global warming causes usually fall at the “economics” hurdle.

However, in America at least, that appears to be changing.

A story on Environment 360 headed: “Despite costs, most Americans want action on climate change, report finds” tells us that more than 80 per cent of Americans want something done to ease global warming.

Interestingly, and importantly, those same people are saying they want something done irrespective of the cost.

'Touchy, feely' reality of climate change

Most people, it seems, will only believe something if, and when, they can touch and feel it.

To describe them as “touchy, feely” might offend some of our more hardened friends, but that is what it appears they are.

The mood, however, looks to be changing, especially as the weather is deteriorating in many parts of the world.

USA Today has reported in a story headed: “More Americans convinced of climate change, poll finds”, that belief patterns are shifting giving the cause and reality of climate change more credence.