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United States Science

Record Number of Americans See Climate Change As a Current Threat (axios.com) 383

An anonymous reader shares a report: More Americans are very worried about global warming and say the issue is personally important to them than ever before, according to a new poll released Tuesday. The polling may indicate that extreme weather events -- coupled with a series of grim scientific findings -- over the past year are starting to change peoples' minds about climate change, which could have significant implications for any significant climate legislation passing Congress. The key finding from the new survey from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication is that Americans increasingly view global warming as a present-day threat to them, rather than an issue that will affect future generations. Nearly half of Americans (46%) said they personally experienced the effects of global warming -- a 15-point spike since March 2015.
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Record Number of Americans See Climate Change As a Current Threat

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  • Headline should be : (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 23, 2019 @04:10PM (#58010710)

    "Denialist pollution source owners' propaganda efforts failing, American idiots slowly pulling their collective heads out of their asses and realizing changes must be made quickly, or this is going to get much worse."

    • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 23, 2019 @04:16PM (#58010758)

      Or rather, the more often a lie is told, the more people believe it.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        Cold winter? Climate change!

        Hot summer? Climate change!

        Wetter than usual? Climate change!

        Drier than usual? Climate change!

        It has gone far beyond the point of idiocy.
    • I figured it is the following.
      1. Old people are just dying off. (The Damn Government just wants to take my car away from me, just so I can't drive to the pooling place and vote)
      2. Greener solutions such as Solar Energy, and Electric Automobiles are becoming affordable and practical. (There are solutions available now that require less sacrifice)
      3. Higher Oil prices. (sure they are lower now) ($4.00 a gallon hurts a lot, I need to find a better source of energy, well being green isn't so bad)
      4. A lot of re

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        3. Higher Oil prices. (sure they are lower now) ($4.00 a gallon hurts a lot, I need to find a better source of energy, well being green isn't so bad)

        Where do you pay $4/gallon for gas? I generally pay about $2. Which, adjusted for inflation, is about what my father paid as a youth....

        5. Weather has been more erratic. ( Hotter heat waves, colder cold snaps, hurricanes becoming more common hitting further North. 100 year floods happening every decade now.)

        Alas, weather isn't climate. And even unusual weat

    • would have been 30 years ago!

  • Well, yeah! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 23, 2019 @04:17PM (#58010776)

    I remember back in the 80s when the warning came out with the predictions of what would happen.
    We're living it.
    I'm not interested in "Liberal" vs "Conservative" bickering or what is "fake" or not.
    From everything I have seen, doing what I can to reduce human caused climate change means a better way of life for me. Less pollution. Less money being spent. Healthier lifestyle. A better way of life for my children and grandchildren. Less wars. Less migrations and the trouble that causes.

    If we could just stop these bullshit wars that cause people to migrate. I cannot blame any Syrian who wants to leave. The same for every other country over-run with assholes who want to take over everything for whatever reason.

    • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

      Sad part is, that's how it's being marketed, when reality is the diametric opposite. To combat global warming, we have to cut down wealth of people, making them less healthy.

      The current argument is literally "how many hundreds of millions to billions of people will need to be sacrificed in developing countries to meet the goals". Because developed countries are increasingly irrelevant in this discussion. We'll push our emissions down, but we're but a tiny fraction of the population. Majority of the populati

      • So now you're suddenly against genocide? :D

      • To combat global warming, we have to cut down wealth of people, making them less healthy.
        No we have not. We only have to reduce CO2 output, and stop it completely sooner or later.
        Wow that was easy.

        What the funk has health and wealth to do with global warming or stopping it? Oh, the oil barons earl less? And thats it ...

  • Clownshow (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Outfits like Axios desperate for some climate change 'action.' The narrative is complete; if you want to save earth, socialism based on carbon redistribution/control. If you're against that, you're a denying Earth Hater. Did anyone notice the latest 'tipping point' narrative drop in the Times a few days ago? They've been tipping the point for twenty years over there lol.

    In other news, Brazil told the cult to hold their Carbon Con 2019 somewhere else. Somehow, that's not in the news.

    • And the original report document, down under 'Survey Method', notes that the sample size was 1,114 respondents, fewer than in similar surveys Axios cconducted in March '18, October '17, May '17, November '16, March '16, October '15, March '15, and October '14; you have to go all the way back to April '14 to find a survey that didn't have more respondents. While the percentage of respondents who, according to the report, "believe global warming is harming them 'right now'" is up, they appear to be having mor
  • Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday January 23, 2019 @04:19PM (#58010792)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Technically to tell, you'd need a world with the chemicals and one without. But that test is only half the story because the world without would be progressing more slowly technologically, causing deaths itself from this lag.

      You...probably don't wanna do that analysis.

    • by gtall ( 79522 )

      Modern nations can do more than one thing at a time, and effectively.

    • by sconeu ( 64226 )

      Life IS chemicals, Princess. Anyone that tells you otherwise is selling something.

  • by RyanFenton ( 230700 ) on Wednesday January 23, 2019 @04:29PM (#58010866)

    When you have real living versions of cartoon anti-environmentalist villains as the ruling members of most big nations for as many years as we have - you start to worry more than compared to when the circumstances seemed more sane.

    This isn't some "oh, I'm so concerned about the electrical wire waves on my kid's braces" style worrying - it's "yeah, we've had 20 rounds of studies showing that the base of our food chain won't function nearly as well in a couple of decades" kinds of stuff.

    And why? Because we've tied everything together, made politics this absurd game where everyone plays to these massively overloaded crisis scenarios, basically recreating the worst crisises of late-era Roman conditions, and at the same time eliminated the same kinds of things placed in order to prevent non-violent elections from becoming justifications for revolution.

    Well, all that largely to feed money and power to the already rich and powerful. And yes, I do significantly blame those that supported the Citizens United outcome.

    So, nothing but the focused interests of the those with the plurality of power at the moment get anything now - and compromise is only punished with nigh-permanent reductions in power.

    Is it any wonder that the very environment that allows us to live gets sacrificed consistently with that as the game we use to make crucial decisions?

    We need a system where the best decisions on any given issue are made without being gummed up with these absurd and artificial ties to these games of retribution and greed.

    Ryan Fenton

    • Reasons why many don't care: 1. The US and EU are not Bangladesh. Catastrophic sea level rise would be a lot more catastrophic [noaa.gov] for people in 3rd world countries. 2. People living in 1st world countries aren't sympathetic to the fact that 3rd world countries didn't yet get their own Industrial Revolution. It's more like *shrug* "too bad" 3. A large number of people live in places that haven't suffered at a lick due to climate change (at least not that they can recognize) and in many cases will be better off.
      • 150 million years ago, that is. Still there was plenty of life on Earth, including mammals. At 3000 PPM, why didn't they all drop dead and get hit by massive "Day After Tomorrow" catastrophes? Yes, I'm seriously asking because 400PPM != 3000PPM bigtime.
      • It sounds like you've actually though about this, so I'll address your "personal favorite":

        3000PPM is still only 0.3%. The amount of oxygen is not appreciably affected - in fact, oxygen levels were *also* much higher at the time, about 30% versus the current 21%, which is why insects could grow so much larger than today (without a circulatory system their size is limited by ambient oxygen concentration)

        As for why it'd be a big deal - Earth's global climate toggles back and forth between two states. There

  • "Nearly half of Americans (46%) said they personally experienced the effects of global " - the other 1/2 are republicans -who are the wealthiest in the country, control the Senate, Oval Office, have recently taken the majority of the Supreme Court, are eviscerating environmental protections and are frantically appointing Federal Judges, where the final decisions get made....
  • by burtosis ( 1124179 ) on Wednesday January 23, 2019 @05:10PM (#58011164)
    Both the DOD and insurance companies have taken climate change seriously for over 20 years now. Neither can afford to deny reality because it directly affects thier bottom line.
  • by LynnwoodRooster ( 966895 ) on Wednesday January 23, 2019 @05:13PM (#58011190) Journal
    This "poll" is from the "Yale Program on Climate Change Communication" - it seeks to push the entire narrative. Now, when you actually ask people what they think is the most important problem [gallup.com], you find environmental issues down around 2-3%. And that's right around where it's been for a LONG time. Push polls make great headlines, and when it's mrsmash as editor - you know it's pushing a defined agenda!
  • Makes sense, some of the most heavily climate-denying areas have been hit with terrible hurricanes over the last few years. You can see how someone might stop denying the reality of global warming after it knocks their house down.

  • by ahodgson ( 74077 ) on Wednesday January 23, 2019 @05:40PM (#58011388)

    Are they worried enough to change their own behaviour? Are they driving small cars (or none), travelling only when essential, and choosing to live in smaller more energy-efficient houses? Are they deliberately buying less manufactured stuff, or cutting back on beef consumption?

    Or are they just worried enough to want "someone else" to pay for changes?

  • ... are these unbiased sources?

In the long run, every program becomes rococco, and then rubble. -- Alan Perlis

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