American Public strong on Global Warming

American Public strong on Global Warming



Feb 2007 - A 
majority of Americans agree with most scientists that the 
Earth is getting warmer, but they are divided over the 
seriousness of the problem, according to surveys conducted by 
Jon Krosnick, professor of communication and of political 
science at Stanford University. 
Their uncertainty is based on a belief - shared by two-thirds 
of the population - that scientists themselves disagree about 
global warming. 
"Americans are very much on the same wavelength with the 
scientific community about the basics of the issue," Krosnick 
said. "But they lack certainty" about how bad the problem 
really is. 
Krosnick blames this uncertainty on media efforts to give 
equal weight to opposing sides of the debate. Nevertheless, he 
said, public consensus is growing that society must tackle 
global warming. 
"The news media have been committed to covering this story in 
a 'balanced' way," he said, giving a small minority of 
scientists who discount the crisis equal play with the "99 
percent of experts who agree we have a serious problem." 
Krosnick dubs the result "balance as bias," and it leads most 
Americans to believe that the scientific community itself is 
divided over this critical issue. 
Krosnick detailed his survey findings on Sunday at the annual 
meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of 
Science during a symposium titled "Perception, Persuasion and 
Climate Change: Can Science Induce Urgent Action?" 
To take action on such a huge, complicated issue, Krosnick 
said, people must believe it exists and will cause severe 
problems if it is not addressed. But they also must be 
optimistic that something can be done to alleviate it. "You 
have to be certain of these two views," he said. "That's where 
the breakdown comes - certainty for Americans on these issues 
is either moderate or low." 
Krosnick has three more surveys in progress. They include an 
update to a joint ABC News, Time magazine and Stanford poll on 
global warming released last March, which showed that public 
concern about global warming has spiked over the last decade 
and that 70 percent of people think global weather patterns 
have become more unsettled recently. 
Krosnick said the new survey results, to be released in April, 
will gauge how public perception on global warming has changed 
during the last year. 
Second, "New Scientist" magazine has commissioned a survey by 
Stanford and the think tank Resources for the Future that will 
assess how educating people about the cost of addressing 
global warming affects their support for specific solutions. 
Survey results will be released May 12. 
Finally, Stanford's Woods Institute for the Environment is 
funding a survey to be released this summer that will look at 
which effects of global warming the public is most worried 
about. These include both local effects, such rising sea 
levels and increased storm activity, and worldwide 
consequences, such as species extinction.

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