Polls and Petitions  by Roger King  

People Polls and Surveys

Obama is poison to Al Gore by Lawrence Solomon   April 18, 2009  Climate change skepticism has soared under Obama's presidency, with only one third of American likely voters now blaming humans for climate change, according to a Rasmussen poll released today. In contrast, 48% believe that long term planetary trends are responsible, 7% blame other non-man-made factors, and 11% aren't sure.

The plummeting support for Al Gore's thesis - the lowest ever - is a complete reversal from one year ago, when 47% blamed humans and only 34% saw long-term planetary trends as the culprits.

Zobgy: Americans Turning Off on Climate Change  December 14, 2009  As the United Nations climate change summit in Copenhagen heads into its final week, nearly half of Americans — 49 percent — say they are only slightly or not at all concerned about climate change, while 35 percent are somewhat or highly concerned, a new Zogby Interactive survey shows.

Increased Number Think Global Warming Is “Exaggerated”  by Lydia Saad  March 11, 2009

 

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44% Say Global Warming Due To Planetary Trends, Not People  January 19, 2009  Forty-four percent (44%) of U.S. voters now say long-term planetary trends are the cause of global warming, compared to 41% who blame it on human activity.

Seven percent (7%) attribute global warming to some other reason, and nine percent (9%) are unsure in a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

Fifty-nine percent (59%) of Democrats blame global warming on human activity, compared to 21% percent of Republicans. Two-thirds of GOP voters (67%) see long-term planetary trends as the cause versus 23% of Democrats. Voters not affiliated with either party by eight points put the blame on planetary trends.

Efforts to support global climate-change falls: Poll  by Peter O'Neil  November 27, 2008  PARIS - There is both growing public reluctance to make personal sacrifices and a distinct lack of enthusiasm for the major international efforts now underway to battle climate change, according to findings of a poll of 12,000 citizens in 11 countries, including Canada.

Less than half of those surveyed, or 47 per cent, said they were prepared to make personal lifestyle changes to reduce carbon emissions, down from 58 per cent last year.

Only 37 per cent said they were willing to spend "extra time" on the effort, an eight-point drop.

And only one in five respondents - or 20 per cent - said they'd spend extra money to reduce climate change. That's down from 28 per cent a year ago.

A Deeper Partisan Divide Over Global Warming  by The Pew Research Center   May 8, 2008  

  1. Overall, 71% of Americans say there is solid evidence of higher global temperatures, compared with 77% at the beginning of last year. There is less of a consensus about the cause of global warming. Roughly half of Americans (47%) say the earth is warming because of human activity, such as the burning of fossil fuels.
  2. Currently, 47% of Americans say that the earth is getting warmer and that this is occurring because of human activity, such as the burning of fossil fuels. Opinions about the primary cause of global warming have remained stable in recent years.
  3. Nearly six-in-ten Democrats (58%) and half of independents (50%) say global warming is mostly caused by human activity; only about quarter of Republicans (27%) express this view.
  4. In January 2008, only 35% of Americans said it should be a top priority for the president and Congress this year, down slightly from a year earlier (38%).

Kyoto sinks Europe  by Benny Peiser at the Financial Post  January 09, 2007  According to a recent EU poll, more than 60% of Europeans are unwilling to sacrifice their standard of living in the name of green causes. As long as advocates of Kyoto got away with claims that their policies would not inflict any significant costs, many people were tempted to believe in improbable promises. Now that the true cost of Kyoto is starting to hurt European pockets, the erstwhile green consensus is unravelling.  

Green tax revolt: Britons 'will not foot bill to save planet'  by Colin Brown, Deputy Political Editor  May 2 2008   More than seven in 10 voters insist that they would not be willing to pay higher taxes in order to fund projects to combat climate change, according to a new poll.   The survey also reveals that most Britons believe "green" taxes on 4x4s, plastic bags and other consumer goods have been imposed to raise cash rather than change our behavior, while two-thirds of Britons think the entire green agenda has been hijacked as a ploy to increase taxes.  

Overwhelming Majority of Americans Oppose Lieberman   by David Almasi   May 28, 2008   The poll, conducted by the Public Opinion and Policy Center of the National Center for Public Policy Research, found that 65% of Americans reject spending even a penny more for gasoline in an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  The number rejecting raising gas prices  in an effort to combat global warming has increased by 17 percentage points -- or 35% -- in just over two months.  ...

The survey also found that 71% of Americans reject spending more for electricity, with 16% opposing spending any more than 12% extra for electricity ...

When gasoline and electricity price increases are taken together, 90% of Americans reject Lieberman-Warner plan's costs -- even the low-range of the projected costs  

Need for a new climate change champion   by Dr. Tim Ball & Tom Harris   February 4, 2008   The Yale University Project on Climate Change Survey    Link 1    Link 2

  1. 40% of the American public believe there is “a lot of disagreement” among scientists about whether or not “global warming is happening”. Only slightly more - 48% - said scientists agreed
  2. Only a slight majority - 57% - thought that, “If global warming is happening”, it is “caused mostly by human activities
  3. A full 50% of respondents said they worried about global warming only “a little” or “not at all” and only 30% thought global warming was a serious threat to people in the United States
 

Surveys of Scientists

AMS Survey of Weathercasters on Climate Change by Bill Murray November 15, 2009  A survey of weathercasters’ feelings on global warming was published in this month’s edition of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. It had some interesting findings. There were 121 respondents. 94% of the respondents had at least one of the three major seals.

Television meteorologists are the official scientists for most television stations. The overwhelming majority felt comfortable in that role for their stations. The majority agreed that the role of discussing climate change did fall to them.

The eyebrow raising responses:

“Respond to this IPCC conclusion: “Warming of the climate system is unequivocal.” Only 35% agreed or strongly agreed. 34% disagreed or strongly disagreed.

“Most of the warming since 1950 is likely human induced.” A full 50% disagreed or strongly disagreed. 25% were neutral on this question. Only 8% strongly agreed.

“Global climate models are reliable in their predictions for a warming of the planet.” Only 3% strongly agreed and another 16% agreed. A full 62% disagreed or strongly disagreed.

32,000 deniers  by Jeff White   May 17, 2008   That’s the number of scientists who are outraged by the Kyoto Protocol’s corruption of science  ...   Original signatories to the petition and others, outraged at Kyoto’s corruption of science, wrote to the Oregon Institute and its director, Arthur Robinson, asking that the petition be brought back.  ...    “ The writers were outraged at the way Al Gore and company were abusing the science to their own ends. “We decided to do the survey again.”  ...   “I hope the general public will become aware that there is no consensus on global warming,” he says, “and I hope that scientists who have been reluctant to speak up will now do so, knowing that they aren’t alone.”  At one level, Robinson, a PhD scientist himself, recoils at his petition. Science shouldn’t be done by poll, he explains. “The numbers shouldn’t matter. But if they want warm bodies, we have them.”    The petition is located at Global Warming Petition Project  

Global Warming Skeptic Petition signed by more than 20,000 American scientists. Signatories to the petition are required to have formal training or specialized experience in the analysis of information in physical science.   The petition says: We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.

There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.  
500 Scientists with Documented Doubts of Man-Made Global Warming Scares: List with Study Citations By: Dennis T. Avery  Publisher: Hudson Institute  September 14, 2007  More than 500 qualified researchers, their home institutions, and the peer-reviewed studies they have published in professional journals providing historic and/or physical proxy evidence that:
  1. Most of the recent global warming has been caused by a long, moderate, natural cycle rather than by the burning of fossil fuels
  2. The sun’s varying radiance impacts the Earth’s climate as more or fewer cosmic rays create more or fewer of the low, wet clouds that act as the Earth’s thermostats, deflecting more or less solar heat out into space.
  3. Sea levels are not rising rapidly nor are they likely to;
  4. Wild species are not being driven to extinction but rather are increasing the biodiversity of our wildlands;
  5. Fewer human deaths are likely rather than more as the current warming continues, since cold is far more dangerous and the Earth is always warming or cooling;
  6. Food production is likely to thrive during the decades ahead, rather than collapsing due to climate overheating;
  7. Our storms are likely to be fewer and milder as the declining temperature differential between the equator and the poles reduces their power.

Hundreds Sign Climate Realist Declaration– "Global Warming’ is not a Global Crisis" in International Climate Science Coalition  April 22, 2008   The International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC) today released the names of over 500 endorsers of the Manhattan Declaration on Climate Change that calls on world leaders to “reject the views expressed by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as well as popular, but misguided works such as “An Inconvenient Truth”.”   All taxes, regulations, and other interventions intended to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) should “be abandoned forthwith”, declaration signatories conclude.   Also in the declaration is the assertions

 ...  “there is no convincing evidence that CO2 emissions from modern industrial activity have in the past, are now, or will in the future cause catastrophic climate change.”

...  “attempts by governments to legislate costly regulations on industry and individual citizens to encourage CO2 reduction will slow development while having no appreciable impact on the future trajectory of global climate change.  Such policies will markedly diminish future prosperity and so reduce the ability of societies to adapt to inevitable climate change, thereby increasing, not decreasing human suffering.”   

U.S. Senate Report: Over 400 Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-Made Global Warming Claims in 2007  by Marc Morano December 20, 2007  On Dec. 20 2007, the biggest-yet assembly of scientists challenging the Kyoto pretext of CO2-as-villain was posted by Marc Morano on the minority page of the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. This extensive digging by Sen. James Inhofe's staff summarized comments from over 400 prominent scientists who disputed some aspect of man-made global warming in 2007. 

150 Scientists, Economists and Theologians Sign An Open Letter to the Signers of “Climate Change: An Evangelical Call to Action” and Others Concerned About Global Warming   We believe the harm caused by mandated reductions in energy consumption in the quixotic quest to reduce global warming will far exceed its benefits. Reducing energy consumption will require significantly increasing the costs of energy–whether through taxation or by restricting supplies. Because energy is a vital component in producing all goods and services people need, raising its costs means raising other prices, too. For wealthy people, this might require some adjustments in consumption patterns–inconvenient and disappointing, perhaps, but not devastating. But for the world’s two billion or more poor people, who can barely afford sufficient food, clothing, and shelter to sustain life, and who are without electricity and the refrigeration, cooking, light, heat, and air conditioning it can provide, it can mean the difference between life and death.

41 Scientists Debunk Global Warming Alert  April 26, 2006  The president of the Royal Society, Lord Rees of Ludlow, asserts that the evidence for human-caused global warming “is now compelling” and concerning (Letters, April 16).

In a public letter, we have recently advised the Canadian Prime Minister of exactly the opposite – which is that “global climate changes all the time due to natural causes and the human impact still remains impossible to distinguish from this natural ‘noise’ ”.

We also noted that “observational evidence does not support today’s computer climate models, so there is little reason to trust model predictions of the future”.  

Lifting the global warming gag order by Vin Suprynowicz Feb. 25, 2007    A 2003 poll of 530 climatologists in 27 countries showed 34.7 percent of interviewees endorsed the notion that a substantial part of the current global warming trend -- which might see temperatures rise by a degree or two, on average, by century's end -- is caused by man's industrial activities (driving cars and the like).  More than a fifth -- 20.5 percent -- rejected this "anthropogenic hypothesis." The rest (two-thirds) were undecided.     The skeptics now include the 85 climate experts who signed the 1995 Leipzig Declaration; the 4,000 scientists from around the world (including 70 Nobel laureates) who signed the Heidelberg Appeal, and the 17,000 American scientists who signed the Oregon Petition.  

... on April 6, 2006. Sixty accredited experts in climate and related scientific disciplines signed a letter to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, urging that billions of Canadian tax dollars appropriated to implement the Kyoto Protocol on climate change "will be squandered without a proper assessment of recent developments in climate science." They wrote that if today's extensive climate knowledge and measuring capabilities had existed in the mid-1990s, the Kyoto treaty "would almost certainly not exist, because we would have concluded it was not necessary."

Little Increase in Americans’ Global Warming Worries  by Frank Newport  April 21, 2008

  1. While 61% of Americans say the effects of global warming have already begun, just a little more than a third say they worry about it a great deal, a percentage that is roughly the same as the one Gallup measured 19 years ago.

  2. Slightly less than half of Americans in 1997 said the effects of global warming had already begun to happen. That number has risen, particularly in the past two years, to the point where today 61% say the effects have already begun to happen at this point in time. About one out of four Americans, however, continue to say the effects of global warming will not happen in their lifetimes, if ever.

  3. There has also been an uptick in the percentage of Americans who say global warming will pose a serious threat to them in their lifetimes, from 25% in 1997 to 40% today.  Even with this increase over the last 11 years, the fact remains that still less than a majority of Americans, at this point, believe global warming will pose a serious threat to them in their lifetimes.

  4. Worry about global warming is low on a list of 12 environmental problems that Gallup asks about in the Environment surveys.   Actually its 10th on a list of 12 environmental issues.

Global Warming: The Other Side of the Story   by Tom DeWeese  (May 19, 2006)   In 1992, just prior to the UN’s Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, 425 scientists and other intellectual leaders signed The Heidelberg Appeal, a quiet call for reason in dealing with the climate change issue. Neither a statement or corporate interests, nor a denial of environmental problems, the Heidelberg Appeal expresses a conviction that modern society is the best equipped in human history to solve the world’s ills, provided that they do not sacrifice science, intellectual honesty and common sense to political opportunism and irrational fears. Today, the Heidelberg Appeal has been signed by more than 4,000 scientists and leaders from 100 countries, including more than 70 Nobel Prize winners.

Also in 1992, another statement from some 47 atmospheric scientists was issued saying "such policies (greenhouse global warming theories) derive from highly uncertain scientific theories. The statement cited a survey of atmospheric scientists, conducted in the summer of 1991, "confirms that there is no consensus about the cause of the slight warming observed during the past century." The statement went on to say, "We are disturbed that activists, anxious to stop energy and economic growth, are pushing ahead with drastic policies without taking notice of recent changes in the underlying science."

In 1995, over 85 scientists and climate experts from research labs and universities worldwide, signed the Leipzig Declaration in answer to the International Symposium on the Greenhouse Controversy, held in Leipzig, Germany that year. In part, the Declaration says; "In a world in which poverty is the greatest social pollutant, any restriction on energy use that inhibits economic growth should be viewed with caution. For these reasons, we consider ‘carbon taxes’ and other drastic control policies – lacking credible support from the underlying science – to be ill-advised, premature, wrought with economic danger, and likely to be counterproductive."

In 1998, The Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine (OISM) issued a petition for signature by atmospheric scientists saying there is no scientific evidence indicating that human-created greenhouse gases are causing catastrophic global warming. That petition was signed by more than 17,000 scientists and leaders involved in the issue. 

Pseudoscientific elements in climate change research  by Arthur Rörsch   February 16,2008   On 13 December 2007 an open letter was addressed to the Secretary-General of the UN by 100 scientists, engineers, and professionals in the social sciences (see Box 1). It said the danger of dramatic climate change is being exaggerated in the reports from the UN Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC). 
 

Causes of climate change varied: poll  by Gordon Jaremko, edmontonjournal.com  March 06, 2008   Only about one in three Alberta earth scientists and engineers believe the culprit behind climate change has been identified, a new poll reported today.  The expert jury is divided, with 26 per cent attributing global warming to human activity like burning fossil fuels and 27 per cent blaming other causes such as volcanoes, sunspots, earth crust movements and natural evolution of the planet.  A 99-per-cent majority believes the climate is changing. But 45 per cent blame both human and natural influences, and 68 per cent disagree with the popular statement that "the debate on the scientific causes of recent climate change is settled."    The divisions showed up in a canvass of more than 51,000 specialists licensed to practice the highly educated occupations by the Association of Professional Engineers, Geologists and Geophysicists of Alberta.

Survey Shows Climatologists Are Split on Global Warming  by James M. Taylor in The Heartland Institute on June 1, 2005  A survey of climatologists from more than 20 nations has revealed scientists are evenly split on whether humans are responsible for changes in global climate. The findings refute a widely reported study by a California “Gender and Science” professor who claimed that, based on her personal examination of 928 scientific papers on the issue, every single one reached the conclusion that global warming is real and primarily caused by humans. 

Scientific Consensus of Global Warming by Joseph Bast and James M. Taylor  of the Heartland Institute 2007   the results of international surveys of climate scientists conducted in 1996 and 2003 by two German environmental scientists, Dennis Bray and Hans von Storch surveyed more than 530 climate scientists from 27 different countries.  ...   The 2003 survey results show climate scientists at laboratories, universities, and offices around the world nearly all agree that global warming is already underway and the media influences the public’s perception of climate change. However, there was no consensus regarding the causes of the modern warming period, how reliable predictions of future temperatures can be, and whether future global warming would be harmful or beneficial. Assertions that “the debate is over” are certainly not supported by the survey results.   

Many scientists from around the world have dubbed 2007 as the year man-made global warming fears “bite the dust.”   Link   In addition, many scientists who are also progressive environmentalists believe climate fear promotion has "co-opted" the green movement.   Link

60 Scientists - On April 6, 2006, in an open letter to Canada 's new Conservative prime minister, Stephen Harper, more than 60 leading international climate change experts have asked him to review the global warming policies he inherited from his center-left predecessor.  "Much of the billions of dollars earmarked for implementation of the protocol in Canada will be squandered without a proper assessment of recent developments in climate science," they wrote in the Canadian Financial Post last week.   Link    They also said “Observational evidence does not support today's computer climate models, so there is little reason to trust model predictions of the future…Significant [scientific] advances have been made since the [Kyoto] protocol was created, many of which are taking us away from a concern about increasing greenhouse gases. If, back in the mid-1990s, we knew what we know today about climate, Kyoto would almost certainly not exist, because we would have concluded it was not necessary,” the 60 scientists wrote.   Link

Panel of Broadcast Meteorologists Reject Man-Made Global Warming Fears in February 2007 - Claim 95% of Weathermen Skeptical “You tell me you’re going to predict climate change based on 100 years of data for a rock that’s 6 billion years old?” Meteorologist Mark Johnson said. “I’m not sure which is more arrogant ‚Äî to say we caused (global warming) or that we can fix it,” Meteorologist Mark Nolan said.  Link