The Yale University Project on Climate Change Communication has released a survey on the attitudes of Americans towards global warming. The survey is being reported in the media as purported support for action on greenhouse gas emissions (witness the title of Yale's own webpage for the report: “Americans Support CO2 Limits on Existing Coal-Fired Power Plants”). A closer look at the survey's questions and answers reveals the public's views are not so clear cut -- even if we assume the results are broadly representative of American public opinion.
In response to the question “assuming global warming is happening, do you think it is ...,” only 50 percent said it was “caused mostly by human activities.” This means half the American public does not believe that if global warming is happening, it is mostly anthropogenic. Of course, only 66 percent answered yes to the more basic question of “do you think that global warming is happening?” Thus, if only 66 percent believe global warming is even happening, and of this, only 50 percent believe it is caused mostly by human activities, we can do the trivial math to conclude that only 33 percent of Americans believe there is global warming and that it is caused mostly by human activities.
Only 44 percent believe “most scientists think global warming is happening.” The next question in the survey is “to the best of your knowledge, what percentage of climate scientists think that human-caused global warming is happening?,” to which the median answer was only 67 percent. This is a long way from the now infamous -- and discredited -- 97 percent claim. Purdue University just released a major study with the following conclusion: “most scientists agree that climate change is happening, but just 50.5 percent blame mankind.”
Only 11 percent of the public are “very worried” about global warming, down from 17 percent in 2008. The remainder of the public are either not very worried (26 percent), not at all worried (18 percent), or only somewhat worried (45 percent). This brings us to the use of the word “somewhat,” which is widely employed as a survey response. The word is being interpreted by the alarmists as meaning something a lot more than what it should mean, which is along the lines of “well, whatever, sure ... I'm possibly concerned to some undetermined degree.” If I am actually concerned about an issue, I never respond with “somewhat.” Concerns at the “somewhat” level are best described as those politically correct feel-good responses that would involve effectively zero willingness to tackle the issue with time or money.
Consequently, we must reasonably conclude that 83 percent of the American public doesn't really care that much about “global warming.” Noting, of course, that the question is just about “global warming,” not “anthropogenic global warming,” keeping in mind the points above regarding how only 33 percent of Americans believe there is global warming and that is caused mostly by human activities. It is details such as these which illustrate the poor -- and some might say, leading -- construction of the survey towards climate alarmism. A world-class university such as Yale should not be conducting intellectually substandard surveys such as this. Clear and unequivocal questions and answers should be the rule.
Similarly, only 21 percent of the survey's respondents (down from 32 percent in 2008) view global warming as personally “very important” (15 percent) or “extremely important” (6 percent). The remaining 79 percent of the public don't really care that much about global warming at a personal level. A full 42 percent rank global warming concerns as not at all important or not too important, up from 29 percent in 2008.
Only 12 percent think global warming will harm them a “great deal,” whereas 64 percent believe global warming will not harm them at all, or only a little, or they don't know.
Only 20 percent feel they “need a lot more information” about global warming, and only 36 percent strongly support the funding of more research into renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power and/or tax rebates for people who purchase energy-efficient vehicles or solar panels. An even lower percentage (29 percent) strongly support regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant.
One of the problematic survey questions was as follows:
“How much do you support or oppose the following policies? Require electric utilities to produce at least 20 percent of their electricity from wind, solar, or other renewable energy sources, even if it costs the average household an extra $100 a year.”
Even if producing at least 20 percent of electricity from renewables would cost the average household an additional $100 per year? For many regions -- if not the vast majority, shifting the grid to at least 20 percent renewables would cost the average household much more than just $8 per month. That said, even this leading -- and likely grossly unrealistic -- question garnered only 26 percent saying they would strongly support the policy.
An equally low number (31 percent) would strongly support efforts to “increase funding for improvements to local roads, bridges, and buildings to make them more resistant to extreme weather.”
But the worst survey question was as follows (the results of which were used to support the webpage's title):
“How much do you support or oppose the following policy? Set strict carbon dioxide emission limits on existing coal-fired power plants to reduce global warming and improve public health. Power plants would have to reduce their emissions and/or invest in renewable energy and energy efficiency. The cost of electricity to consumers and companies would likely increase.”
The cost of electricity “would likely increase”? Rather, the cost of electricity would most certainly increase. Coal-fired power plants without carbon capture provide electricity that is much cheaper than those with carbon capture, and almost always far cheaper than renewables which often cannot reliably meet base load demands at low cost (with the exception of hydroelectric -- but I thought the environmentalists were opposed to building large numbers of massive new hydroelectric dams?).
Even with this favorably worded question, only 23 percent of respondents strongly supported this vague and misleading policy proposal. One imagines that if the true costs of such policies were accurately conveyed to the public, the support would drop even further. The devil is in the financial details, and surveys asking whether or not the public would support potential cost increases (even though the cost increases would be a near certainty) without defining the magnitude of the cost increases themselves is, quite frankly, of negligible policy guidance and just poor quality survey science.
The last question on the survey was whether someone would be willing “to join a campaign to convince elected officials to take action to reduce global warming.” Only 4 percent said they would definitely be willing, and only one percent actually were doing so -- whereas 79 percent said they would either probably or definitely not do so, or were not sure/refused to answer.
Overall, when correctly interpreted, the study reveals this is hardly a public that seems truly concerned and motivated about global warming.
Sierra Rayne holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry and writes regularly on environment, energy, and national security topics. He can be found on Twitter at @srayne_ca
