The news was depressing, to say the least. Two weeks ago, a poll conducted for the Observer found that a majority of the British public still think that the scientists are arguing about the causes of climate change. The reality, as I and many others have repeated more or less ad nauseum, is that the debate was settled a long time ago, and that the major areas of scientific uncertainty are about how far and how fast, not whether climate change is happening at all.

I blame the media almost entirely for this discrepancy between public understanding and scientific reality. The Daily Telegraph, for instance, still pumps out climate-denialist articles on a regular basis, and carries frequent antideluvian commentary on the subject from the likes of Christopher Brooker (whose latest piece excoriates "fanatical upholders of the [climate change] dogma"). The Mail does likewise, though Melanie Phillips has been curiously silent on the subject for several months.

Like the tobacco lobbyists who spent years denying the links between smoking and cancer, global warming denialists don't have to win the debate – they simply have to confuse the public indefinitely to successfully undermine any political action which might hit the interests of their backers in the fossil fuel industries. The arguments change all the time: this year it is "global warming has stopped", while last year it was "hurricanes aren't linked with warming", and the year before "satellites don't show any warming of the atmosphere". As each argument is laboriously refuted by scientists, the deniers simply drop it and skip onto the next one.

The second headline finding from the Observer poll further underlines this confusion. An equal number of people (about 40% in each case) think that "climate change might not be as bad as some people say". Again, the frequent cries from the anti-environment right about global warming "alarmism" have clearly hit home.

There is further bad news on the environment versus economy debate. While concern about the economy is seeing its highest score since 1993, concern about the environment is flatlining in the June 23 Mori poll, and is well down from the higher levels seen during the launch of the Stern and IPCC reports in early 2007.

But with polls, detail is everything. Today's new poll result shows that a clear majority favours government action on the environment v the economy, while an even larger majority supports the introduction of green taxes. So why the contradiction? The discrepancy may lie with different techniques used by different pollsters – the Observer poll was carried out by Ipsos Mori, while the latest Guardian survey was conducted by ICM. It may also lie with the exact wording of the question, which in the latter case probably leaves more room for individual interpretation. Also, people know that they are "supposed" to be concerned about the environment, so may prioritise it when questioned by a pollster, but fail to volunteer it in their own list of suggested priorities.

The ICM poll does throw up some other interesting results. When asked whether they thought their friends would now by cheaper groceries – rather than more expensive environmentally friendly alternatives – given the recent rises in the cost of living, a majority of nearly 60% went for the cheaper option. This suggests that in buying patterns at least, the economic downturn is indeed having a clear impact on ethical choices.

But perhaps the most fascinating result of all emerges from the small print of the different social classes of the ICM survey respondents. Environmentalists are constantly accused of being middle-class lifestyle faddists, who don't understand the day-to-day financial pressures faced by "ordinary" working people. But the number of people who thought that environment should be the government's priority rather than the economy was substantially higher (56%) among the lower income, less well-educated DE demographic than among the better-off ABs (47%). Lower-income social groups also have a much lighter environmental footprint overall: only 42% of DEs took a foreign holiday over the last three years, whilst 77% of ABs did. Better-off people also own more cars, as you might expect – only 5% of DEs have three or more cars, whilst 15% of ABs do.

So perhaps anti-environmental class warriors like the editors of Spiked need to find a new cause to champion. The working-class people who they claim "can't afford to be concerned about climate change" actually care more about the future of the planet than the rich – and are doing a lot less damage to boot. So next time you hear someone defending motorway expansion or cheap flights on behalf of the British poor, ask yourself the question: whose side are they really on?