Climate message only reaching the already converted – Americans worry least about global warming

Eric Worrall writes:

Gallup Inc., the management consultancy famous for its well known and widely trusted opinion polls, has published a summary of environmental concerns, which make grim reading for anyone hoping to spark public interest in climate scare stories.

The poll summary is divided between Republicans and Democrats, and compares responses in the year 2000, vs responses in 2015.

Amongst Republicans, the percentage of people who are worried about climate change has plummeted, from 29% to 16%.

Amongst Democrats, concern has risen, but only slightly – from 48% to 52%.

According to Gallup, the implications of this finding;

“Americans’ concern about a series of potential environmental threats remains on the low end of what Gallup has measured over the past 25 years. Last year’s increased worry proved temporary, rather than the start of a trend toward renewed concern about environmental problems. That diminished concern has both positive and negative aspects for those favoring tougher environmental policies and regulations. The diminished concern may mean the policies and regulations in place are working to protect Americans from environmental threats. However, because of that, and because Americans are less concerned about environmental matters in general, they may be less willing to support policy changes to make those regulations even tougher if they don’t perceive pollution and other environmental threats as imminent.” “Democrats worry more than Republicans about all of the issues. Notably, Democrats are more worried about global warming now than they were in 2000, perhaps reflecting the shift in the focus of the environmental agenda toward this issue.” http://www.gallup.com/poll/182105/concern-environmental-threats-eases.aspx

The inescapable conclusion, in my opinion, is that there has been no climate “breakthrough”, and there is unlikely to be a significant rise in support for climate alarmist policies in the foreseeable future. Climate scare stories are only reaching people who are already worried about climate change.

This failure represents a catastrophic return on an awful lot of invested effort. Billions of dollars poured in alarmist propaganda, by politicians and vested interests in the renewables industry, and over a decade of time, might as well have been tossed down the drain. The only result of this stupendous attempt to mobilise public opinion, has been a barely measurable increase in support, amongst people who were presumably already sympathetic to the climate alarmist message – and a massive drop in support outside this magic circle of fellow travelers.

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