John Oliver offers some evidence to dispel the myth that climate change is a myth. John gets to the heart of the matter when he tells Gallup that we don’t need people’s opinions on a ‘fact.’ As John points out, no one polls Americans and asks them if hats are real, that would be silly. John continues to make sense, saying ,”The debate should not be whether it exists, it should be what we are going to do about it.”
Sure signs climate change is a fact and not a mythical scare tactic by environmentalists, and why we should do something.
1. The President speaks of it in the present tense.
2. Global temperatures are rising
3. Heat waves are more common
4. Sea surface temps are rising
5. Glaciers are melting
6. We’re all seeing some freaky, damned weather!
7. George Clooney lives on earth, don’t make him leave – he knows how.
Meanwhile, a large segment of Americans like to think of climate change as something they might or might not believe in; while another slightly more enlightened bunch fancy it might be something that could possibly happen in the dim dark future. A Gallop Poll shows that many still feel climate change claims are exaggerated. Tell it to that poor polar bear who is balancing on a tiny melting ice floe.
Among other conclusions, the Gallup Poll revealed this political tidbit.
Importantly, public skepticism about the human role in global warming is not based on lack of education. College-educated Americans are barely more likely than those without a college degree to ascribe global warming to humans. Nor do Americans who consider themselves knowledgeable on the subject show more support for the pollution theory. Rather, as is the case with so many other measures of public attitudes on global warming, politics are the guiding force, with most Democrats accepting the prevailing scientific view that pollution is the cause and most Republicans believing it is a natural climatic cycle, not man-made.
Far more than knowledge, politics dictate the degree to which Americans believe humans are responsible for global warming, with Democrats much more likely to hold this position than are Republicans. And as Gallup trends document, the partisan gap on this has widened in recent years. Surprised much?