Following on from the previous post, showing that most people in the UK seem to adopt the Catherine Tate approach to climate change, here are three more new surveys.

University of Michigan

A report from the University of Michigan announces that a record 73% of Americans now think that there is solid evidence of global warming. This number has soared since they started asking the question in 2008, when the figure was only 72%.  A massive 60% think that it is at least partly human caused, that’s a stunning 2% up on the 2008 figure. I think many of us climate sceptics would be part of that 60%, especially when you look closely and see that that figure includes the not sures.

The always-clueless Oliver Milman at the Guardian seems to be impressed by these figures.

ABC News / Stanford

Next, another survey of US opinion, just out today, by Langer Research for ABC and Stanford University. The headline here is “Public Backs Action on Global Warming –
but with Cost Concerns and Muted Urgency”.

This survey again shows that public opinion has hardly changed, this time on the existence of climate change, over a period of 20 years:

This study finds that 74% say they are very or somewhat concerned that climate regulations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions could push up prices. Only 27% support raising taxes on electricity, and 35% are in favour of more tax on gasoline. 39% think that global warming will be a serious threat during their lifetime. The authors conclude that there is a general feeling of a lack of urgency:

Three-quarters of Americans express concern that efforts to address the issue will raise prices on things they buy and just two in 10 are very confident that those efforts in fact would reduce global warming. The latter, in particular, contributes to an absence of broad urgency on the issue.

Cardiff University

Finally, back home, there’s a new article by Nick Pidgeon, colleague of Adam Corner, at Cardiff University: Public still doubt scientific consensus on climate change.

Only about one third of people in Germany, the UK, France and Norway believe that there is a strong scientific consensus on the reality of climate change, says a major survey of opinions on climate change, climate policy and future energy options among over 4,000 people across those four countries.

Although it’s a new article, I think it’s based on a survey from 2017. Pidgeon still seems to want to “engage people with climate change”, and claims that this is “critical in creating a climate-proof Europe”.  He recommends helping people to ‘join the dots’ between extreme weather events like storms and floods and climate change. Presumably Prof Pidgeon ain’t bovvered that the IPCC says

In summary, there continues to be a lack of evidence and thus low confidence regarding the sign of trend in the magnitude and/or frequency of floods on a global scale.