Summer has come pretty late this year, but people in the US are seeing the bright side; obviously, this means that the planet isn’t heating up. This is according to the latest poll from the National Surveys on Energy and Environment (NSEE), which found that, after an especially cold winter across much of the United States, the American public is slightly less convinced that environmental wellness is at risk to global warming.
In the autumn, 67% of Americans reported that they believe there is solid evidence that global warming is real. However, this number has now dropped to 63%. According to Chris Borick, director of the Muhlenberg Institute, which conducts the NSEE in partnership with the University of Michigan, ‘The fairly cold winter and slow-arriving spring weather this year appears to have contributed to a slight decline in the number of Americans that think global warming is happening.’ This is not the first study to show that your opinion on climate change shifts in response to weather events.
In Autumn 2012, Americans’ belief in global warming was at its highest since 2008 as this period followed a summer of record heat and the historically damaging Hurricane Sandy. The survey respondents even admitted that weather events were the primary reason behind their acceptance of the reality of climate change. However, now the US has seen a pretty chilly winter, the study participants were less likely to cite weather as an influence in their opinion.
On the other end of the scale, just over a fifth of Americans (22%) didn’t believe there was solid evidence for climate change in 2012, and, of these respondents, only 18% cited weather-related factors in their scepticism. However, in 2013, 31% of those doubters held up weather events as proof the planet isn’t warming. It seems as though neither the doubters nor the environmentalists can resist the temptation of a good “I told you so.” The researchers surmised that religion may also be increasing doubt in global warming, as 16% of sceptics cited religious reasons for their disbelief in climate change in the recent survey, compared to just 1% in autumn 2008.
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