Page 28 - ATD 04Nov15

A28

SCIENCEWednesday 4 November

As scientists worry about warming world, U.S. public doesn’t

SETH BORENSTEIN In this Sept. 21, 2014 file photo, demonstrators make their way down Sixth Avenue in New York during the People’s Climate March.
AP Science Writer Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) —
Americans are not too con- those asked see it as a fair- to happen.” last one who will be sub- nication.
cerned by global warming. ness issue, according to the Linda Gebel, a 64-year-old merged” — Gebel added “The issue hasn’t quite
Most Americans know the poll which has a margin of retired bookkeeper who she doesn’t “feel worried boiled up enough so that
climate is changing, but error of plus or minus 3.7 lives north of Minneapo- personally. I’m not sure this people have put it on the
they say they are just not percentage points. lis, has read up on global is going to happen in my top of things they want to
that worried about it, ac- “The big deal is that cli- warming. lifetime, but I worry about focus on,” Princeton Uni-
cording to a new poll by mate has not been a vot- “Everybody’s life would be my children. I worry about versity climate scientist Mi-
The Associated Press-NORC ing issue of the American totally disrupted,” Gebel my grandchildren.” chael Oppenheimer said.
Center for Public Affairs Re- population,” said Dana said. “It will cause famines The “lukewarm” feeling White House science ad-
search. And that is keeping Fisher, director of the Pro- and wars, huge problems. and lack of worry has been viser John Holdren said cli-
the American public from gram for Society and the I don’t know why people consistent in polling over mate contrarians empha-
demanding and getting Environment at the Uni- wouldn’t be worried about the years, even as tem- size how large the problem
the changes that are nec- versity of Maryland. “If the it.” peratures have risen, said is, essentially telling people
essary to prevent global American population were And yet because she lives Anthony Leiserowitz, direc- “the result (of warming) is
warming from reaching a left to lead on the issue of in the middle of the country tor of the Yale Program on too scary, so let’s not be-
crisis, according to climate climate, it’s just not going — joking that she’ll be “the Climate Change Commu- lieve it.” q
and social scientists.
As top-level international
negotiations to try to limit
greenhouse gas emissions
start later this month in Paris,
the AP-NORC poll taken in
mid-October shows about
two out of three Americans
accept global warming
and the vast majority of
those say human activi-
ties are at least part of the
cause.
However, fewer than one
in four Americans are ex-
tremely or very worried
about it, according the poll
of 1,058 people. About one
out of three Americans are
moderately worried and
the highest percentage of
those polled — 38 percent
— were not too worried or
not at all worried.
Despite high profile preach-
ing by Pope Francis, only 36
percent of Americans see
global warming as a moral
issue and only a quarter of