More People Now Believe in a Warming Climate!...But Not so Fast...

According to the PEW Research Center, the overall percentage (67%) of Americans believe that the climate has warmed. And is going up, up 4 points since 2011, and up 10 points since 2010!

Before you get too excited, This is JUST the belief that "the Earth is warming." Only 42% believe it is because of human activity! While it may be good that more people believe that the climate warming, it is different than understanding it, and that it is due to our activities.

http://www.people-press.org
 

A very large part of the public also is still confused as to whether scientists agree on a consensus of human caused warming. A very fascinating and unique part of the paper was the numbers on elderly populations, as only 28% of people over 65 year old think human activity is linked to climate change, if they believe in warming at all (28%)!

Another interesting part of the paper was the split in political parties. not surprisingly, Democrats are more informed and their numbers of  believers are always over the 50% mark, whereas 51% of conservative liberals dob't think their is ANY evidence that the Earth is warming, regardless of natural or anthropogenic forcings.

http://www.people-press.org

Another downer from the research is that these numbers have actually been higher, as 2006 was the best year for the amount of "believers."

This research actually generated some pretty interesting data, the last few pages of the report give all the answers that the people interviewed answered, separated by political affiliation, seriousness, and other factors. (Though, interestingly, not by sex...?)

Reference:

Keeter, Scott. 2013. More Say There Is Solid Evidence of Global Warming. The Pew Research Center. http://www.people-press.org/files/legacy-pdf/10-15-12%20Global%20Warming%20Release.pdf