More Americans believe in God than in man-made global warming, claims a new survey.
Some will seize on this as proof that Americans are credulous and anti-scientific, but I’d draw the opposite conclusion. The survey – insofar as it can be taken seriously: only just over 1000 people were consulted – suggests how remarkably resilient Americans are in the face of relentless environmental brainwashing.
The schools, the universities, the government, the green NGOs, Hollywood and the MSM have invested billions of man hours and dollars trying to persuade them that climate change is the greatest threat of our age. But according to this survey, only 33 per cent are buying it – while another 37 per cent remain thoroughly unconvinced.
In the survey, respondents were asked how confident they were in a range of scientific statements. The ones in which they had fullest confidence were:
Smoking causes cancer – 82 per cent extremely/very confident
Mental illness is a medical condition that affects the brain – 71 per cent
Inside our cells there is a complex genetic code that helps determine who we are – 69 per cent
Overusing antiobiotics causes the development of drug resistant bacteria – 65 per cent
The universe is so complex there must be a supreme being guiding its creation – 54 per cent
Childhood vaccines are safe and effective – 53 per cent
The average temperature of the world is rising, mostly because of man-made heat-trapping greenhouse gases – 33 per cent
According to a Nobel Prize winning biochemistry professor Robert Lefkowitz of Duke University, the poor performance of greenhouse gas theory in the survey may result from “the force of concerted campaigns to discredit scientific fact.”
Perhaps he should venture out of the biochemistry lab a bit more often. If he did so, he would realise that the 67 per cent who had doubts about greenhouse gas theory are almost certainly correct. The most obvious flaw in the statement is that phrase “mostly because of”.
Few scientists dispute that greenhouse gases have a warming effect; none disputes that, since 1850, global mean temperatures have risen by about 0.8 degrees C. But there is little if any scientific evidence to suggest that man-made greenhouse gases are the main driver of climate change.
On the contrary, all the latest research suggests that the importance of CO2 and other greenhouse gases has been grossly exaggerated in the various computer models predicting catastrophic global warming, which is the reason why they have been so badly wrong-footed by real world data – such as the pause in the global warming since 1997.
Maybe the true, encouraging take home message from the survey should be this: most Americans know more about climate change than your average Nobel prizewinning biochemistry professor.