Fewer and fewer Republicans and Independents believe that ‘climate change’ is a credible threat; more and more Democrats do. ‘Global warming’, it is becoming increasingly clear, is a political issue and not a scientific one.
This shift is shown in the latest Gallup survey:
Here are some of the findings:
- Ninety-one percent of Democrats and 33% of Republicans say they worry a great deal or fair amount about global warming, but 67% of Republicans worry only a little or not at all.
- While 82% of Democrats think global warming has already begun to happen, only 34% of Republicans agree. Rather, 57% of Republicans think it will not happen in their lifetime (25%) or will “never happen” (32%).
- About seven in 10 Republicans (69%) think the seriousness of global warming is exaggerated in the news, 15% think it is generally correct and 15% say it is generally underestimated. Democrats, however, are much more likely to think the seriousness of global warming is underestimated (64%) or correct (32%), and just 4% say it is exaggerated.
- Eighty-six percent of Democrats versus 42% of Republicans think most scientists believe global warming is occurring. The percentage of Republicans who say most scientists believe this is down 11 percentage points since last year.
- Almost nine in 10 Democrats say increases in the Earth’s temperature over the last century are due to human activities more than natural changes in the environment. Just 35% of Republicans agree, while 63% attribute the temperature increases to natural environmental causes.
- Four in five Republicans do not think global warming will pose a serious threat to them in their lifetime; two-thirds of Democrats think it will.
In other words, if you voted for Donald Trump you probably share his skeptical position on global warming. And if you didn’t vote for Donald Trump, you can barely sleep at night for the constant nagging worry that there’s a guy in the White House who denies the existence of a problem you just know is a major threat.
Since nothing has happened scientifically between 2017 and 2018 to strengthen the case for man-made global warming, the only logical conclusion of this increased divergence between voters’ views is that it’s all down to politics. Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord will, depending on your political allegiance, either have hardened your skepticism or increased your sense of impending doom.
This is good news for skeptics. It confirms what we’ve been saying all along: global warming is really just another attempted leftist takeover by the watermelons – green on the outside, red on the inside.