How ironic it is that these statistics show this??...The country that has the worlds cleanest air, and the best opportunity to improve the quality of life is the one that is made up of the "uneducated"...The one's who are not as concerned that global warming (or climate change for you politically correct ones) is not going to kill us all....Don't believe me?....How do you explain the lack of pollution standards in places like Rome and Athens, and other parts of the world....From countries that signed that stupid Kyoto treaty?......Seems to me that those places aren't not living up to what they promised....Why am I not surprised?......

The liberals are using this issue to attack the Bush administration. Around here, it's a really cold winter. Leave politics out of the weather.

"The survey appears to show that people in areas vulnerable to natural disasters seemed most concerned about the issue. Among those surveyed, people from China (73%) and Brazil (70%) were among those most convinced of the link between warming and human activities"

Of course, China continue to build a record number of coal and oil burning power stations, and Brazil continues to clear cut large swaths of the Amazon. Anyone who has visited Boshan or Shanghai need to wear face gear the pollution is so bad. Brazil, in an effort to cash in on the US subsidized ethanol craze, is clear cutting hundreds of thousands of acres of rain forest in order to plant a corn crop.

Global warming hysteria is the invention of people too scared to face the specter of real threats.
(Hint: they have beards and keep their women in head-to-toe gunny sacks.)

Predictions of what life will be like in 2080 are laughable. Oragnizations with "World" or "International" in their names are not credible and are run by socialists, unelected European elites and left-wing academics.

Ignorance truly is bliss....as we can see from all of the corporate apologists and Hannity followers we have commenting in this blog.

The reason people in the U.S. are not as concerned about global warming is twofold. A) they will spend some time doing research to learn all the facts, not just the media hype, B) they are on to the ways of the fear-mongers who try to scare you with these types of things based on confusing & conflicting facts. For example, do you know that 70% of the greenhouse effect is caused by water in the atmoshpere? And another 20% is from clouds. C02 is actually a part of the 2% of gasses that are part of this effect. You should also look at the ice-age cycle and where we are in that. Please don't get me wrong, I don't want people to stop buying previas, I just don't want them to be held hostage to hype.
E

The reason people in the U.S. are not as concerned about global warming is twofold. A) they will spend some time doing research to learn all the facts, not just the media hype, B) they are on to the ways of the fear-mongers who try to scare you with these types of things based on confusing & conflicting facts. For example, do you know that 70% of the greenhouse effect is caused by water in the atmoshpere? And another 20% is from clouds. C02 is actually a part of the 2% of gasses that are part of this effect (check out the junkscience website). You should also look at the ice-age cycle and where we are in that. Please don't get me wrong, I don't want people to stop buying previas, I just don't want them to be held hostage to hype.
E

Wonder how many of the "73%" of Chinese (in the "People's Republic"?) who thus responded either know or care that, according to data provided by UNEP ("UN Environmental Program," one of the UN's multiple agencies), their Empire counts among its own 7 out of 10 of the globe's most polluted cities? (No independent domestic media to take polluters - in the "PRC," that means Communist Party dictators - to the cleaners helps make & keep it so!)

If you love that "People's Empire," it's comforting to know it wangled TOTAL exemption for itself from any & all of the strictures Gore & other Blame-America-First types so enthusiastically want to foist on the land that continues as the world's unparalleled, pardon the expression, Mecca for migrants, not least including folks from China's version of the dungeon-state.

If you don't, and take into account the $80-plus BILLION the Empire annually rakes in via surpluses from slave-labor-produced goods effectively dumped in America....well, then it's more 'n a bit irksome to see how hypocritically anointing yourself - as the "PRC" still does - as a "developing country" somehow translates, in Kyoto-speak & Gore-kow-tow, into "Go ahead 'n pollute 's much 's you want...all the while you 'n your slavish apologists - be they USA-homegrown, Euro, etc. - are welcome to go on browbeating those dirtbag Americans!"

What is the point of this poll? It certainly isn't science. One could extract from this poll that the more educated countries are less likely to be swayed by the global warming fear mongers.

The skeptism in the US is a direct result of the political brawling and the White House stonewalling. This administration does not want anyone to beleive that climate change is happening, which is now undisputable. The reason is if they acknowledge the problem, they have to act. This one dimensional administration is would go out of business if it was a corporation. It would be sued into the ground by it's shareholders and customers for gross incompetence.

This was, if you read carefully, an online survey of internet users. Not exactly the most reliable form of surveying. If you want to be technical, 13% of americans claim they never heard of global warming. Since the questions and methodology arent listed, the different results in different countryies could in fact be due to something as simple as translation issues and the demographics of those reached. Personally, I think its "ig'rant" to call people "ig'rant" based on the results of an online poll.

Personally, I'm pleasantly suprised by the results of the poll, if they are accurate. It shows Americans are holding on to some semblance of common sense and arent as easy to dupe into believing the Global Warm..., I mean, Climate Change fairy tale.

The vast majority of people are not ignorant. They simply don't trust the global warming crowd's "sky is falling" predictions any longer. We have been inundated over the last 40 0r 50 years with warnings of calamitous events if we didn't change our way of life in some drastic fashion. We have been warned by no less than Jimmy Carter in the 70's that we would run out of oil in 10 years. Didn't happen. We were told that there was a consensus among scientists that global cooling was imminent. Didn't happen. We were told that population would outstrip food supply in ten years and millions would die from starvatiom. Didn't happen. We were told that building a missile defense would extend the Cold War. Didn't happen. The Soviet Union collapsed instead. We were told that DDT was dangerous to humans without any evidence that it was so and millions have died of malaria as a result. Last year was supposed to be a killer year for hurricanes. It was a pussycat. There are numerous others . But you get the point.

People simply do not trust the government or environmental advocacy groups any longer. The huge and scathing response to the Weather Channel attempt to stifle dissent is clear evidence of this.

Congress and the President will not touch this issue with a ten foot pole except maybe to play around the edges. They know that any law they pass that significantly disrupts the electorate's lives will surely send them into retirement.

The government and the advocacy groups would be much wiser to stop being alarmists and put their energy and assets into educating the public on economically viable ways to reduce energy consumption.

If they don't change their tune soon they will render themselves the subject of cartoon pages and standup comics.

I believe they sense they are becoming irrelevant. Why else would scream like a stuck pig every time some skeptic casts doubts on one of their pronouncements.

That is scary. And we're talking about internet users! Its not like the poll respondants are living in caves. What is wrong with Americans? At the moment I'm a bit embarrassed to be a member of this flock.

Interesting how Americans were the most ignorant to the idea that humans are causing a direct effect on global warming when they are the ones that make up the largest perecent of the world population having an averse effect (25 percent I believe)

I don't mean to sound condescending, but in response to the blog entitled "Ignorance is Bliss" don't you think that perhaps it is the Latin Americans and others who are ignorant. I give North Americans a little credit for being more discriminating about what they accept from the politically motivated, left-wing, kooks who are trying to sell bad science like a snake-oil salesman. Follow the money. Somebody has much to gain financially by brainwashing our public school children by forcing them to watch Al Gore's propaganda film. Propaganda is defined as lots of emotion + very little truth. Hitler used it successfully too.
I agree that we need to cut down on our dependence on fossil fuels, but forget the human-induced global warming argument.

I am just getting involved in this whole climate change disscussion, so please forgive my ignorance. I do feel comfortable asking it here. Mr. Gore's piece and most scientist say that CO2 traps the suns rays and keeps them from bouncing back out into space. If it is being trapped how does it cross through this CO2 barrier in the first place?

Man-caused global warming is such a complete farce. Ignorance of the real cause of global warming seems to be bliss for the hysterical know-nothings chattering incessantly how we are all doomed.

From a recent article:
"Indeed, a recent Gallup poll of climate scientists in the American Meteorological Society and in the American Geophysical Union shows that a vast majority doubts that there has been any identifiable man-caused warming to date (49 percent asserted no, 33 percent did not know, 18 percent thought some has occurred; however, among those actively involved in research and publishing frequently in peer-reviewed research journals, none believes that any man-caused global warming has been identified so far). "

Sun to Blame for Global Warming

by John Carlisle

Those looking for the culprit responsible for global warming have missed the obvious choice - the sun. While it may come as a newsflash to some, scientific evidence conclusively shows that the sun plays a far more important role in causing global warming and global cooling than any other factor, natural or man-made. In fact, what may very well be the ultimate ironic twist in the global warming controversy is that the same solar forces that caused 150 years of warming are on the verge of producing a prolonged period of cooling.

The evidence for future cooling is supported by considerable scientific research that has only recently begun to come to light. It wasn't until 1980, with the aid of NASA satellites, that scientists definitively proved that the sun's brightness - or radiance - varies in intensity, and that these variations occur in predictable cyclical patterns. This was a crucial discovery because the climate models used by greenhouse theory proponents always assumed that the sun's radiance was constant. With that assumption in hand, they could ignore solar influences and focus on other influences, including human.

That turned out to be a reckless assumption. Further investigation revealed that there is a strong correlation between the variations in solar irradiance and fluctuations in the Earth's temperature. When the sun gets dimmer, the Earth gets cooler; when the sun gets brighter, the Earth gets hotter. So important is the sun in climate change that half of the 1.5? F temperature increase since 1850 is directly attributable to changes in the sun. According to NASA scientists David Lind and Judith Lean, only one-quarter of a degree can be ascribed to other causes, such as greenhouse gases, through which human activities can theoretically exert some influence.

The correlation between major changes in the Earth's temperature and changes in solar radiance is quite compelling. A perfect example is the Little Ice Age that lasted from 1650 to 1850. Temperatures in this era fell to as much as 2? F below today's temperature, causing the glaciers to advance, the canals in Venice to freeze and major crop failures. Interestingly, this dramatic cooling happened in a period when the sun's radiance had fallen to exceptionally low levels. Between 1645 and 1715, the sun was in a stage that scientists refer to as the Maunder Minimum. In this minimum, the sun has few sunspots and low magnetism which automatically indicates a lower radiance level. When the sun began to emerge from the minimum, radiance increased and by 1850 the temperature had warmed up enough for the Little Ice Age to end.

The Maunder Minimum is not an isolated event: it is a cyclical phenomenon that typically appears for 70 years following 200-300 years of warming. With only a few exceptions, whenever there is a solar minimum, the Earth gets colder. For example, Europe in the 13th and 15th Centuries experienced significantly lower temperatures and in both cases the cold spells coincided with a minimum. Similar correlations were found in the 9th Century and again in the 7th Century. Since 8700 B.C., there have been at least ten major cold periods similar to the Little Ice Age. Nine of those ten cold spells coincided with Maunder Minima.

There is no reason to believe that this 10,000-year-old cycle of solar-induced warming and cooling will change. Dr. Sallie Baliunas, an astrophysicist with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and one of the nation's leading experts on global climate change, believes that we may be nearing the end of a solar warming cycle. Since the last minimum ended in 1715, Baliunas says there is a strong possibility that the Earth will start cooling off in the early part of the 21st Century.

Indeed, it could already be happening. Of the 1.5? F in warming the planet experienced over the last 150 years, two-thirds of that increase, or one degree, occurred between 1850 and 1940. In the last 50 years, the planetary temperature increased at a significantly slower rate of 0.5? F - precisely when dramatically increasing amounts of man-made carbon dioxide emissions should have been accelerating warming. Further buttressing the arguments for future cooling is the evidence from NASA satellites that the global temperature has actually fallen 0.04? F since 1979.

Of course, it is impossible to precisely predict when solar radiance will drop and global temperatures will begin falling. But one thing is certain: There is little evidence that mankind is responsible for global warming. There is considerable evidence that the sun causes warming and will most likely stimulate cooling in the not so distant future.

JP - Brazil already provides all their own fuel needs with sugar cane ethanol. Sugar cane doesn't grow where the rain forests are, so they aren't cutting rainforests to grow that. Sugar cane is also a much better biomass for producing ethanol.
http://global-warming.accuweather.com/2006/12/sugar_cane_ethanol.html

Ignorance truly is bliss....as we can see from all of the corporate apologists and Hannity followers we have commenting in this blog.

No, Mark...It just means that more and more people are not buying the line of BS the is coming from the GW proponents, and their propaganda machines, a.k.a. the political elitest left and the news media....Unfortuneately, the outcome of the Mid-Term Elections does not reflect this....That is most unfortunate as we now head down that slippery slope of having your side of the fence dictate as to how we should run our lives to save the trees and the polar bears....I'd rather be ignorant and free, than to be one of you "well informed" types and be told what to do......;-D.....

Laura,

Sugar Cane is crowding out other crops, such as corn and soybeans, on Brazilian farmland. So while it is true that they are not cutting down rainforest to plant sugar cane, they are cutting down rainforest to grow crops that once grew where there is now sugar cane.

Charles

Will - It has to do with the wavelength of the radiation. The sun's radiation is almost all in the visible spectrum (some UV and some IR, as well), which mostly is short wavelength radiation. Short wavelength radiation passes easily through the atmosphere. Very simplistically, the sun warms the surface of the Earth, and then the Earth gives off IR radiation (heat) which warms the atmosphere. That longer wavelength IR radiation is what gets "trapped" by the greenhouse gases.

Jordan:

That was beautiful....I could not have said it better myself!.....

Bob - do you have a link for that article?

Global Warming: The Origin and Nature of the Alleged Scientific Consensus
Richard S. Lindzen

Richard S. Lindzen is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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Most of the literate world today regards "global warming'' as both real and dangerous. Indeed, the diplomatic activity concerning warming might lead one to believe that it is the major crisis confronting mankind. The June 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, focused on international agreements to deal with that threat, and the heads of state from dozens of countries attended. I must state at the outset, that, as a scientist, I can find no substantive basis for the warming scenarios being popularly described. Moreover, according to many studies I have read by economists, agronomists, and hydrologists, there would be little difficulty adapting to such warming if it were to occur. Such was also the conclusion of the recent National Research Council's report on adapting to global change. Many aspects of the catastrophic scenario have already been largely discounted by the scientific community. For example, fears of massive sea-level increases accompanied many of the early discussions of global warming, but those estimates have been steadily reduced by orders of magnitude, and now it is widely agreed that even the potential contribution of warming to sea-level rise would be swamped by other more important factors.

To show why I assert that there is no substantive basis for predictions of sizeable global warming due to observed increases in minor greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, and chlorofluorocarb