Global warming in a snowstorm

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The dead of winter – especially this winter with its massive snow storms in the eastern United States – is not the easiest time to make the case for global warming. Short-term weather events and long-range climate change are not the same thing, of course, but it’s hard to separate them in the public’s mind.

But it’s even harder these days to convincingly argue that climate change is a reality.

“Gloomy unemployment numbers, public frustration with Washington, attacks on climate science, and mobilized opposition to national climate legislation represent a ‘perfect storm’ of events that have lowered public concerns about global warming even among the alarmed,” says Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Project on Climate Change.

Yale and George Mason University recently polled on the question. Since 2008, the number of people who don’t believe global warming is happening has more than doubled to 16 percent. At the same time, those “alarmed” at the prospect of climate change has dropped from 18 percent to just 10 percent, and those who say they’re “concerned” has dropped from 33 percent to 29 percent.

As often happens, shifting attitudes change the political dynamic.

At the environment web site Grist, Amanda Little writes, “Sen. James Inhofe (R) of Oklahoma, one of the world’s most vociferous climate skeptics, is practically giddy these days.”

In the wake of recent scandals and heightened criticism of climate scientists, Inhofe is leading the charge against the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 with former Vice President Al Gore.

“There is a crisis of confidence in the IPCC,” Inhofe said in a Senate speech earlier this month. “The challenges to the integrity and credibility of the IPCC merit a closer examination by the US Congress.”

Read more www.csmonitor.com

By Brad Knickerbocker