Friday, March 12, 2010 12:30 PM
Climate Skepticism Crosses Ideological Lines
By Amy Harder, NationalJournal.com
As we reported yesterday, Gallup's newly released annual poll on the environment shows that increasing numbers of Americans believe the media inflates the threat of global warming. In addition, a further breakdown of those numbers by ideology shows that this skepticism is shared by more and more liberals as well as conservatives.
The percentage of liberal respondents who say that the "seriousness of global warming is exaggerated in the news" has doubled since 2008, from 13 percent to 26 percent. The percentage of conservatives who agree has jumped from 51 percent in 2008 to 67 percent this year, and there was also a 6-point jump among self-described moderates.
When this question is broken down by party affiliation, the trends are similar, but particularly stark among self-described independents -- a 19-point jump since 2008, from 33 percent to 52 percent.
On the question of whether the "effects of global warming are already occurring," liberal respondents have held steady since 2008, but there have been significant declines among Democrats (76 percent to 66 percent), Republicans (41 percent to 31 percent) and especially conservatives (50 percent to 30 percent). There has also been a 6 percentage point decline among both independents and moderates on this question.
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