Public confidence in climate change
Posted in Uncategorized on February 6th, 2010 by samA recent BBC poll has indicated that the recent media reports of so called scandals relating to climate science have led to a significant reduction in the proportion of the British public who believe that climate change is a serious - man-made - problem.
Two recent issues highlighted in the news have appeared to challenge the validity of what is an widely considered to be an overwhelming consensus of scientic opinion. First, the leakage of emails from climate scientists at the University of East Anglia seemed to imply that manipulation of data had taken place, and then an error in the estimate of the rate of Himalayan glacier retreat, both have contributed to a decimation of public confidence in the science behind climate change.
To anyone - scientist or not - who has taken the time to familiarise themselves with the numerous IPCC reports in the last 2 decades, will quickly appreciate that these issues, while media worthy, do little or nothing to challenge the validity of climate science.
That is why, with the recent BBC poll showing that in the last three months the proportion of the public who believe that climate change has ‘now [been] established as largely man-made’ has fallen from 41% to 26%, is an extremely alarming metric that has almost unquantifiable implications.