Widening Disparity Between Public and Scientific Community On Climate Change

This graph shows that there is almost unanimous agreement among climate and earth scientists about the human contribution to global warming.  On the other hand, 41% of the public believe that there is substantial disagreement among scientists,  and only 46% believe that global warming is caused by human behavior.  A recent report from the Yale Project on Climate Change and the George Mason Center for Climate Change Communication, reported these findings along with an analysis that offered several reasons for the discrepancy.

.* It has become identified with the Republican Party along with its contention that regulation of the energy industry will cost jobs.

* The mainstream media is biased in the debate.  It gives a disproportionate amount of coverage to the relatively small number of dissenters.

* Information consumption and dissemination has become personalized.  Inaccurate information is rapidly communicated to groups that have coalesced around dissent.

* The scientific community has not been effective in communicating that global warming is real and that human factors are a major contribution.  Scientists are overly careful in their communication by their very nature. Opponents of global warming do not share that constraint.

The report does not mention the role of the energy industry in influencing the debate.  It spends million on ads that promote their support for clean energy, and it funds politicians and think tanks that provide much of the disinformation.