Gallup Poll Editor: Al Gore Is Losing Global Warming Debate

Any measure that we look at shows Al Gore's losing at the moment. The public is just not that concerned.

So said Gallup Poll editor Frank Newport about the Nobel Laureate's campaign to convince Americans that man's carbon dioxide emissions are destroying the planet.

As reported by U.S. News & World Report's Paul Bedard at his Washington Whispers blog Tuesday:

He admits that it's counterintuitive, but Gallup Poll Editor Frank Newport says he sees no evidence that Al Gore's campaign against global warming is winning. "It's just not caught on," says Newport. "They have failed." Or, more bluntly: "Any measure that we look at shows Al Gore's losing at the moment. The public is just not that concerned." What the public is worried about: the economy. Newport says the economy trumps the environment right now, a strong indicator that President Obama's bid to put a cap-and-trade pollution regime into operation isn't likely to be politically popular.

"It's Al Gore's greatest frustration," says Newport. "We seem less concerned than more about global warming over the years. . . . Despite the movies and publicity and all that, we're just not seeing it take off with the American public. And that was occurring even before the latest economic recession."

He adds: "As Al Gore I think would say, the greatest challenge facing humanity . . . has failed to show up in our data."

Of course, this isn't really surprising, for if you look at the data, carbon dioxide doesn't show up as a cause of global warming -- but don't tell the Nobel Laureate who got a D in his natural sciences course at Harvard that.