The global warming alarmists are beginning to lose the PR battle, at least that is what a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll is indicating. But this has the usual purveyors of climate change doom-and-gloom trying to rationalize the shift in public opinion.
The Washington Post's Juliet Eilperin, who regularly has her objectivity called into question on the issue of anthropogenic global warming, attributed this to nothing more than political polarization. Eilperin, a former contributor for the left-of-center Huffington Post and wife of the liberal Center for American Progress' so-called "climate specialist" Andrew Light, appeared on MSNBC on Nov. 28 and offered that explanation.
"What you're seeing is increasing political polarization," Eilperin said. "What we've seen is from since three-and-a-half years ago where there was kind of an all-time high in terms of people believing in it. You've seen the biggest drop among Republicans by about something like 22 points, and then independents dropped less than that and then with Democrats, it was a much smaller drop - just about 6 points."
Eilperin didn't offer the possible explanation that anthropogenic global warming really is as Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., called it years ago - a "hoax" - and that is why the issue is losing steam. Instead, it's just politics and the weather.
"So, both I think what you're seeing is more - becoming more of a political issue as it looks like the Obama administration is both acting on this issue and preparing to ask Congress to act," Eilperin continued. "And then on top of it, sometimes it's just things just like the weather. If it's not quite as hot as it had been a couple of years ago people sometimes start to question it."
Perhaps Eilperin could have offered her viewers another reason why it seems to be losing traction as a threat - the science that has allegedly been settled and the assertion the time for debate is over is being called into question, especially after ClimateGate (The term used for a data breach at Britain's Climate Research Unit, University of East Anglia when a hacker apparently broke into their system and made away with thousands of emails and documents that showed scientist, some on the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, had colluded to shape the data to exaggerate the threat of global warming, or as The Wall Street Journal called "Rigging a Climate ‘Consensus'").
Instead, Eilperin credited a well-organized global warming skeptic movement with "their own Web sites" swaying Republicans and causing this shift in polling.
"Well, what we have seen is that there has been a doubling of the number of skeptics from 13 percent three-and-a-half years ago to 26 percent now," Eilperin said. "So they have boosted their numbers and certainly people who question human activities linked to climate change. They're very active online. They're organized. They have their own Web sites. They weigh in frequently. So, there's certainly that but again, it seems that they're making the most headway with Republicans, who are obviously to some extent hearing from their leaders - that this is an issue that doesn't rank as high on the priority list as others."
Eilperin was still hopeful for some sort of climate change agreement and predicted it won't be legally binding, but just lip service suggesting the United States would do something about it in the future.
"The best deal he could get is kind of a political agreement rather than a legally binding treaty right now, which would not only incorporate actions by the United States and other industrialized countries, but also by our economic competitors, which is China and India," Eilperin said. "And so that's what he really is looking for - political deal where all the countries that contribute to greenhouse gas emissions will come together and agree to cut them in the coming decade."
