Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Public opinion rebounds from all-time lows

Laura Merli in Policymic: The Pew Research Center has shown that Americans' knowledge that the world is getting warmer because of human activities is rebounding, after an embarrassing low from 2009-2011.

One of the biggest reasons for this dip in knowledge was a disinformation campaign from oil and gas lobbyists. From 2009-2011, the industry spent a reported $471,456,040 on lobbying. They bought politicians to be their mouthpieces, in addition to forming fake “scientific” think tanks such as the Heartland Institute.

A common but silly argument that lobbyists try to pass off as scientific is that the Earth has had warming periods before the Industrial Revolution, and therefore could not currently be warming because of all the carbon we’re releasing.

That’s like saying, “There was a stain on the carpet before I got here, so when I spilled cranberry juice on the rug that couldn’t have made an even bigger stain! The stain getting bigger must be whatever made the first stain!”...

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