Poll - Bush Not Doing Enough On Environmental Issues (Ya Think?!?)

[hatrack]

STORRS - In what could spell more political trouble for the Bush administration, a new poll finds a majority of Americans believe in the threat of global warming and disapprove of how the president handles the environment.

The poll, conducted by the University of Connecticut's Center for Survey Research and Analysis, finds 54 percent of Americans disapprove of President Bush's environmental policies, while 37 percent support them.

(ED. - 37%?!? What the FUCK?!?)

The poll found that 51 percent do favor allowing new oil and gas drilling on federal lands, which the administration says will help lower gas prices. That's the most positive news for the administration from the poll, which also finds 66 percent of the public endorsing the view that global warming is caused by carbon dioxide emissions, while only 31 percent believe it occurs naturally.

EDIT

At a conference on global warming last week in Hartford, William H. Schlesinger, dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke University and an expert on climate change, said there is broad consensus among scientists that carbon dioxide emissions are contributing to global warming. "The vast, vast majority of the scientific community is on board with this," he said.

EDIT

http://www.journalinquirer.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=16501511&BRD=985&PAG=461&dept_id=161556&rfi=6

[Dead_Parrot]

1. "Americans believe in the threat of global warming"

When did it become a matter of faith? Christ, that's some scary shit.

Conclusive proof that 37% of Americans are as dumb as a bag of gravel.

[GOPBasher]

3. "Dumb as a bag of gravel"

Why the heck would you insult bags of gravel like that? That's just mean. ;-)

[skids]

4. Faith has to play a role...

...while it may be simple to say "it's pure physics" exactly how many of those people have the necessary education to go rummage through scientific literature, locate the spectral chart for CO2's permissivity and emittance of radiation, and verify that the experiments that determined it were done with good empirical practice. I'd bet even your average meteorologist wouldn't feel entirely confident doing that.

So people rely on "the experts" or, if they don't have time to figure out who "the experts" are they rely on "that smart guy over there who knows who the experts are and what they say." That's faith. Without it most of us would not be able to cope. One cannot personally examine and validate every fact; there are too many of them, the vast majority of which cannot be definitively proven within our scope of knowlege to wit.

(And as an aside we here in this group also know that it is by far not "simple physics" since there is a mob of covariables to be factored in, to the point where we need complex computer models to get it anywhere near correct.)

[depakid]

2. Not sure about the "Center for Survey Research & Analysis"

but the website is embarrassing:

http://csra.stamford.uconn.edu/index.html

They don't have any research or analysis online at all- nada.

Looks like they're a non-profit hired gun outfit that has some sort of affiliation agreement with U Conn.

These look like fishy results to me, but since we don't know who the client is- or anything about the design and methodology, I guess we should be like the media and believe it's the God given truth....