Evidence tonight that a major opinion poll has picked up on a major change on a big issue. For the past three years, over 70 percent of Americans have told pollsters from the Pew Research organization they believe there's solid evidence of global warming. This year, however, that number has dropped off significantly. Now just 57 percent say they believe it. The number of people who say they don't believe in climate change at all has doubled in that time. One theory offered today: in a down economy, people are less sensitive to the environment.Too bad they don't mention that the "one theory offered today" is being offered by NBC execs.
Still, this might be a fair assumption to make--obviously the economy is #1 in peoples' minds these days, and understandably so. But isn't it slightly possible that there are other factors at work here that have people doubting Al Gore's hysteria?
As NewsBusters rightly points out, couldn't the fact the BBC recently reported that "for the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures" have an impact on peoples' perception of "global warming"?
Or maybe people who responded to the Pew poll caught last weekend's Washington Post report:
Something happened in Washington on Friday that had not occurred in 138 years of weather history: For the first time since the National Weather Service began compiling daily data here, the high temperature for Oct. 16 was below 50 degrees.Couldn't any of these little bits of info contrary to the theory that exist out there put at least a little doubt in someone's mind about global warming? Apparently NBC doesn't think so.