Late update — Joseph Romm has much more on this here.

Multiple updates at bottom of post.

Newly released Gallup polling seems to show a sharp drop in the percentage of Americans who know about, are concerned about and understand the threat of global warming.

The piece leads with a graph showing a sharp increase in the percentage of Americans who think the seriousness of global warming is generally exaggerated:

When I saw this I immediately assumed the increase was due to the changing opinions of Republicans, and did not reflect a general trend within the broader population. As Joseph Romm has demonstrated, the GOP’s understanding of climate science has been on a steady decline for years. More evidence of this here and here.

In the piece, Gallup notes that “evidence from last year showed that the issue of global warming was becoming heavily partisan in nature, and it may be that the continuing doubts about global warming put forth by conservatives and others are having an effect.” I’ll say.

Gallup has provided EnviroKnow with the full cross-tabs, which are available below. To illustrate the fact that the shifts shown in the poll are largely partisan in nature, I’ve produced a series of graphs based on the cross-tabs.

The fact that an equal number of Republicans (31%) believe that the effects of climate change have already begun as believe the effects will never happen is an excellent display of the schizophrenia of the Republican position on the issue.

Reasonable people can disagree on policy solutions for dealing with problems we face as a society. But the Republican party is playing a different game entirely. Republicans and conservative thought-leaders — at the behest of the corporate polluters who bankroll their campaigns — have made a conscious decision to deny the science in order to advance their political agenda. Put simply, they seem to think they are entitled to their own facts. Unfortunately for them, and ultimately for the rest of us as well, physics doesn’t give a damn about politics.

Here are the full cross-tabs:

Read the rest of this entry »

Joe Romm:

Naomi Oreskes’ upcoming book, Merchants of Doubt, explains “the troubling story of how a cadre of influential scientists have clouded public understanding of scientific facts to advance a political and economic agenda.”

The prolific UC San Diego professor discusses the history of both our understanding of human-caused global warming and the anti-science disinformation campaign in this terrific talk from last week.

The Salt Lake Tribune has the disheartening news:

Rep. Mike Noel, the Legislature’s chief climate-change skeptic, declared Thursday that global warming is a conspiracy to control world population.

The House Natural Resources Committee then approved a resolution that expresses the Utah Legislature’s belief that “climate alarmists’ carbon dioxide-related global warming hypothesis is unable to account for the current downturn in global temperatures.”

The resolution, sent to the House on a 10-1 vote, would urge the Environmental Protection Agency to drop plans to regulate the pollution blamed for climate change “until a full and independent investigation of the climate data conspiracy and global warming science can be substantiated.”

The resolution is a smorgasboard of anti-science rhetoric, coal-industry talking points and nonsensical fearmongering.  Here are some lowlights of the claims the resolution makes:

WHEREAS, global temperatures have been level and declining in some areas over the past 12 years

How could global temperatures have declined in some areas? Global temperatures are, by definition, an average of temperatures globally. Temperatures in one particular geographical location tell us absolutely nothing about global temperatures. Either way, the claim is false.

WHEREAS, emails and other communications between climate researchers around the globe, referred to as “Climategate,” indicate a well organized and ongoing effort to manipulate and incorporate “tricks” related to global temperature data in order to produce a global warming outcome;

I’m glad to see governmental bodies buying into ridiculous conspiracy theories.

WHEREAS, there has been a concerted effort by climate change alarmists to marginalize those in the scientific community who are skeptical of global warming by manipulating or pressuring peer-reviewed publications to keep contrary or competing scientific viewpoints and findings on global warming from being reviewed and published;

Imagine that. Scientists responsible for reviewing scientific papers don’t recommend the publication of anti-science and plainly inaccurate papers.

WHEREAS, the climate change “gravy train,” estimated at more than $7 billion annually in federal government grants, may have influenced the climate research focus and findings that have produced a “scientific consensus” at research institutions and universities;

There is far more money to be made in the climate denial industry than there is practicing legitimate climate science. The oil and coal industries pay top dollar to shills willing to lie to promote their agendas. This is extremely well documented.

There is plenty more insanity where those quotes came from. Here is the full resolution, as passed yesterday by the Utah House Natural Resources Committee:

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Update — This KSL TV in SLC has some good video footage of the committee debate.

Kate Sheppard:

In a policy briefing sponsored by the United States Energy Association, Fred Palmer, a coal industry lobbyist and notorious climate change denier, touted the wonders of “green coal” as a “path to zero emissions.” Greenpeace’s new PolluterWatch program—a kind of oppo research team targeting global warming skeptics and energy interests—managed to sit in on the talk, which it said was attended by close to 100 administration and congressional staffers and policy experts.

Palmer has a solid history of undermining climate science on behalf of big polluters. He’s the head of government affairs at Peabody Energy, the world’s largest coal company, and was formerly president of the Western Fuels Association and chairman of legal affairs for the National Mining Association.

Here is the PowerPoint presentation:

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Howard Kurtz pointed out this morning that the $3 million in funding for Tucker Carlson’s new project — the Daily Caller — comes from a man named Foster Friess. Of particular interest, Kurtz notes that Freiss ‘calls much of the information on global warming distorted and manipulated.’ Looking into this a bit further, it certainly appears as if the primary funder of Tucker Carlson’s new website is a climate change denier.

Writing on his blog, Freiss refers to this speech by Questar CEO Keith Rattie (PDF)as the best thing on global warming he has read.

Here is just one highlight from the misguided speech (PDF):

Now, I‟d love to stand here and debate the science of global warming. The media of course long ago declared that debate over – global warming is a planetary emergency, we‟ve got to change the way we live now. I‟ve followed this debate closely for over 15 years. I read everything I get my hands on. I‟m an engineer, so I tend to be skeptical when journalists hyperventilate about science – “World coming to an end – details at 11”. My research convinces me that claims of a scientific consensus about global warming mislead the public and policy makers – and may reflect another agenda.

Yes, planet earth does appear to be warming – but by a not so unusual and not so alarming one degree over the past 100 years. Indeed, global average temperatures have increased by about one degree per century since the end of the so-called Little Ice Age 250 years ago. And, yes CO2 levels in the upper atmosphere have increased over the past 250 years from about 280 parts per million to about 380 parts per million today – that‟s .00038. What that number tells you is that CO2 – the gas we all exhale, the gas in a Diet Coke, the gas that plants need to grow – is a trace gas, comprising just four out of every 10,000 molecules in the atmosphere. But it‟s an important trace gas – without CO2 in the atmosphere, there would be no life on earth. And yes, most scientists believe that humans have caused much of that increase.

But that‟s where the alleged consensus ends. Contrary to the righteous certitude we get from some, no one knows how much warming will occur in the future, nor how much of any warming that does occur will be due to man, and how much to nature. No one knows how warming will affect the planet, or how easily people, plants and animals will adapt to any warming that does occur. When someone tells you they do know, I suggest Mark Twain‟s advice: respect those who seek the truth, be wary of those who claim to have found it.

There is plenty more where that came from.

Here are some other recent headlines from his blog:

• Global Warming a religion?
• Article points out hypocrisy amongst climate change advocates
• California’s so-called “green” public policies are just a form of “energy colonialism”: bringing in energy from other states
• Czech Republic Pres Václav Klaus and Foster Discuss Danger of Trying to “Mastermind Global Climate”
• Green jobs may not help lower unemployment rates
• Growing number of scientists fear the beginning of global cooling
• New book highlights 34 scientists who resist GloWarm hysteria, and the lack of media coverage they receive
• New report from science panel shows CO2 not the cause of global warming

Further evidence that the Daily Caller is likely to be biased against clean energy solutions can be found by glancing at the site’s initial sponsors:

We have five launch sponsors: The Auto Alliance, the Chamber of Commerce, the Southern Company (a power firm), Broadband for America, and the National Mining Association.

Four of the five have a direct interest in climate and energy legislation, and three of the five are major opponents of meaningful action (Chamber of Commerce, Southern Company and the National Mining Association).

Don’t take it from me, though. Drudge protege Andrew Breitbart explains in one of the initial Op-Eds on Daily Caller:

The launch of the Daily Caller is a necessary step toward creating ideological parity in the all-too-clearly biased mainstream media. It is a good thing that you, Tucker, are admitting that you come to the table with certain ideological baggage, and my new site Big Journalism will be there to watch your back when the well-funded, organized left’s knives come out to try to discredit and attempt to destroy you. Believe me, they will.

Prediction: The Daily Caller will be a cross between the Drudge Report, Politico and the NY Post. It will occasionally break news, but only when doing so advances the conservative agenda.

I’ll be following the site for the next few weeks, hoping to be proven wrong. Unless and until that happens, I won’t be sending any more links in that direction.

Update — As if on cue, here is the story the Daily Caller is pushing right now:

Reuters:

The largest U.S. farm group will oppose aggressively “misguided” climate legislation pending in Congress and fight animal rights activists, said American Farm Bureau Federation president Bob Stallman on Sunday. In a speech opening the four-day AFBF convention, Stallman said American farmers and ranchers “must aggressively respond to extremists” and “misguided, activist-driven regulation … The days of their elitist power grabs are over.”

Here is Stallman’s full speech:

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Back in reality, this post at the Wonk Room details some of the negative impacts climate change will likely have on agriculture.

Louisville Courier-Journal:

The chairman of the committee that deals with environmental issues in the Kentucky House of Representatives has introduced a resolution that questions the science of climate change.

The resolution proposed by Rep. Jim Gooch, D-Providence, says state and local government agencies should be banned from limiting carbon dioxide, a key greenhouse gas that comes from burning coal and motor vehicle tailpipe emissions.

Gooch, the chairman of the Kentucky House Natural Resources and Environment Committee, attracted national attention two years ago after he featured prominent global warming skeptics at a hearing in Frankfort. That led to him debating climate change science on national television with an ABC News anchorman.

Reps. Joseph M. Fischer, R-Fort Thomas, and Mike Harmon, R-Danville, joined Gooch as the joint resolution’s sponsors.

Joint resolutions only have the force of law if passed by both the Kentucky House and Senate. Gooch, the vice president of a construction company that works with coal companies, said he didn’t know how far the resolution could go in the General Assembly and viewed it as “more of a statement.”

Here is the resolution:

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I mentioned earlier that several South Carolina county-level Republican groups had censured Senator Lindsey Graham over his moderation on climate change. Senator Graham has now responded:

In his comments Tuesday, Graham took aim at both the fiscal conservative and Libertarian segments of the Republican Party by dismissing the “misplaced priorities” of the Lexington County GOP.

“The 13 people who support this resolution are Ron Paul supporters,” said Graham. “They didn’t vote for me before and they’re not going to vote for me next time, and I understand that. I think it’s misplaced priorities.”

Graham also said he’s proud of working with Democrats, and that he has an overall conservative voting record.

“I do believe in finding common ground to solve hard problems…but there are some elements of my party and others that want complete agreement all the time,” said Graham.

Good for him.

Update — The State has more:

“I have come to conclude that greenhouse gases and carbon pollution is not a good thing,” Graham said. “All the cars and trucks and plants that have been in existence since the Industrial Revolution, spewing out carbon day-in and day-out, will never convince me that’s a good thing for your children and the future of the planet.”

…

“Whatever political push back I get I’m willing to accept because I know what I’m trying to do makes sense to me,” Graham said. “I am convinced that reason, logic and good business sense, and good environmental policy, will trump the status quo.”

Senator Lindsay Graham’s willingness to work with Senator Kerry on climate change legislation has drawn the ire of many South Carolina Republicans. In November, the Charleston County GOP censured Graham with a climate change denying rant. Days later, the Berkelely County South Carolina GOP considered doing the same thing, before temporarily tabling the measure.

Last night, the Lexington County South Carolina Republican Party joined the fun. The Los Angeles Times Reports:

Republican leaders in a South Carolina county known as a GOP stronghold have voted to censure U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham for working with Democrats on immigration and climate change.

It’s the second time since November that Republicans in a South Carolina county have voted to censure the GOP senator.

Lexington County Republican Party Chairman Rich Bolen said Tuesday the county’s executive committee voted 13-7 to rebuke Graham following more than an hour of debate late Monday.

Here is the Lexington County GOP’s full censure resolution:

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In November, I noted the consequences of these types of developments:

The Republican party is quickly becoming a caricature of itself, purging anyone who isn’t a hateful, ignorant science-hater. While it is good for Democrats politically, it is a largely negative development for the discourse and the country as a whole. It is hard to have a reasonable and intelligent debate when one of the two major political parties is completely unreasonable.

This assessment — which is backed up by the increasing likelihood that the Republican party will nominate a climate change denier in 2012 — remains valid. Further indications that the GOP will continue shifting to the right on climate policy include the evolution of Senator McCain’s position due to a primary challenge and several recent polls showing a sharp uptick in climate change denial among Republican voters.

So what makes Senator Graham different? A few factors come to mind:

1. He is not up for reelection until 2014.

2. He is a strong supporter of nuclear energy, and will likely be able to demand massive subsidies in exchange for his support.

3. He rightly considers climate change a national security issue, and in addition to serving on the Armed Services Committee in both the House and the Senate, he served in the United States Air Force prior to entering politics.

4. Graham has always been a bit of a maverick, frequently showing willingness to reject the party line:

In recent years Graham has developed a reputation as an independent dealmaker. In 2005 he joined with 13 moderates to block then Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist from destroying the filibuster in a fight over judicial nominees. In 2006 and 2007 he braved another censure – this one from Greenville County – to work with Ted Kennedy on immigration reform, telling incensed South Carolinians that they’re “bigots.”

What else am I missing? Why is Senator Graham an outlier in the Republican party on climate change legislation?

Via FDL, a paragraph from the New Yorker’s extensive profile of John Mackey:

Mackey told me that he agrees with the book’s assertion that, as he put it, “no scientific consensus exists” regarding the causes of climate change; he added, with a candor you could call bold or reckless, that it would be a pity to allow “hysteria about global warming” to cause us “to raise taxes and increase regulation, and in turn lower our standard of living and lead to an increase in poverty.” One would imagine that, on this score, many of his customers, to say nothing of most climate scientists, might disagree. He also said, “Historically, prosperity tends to correlate to warmer temperatures.”

Something to keep in mind the next time you go shopping for environmentally-friendly produce.