The climate wars: trench warfare or blitzkrieg?
In a previous post, I examined more than 25 years of Gallup polls in the US and I came to the conclusion the climate debate is stuck in a trench warfare condition. Apparently, the percentage of Americans who say they are “worried” about climate change is today nearly the same as it was in 1989.
After the publication of that post, I received a comment that cited the results of a recent study of the social mediasponsored by “The Global Commission on the Economy and Climate” that seem to be indicating a different trend. Here is the main result of that study;
Clearly, something has changed in 2014 that has led to a remarkable change in the discourse on the relation of climate and economic growth, with a very large growth (around 700%) of people having an attitude defined as “positive” toward climate change. At first sight, it looks good: this is not trench warfare, it is a true blitzkrieg.
However, it is also something that has to be taken with great caution. Note that the question that was examined in the analysis was very narrow; strictly limited to whether one believes that climate change and economic growth are compatible. The analysis didn’t examine whether the messages indicated that people were worried or not about climate change, or even whether they believed it existed and was caused by human actions. And the “negative” opinion expressed in a fraction of the messages might well have been expressed by people who were very worried about climate change; so much that they thought (reasonably, in my opinion) that economic growth can only worsen things.
Indeed, the goals and the approach of the group of people who call themselves “The New Climate Economy Commission” seems to be very limited. In one of their reports, they state.
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