Extreme weather more persuasive on climate change than scientists
Source: The Guardian
Extreme weather more persuasive on climate change than scientists
Suzanne Goldenberg US environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Friday 14 December 2012 16.52 GMT
As one of the Marx brothers famously said: who do you believe, me or your own eyes?
Climate sceptics, it turns out, are much more likely to believe direct evidence of a changing climate in the form of extreme weather events than they do scientists, when it comes to global warming.
A poll released on Friday by the Associated Press-GfK found rising concern about climate change among Americans in general, with 80% citing it as a serious problem for the US, up from 73% in 2009. Belief and worry about climate change were rising faster still among people who do tend not to trust scientists on the environment.
Some of the doubters said in follow-up interviews that they were persuaded by personal experience: such as record temperatures, flooding of New York City subway tunnels, and news of sea ice melt in the Arctic and extreme drought in the mid-west.
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Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/dec/14/extreme-weather-climate-change-scientists
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