FILE - In this July 26, 2011 file photo, a Greenlandic Inuit hunter and fisherman steers his boat past a melting iceberg, along a fjord leading away from the edge of the Greenland ice sheet, near Nuuk, Greenland. Nearly 4 out of 5 Americans now think temperatures are rising and that global warming will be a serious problem for the United States if nothing is done about it, a new Associated Press-GfK poll finds. Belief and worry about climate change are inching up among Americans in general, but concern is growing faster among people who don't often trust scientists on the environment. In follow-up interviews, some of those doubters said they believe their own eyes as they've watched thermometers rise, New York City subway tunnels flood, polar ice melt and Midwestern farm fields dry up. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, File)
AP-GfK Poll: Science doubters say world is warming
FILE - In this July 26, 2011 file photo, a Greenlandic Inuit hunter and fisherman steers his boat past a melting iceberg, along a fjord leading away from the edge of the Greenland ice sheet, near Nuuk, Greenland. Nearly 4 out of 5 Americans now think temperatures are rising and that global warming will be a serious problem for the United States if nothing is done about it, a new Associated Press-GfK poll finds. Belief and worry about climate change are inching up among Americans in general, but concern is growing faster among people who don't often trust scientists on the environment. In follow-up interviews, some of those doubters said they believe their own eyes as they've watched thermometers rise, New York City subway tunnels flood, polar ice melt and Midwestern farm fields dry up. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, File)
By SETH BORENSTEIN
AP Science Writer /
December 17, 2012
Text Size:
- –
- +
Page 2 of 2 --
The latest AP-GfK poll jibes with other surveys and more in-depth research on global warming, said Anthony Leiserowitz, director of Yale University’s Project on Climate Change Communication. He took no part in the poll.
When climate change belief was at its lowest, concerns about the economy were heightened and the country had gone through some incredible snowstorms and that may have chipped away at some belief in global warming, Leiserowitz said. Now the economy is better and the weather is warmer and worse in ways that seem easier to connect to climate change, he said.
‘‘One extreme event after another after another,’’ Leiserowitz said. ‘‘People have noticed. ... They’re connecting the dots between climate change and this long bout of extreme weather themselves.’’
Thomas Coffey, 77, of Houston, said you can’t help but notice it.
‘‘We use to have mild temperatures in the fall going into winter months. Now, we have summer temperatures going into winter,’’ Coffey said. ‘‘The whole Earth is getting warmer and when it gets warmer, the ice cap is going to melt and the ocean is going to rise.’’
He also said that’s what he thinks is causing recent extreme weather.
‘‘That’s why you see New York and New Jersey,’’ he said, referring to Superstorm Sandy and its devastation in late October. ‘‘When you have a flood like that, flooding tunnels like that. And look at how long the tunnel has been there.’’
___
Associated Press Director of Polling Jennifer Agiesta, News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius and writer Stacy A. Anderson contributed to this report.
___
Online:
The poll: http://www.ap-gfkpoll.com
___
Seth Borenstein can be followed at http://twitter.com/borenbears
© Copyright 2013 Globe Newspaper Company.
