Gallup released a poll today showing what everyone except the pajama partying "Climate Change Caucus" knows: Americans aren't buying the urgency of the "global warming" crisis.
According to the poll, 88 percent of Americans are worried "a great deal" or "a fair amount" about the economy, followed by federal spending and the deficit, the availability and affordability of health care, and unemployment. Out of the 15 worries ranked, climate change was second from last--ahead of race relations. Only 49 percent of Americans were worried about "climate change"; a majority worried "a little" or "not at all."
Why? A couple reasons. First, they're not entirely sold on the theory of "climate change." For one thing, the chief traffickers of global warming lore themselves, the United Nations Panel on Climate Change, released a report in October of 2013 that reluctantly acknowledged there has been no increase in mean climate temperature for the past 15 years and no explanation for the lull. Fox News reported that according to the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, the man made impact to climate change is very small and difficult to distinguish from changes in the earth's temperature caused by natural variability.
The American public may not have read these reports, but they do notice the switch from "global warming" lingo to "climate change." Climate change can cover anything, and since there's no actual warming to justify the radical environmentalist agenda, they needed a new name to cover any environmental variance, including hurricanes and blizzards.
But the far more obvious reason that the public isn't jumping up and down to limit fossil fuel emissions is the economy. Americans are hurting, and they're filled with anxiety over the economic malaise we find ourselves in, years after a recovery should have taken off. Over the past five years, median family income is down $4,000, health care costs are rising, the price of gas has nearly doubled, grocery prices are rising and the percentage of Americans no longer in the workforce is increasing. In the face of all that and more, "climate change" has a rather hollow ring to it.
The American people can see the impact of environmentalist-driven regulatory activity. They know there is a War on Coal even if they are unaware that that war will pay a role in 285 coal-based plants closing and 600,000 people losing their jobs by 2023. They know Cap and Tax legislation would have been devastating to businesses, and they know that Obama's proposed National Energy Tax will be pricey, even if they don't know the specific figures: that tax, combined with other EPA regulations, would cost America 2 million to 9 million jobs.
America is worried. About jobs and the economy. About the increasing size and scope of the federal government and out of control spending. And about the rising cost of health care, its future availability and our dwindling control over it as individuals. But are they worried about "climate change?" Sorry, Al. Not really.
