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The global warming controversy is a dispute regarding the nature, causes, and consequences of global warming. The disputed issues include the causes of increased global average air temperature, especially since the mid-20th century, whether this warming trend is unprecedented or within normal climatic variations, whether humankind has contributed significantly to it, and whether the increase is wholly or partially an artifact of poor measurements. Additional disputes concern estimates of climate sensitivity, predictions of additional warming, and what the consequences of global warming will be. The controversy is significantly more pronounced in the popular media than in the scientific literature.[1]
The level of coverage that US mass media devoted to global warming "was minimal prior to 1988" but interest increased significantly after the drought of 1988, and related Senate testimony of James E. Hansen "attributing the abnormally hot weather plaguing our nation to global warming".[2] Similarly, incipient coverage of climate change in the British press "changed at the end of 1988 ... stimulated by Margaret Thatcher’s appropriation of the risks of climate change to promote nuclear energy and dismantle the coal industry ... but also by environmental organizations and political forces in opposition who demanded solutions that contrasted with the government’s."[3] All European Union member states ratified the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, and many European countries had already been taking action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions prior to 1990. For example, Margaret Thatcher advocated action against man-made climate change in 1988,[4] and Germany started to take action after the Green Party took seats in Parliament across the 1980s. Substantial activity by NGOs took place as well.[5] Both "global warming" and the more politically neutral "climate change" were listed by the Global Language Monitor as political buzzwords or catch phrases in 2005.[6] In Europe, the notion of human influence on climate gained wide acceptance more rapidly than in many other parts of the world, most notably the United States.[7][8] A 2009 Eurobarometer survey titled "Europeans' Attitude Toward Climate Change" notes that, on the average, Europeans rate climate change as the second most serious problem facing the world today, between "poverty, the lack of food and drinking water" and "a major global economic downturn." 87% of Europeans consider climate change to be a "very serious" or "serious" problem, while 10% "do not consider it a serious problem." [9]
There has been a debate among public commentators about how much weight and media coverage should be given to each side of the controversy. Andrew Neil of the BBC stated that "There's a great danger that on some issues we're becoming a one-party state in which we're meant to have only one kind of view. You don't have to be a climate-change denier to recognise that there's a great range of opinion on the subject."[10] Martin Gardner, on the other hand, sees the media in the United States bending over backwards to give equal time to both sides, when pseudoscience and science are at odds.[11]
The table below shows how public perceptions about the existence and importance of global warming have changed in the U.S.[12][13][14] The worldwide consensus is that climate change is a serious problem.[15]
A June 2007 Ipsos Mori poll conducted in the UK found 56 percent of 2032 adults believed scientists were still questioning climate change. The survey suggested that terrorism, graffiti and crime were all of more concern than climate change. Ipsos Mori's head of environmental research, Phil Downing, said people had been influenced by counter-arguments.[16]
The Canadian science broadcaster and environmental activist, David Suzuki, reports that focus groups organized by the David Suzuki Foundation showed the public has a poor understanding of the science behind global warming.[17] This is despite recent publicity through different means, including the films An Inconvenient Truth and The 11th Hour.
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