Environmetrics

Surge In Climate Scepticism Makes Grim Reading

At the end of a torrid few months for climate change scientists, a poll carried out by the BBC in the United Kingdom has seen a huge surge in the number of climate sceptics.

The climate change question seems to have polarised opinion as never before. In one camp are the climate scientists who insist that climate change is happening as a direct result of man’s actions and that it needs to be combatted immediately to stop catastrophic effects upon the environment. In the opposing camp are the climate sceptics, the so-called ’enviro-sceptics’ who say that climate change is an ongoing and natural phemonena without influence from man.

The main centre for climate science within the UK is at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit. In the last few weeks the CRU has found itself embroiled in a succession of controversies over leaked emails, allegations of falsification and an ongoing investigation into the non release of information that had been legally requested from them. On the international stage Dr Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change and climate scientist-in-chief, is facing calls to stand down over false claims made by the IPCC that the Himalayan glaciers would be gone by 2035. Whilst the IPCC now acknowledges that this claim was made erroneously, they stand by their views of man made climate change.

It is against this background that the BBC conducted a large poll into the public’s opinion on climate change. A staggering 25% of the thousand-plus respondents said that they did not believe that climate change was happening and only 26% believed that climate change was happening and was largely man made. The worrying thing for climate scientists is that this shows a huge rise in scepticism from a similar poll carried out by The Times newspaper in November 2009. The figures taken as a whole show that there has been an increase in scepticism of over 10% in little more then two months.

Of those respondents who do believe that climate change is happening one in three, up from one in five in The Times, poll believe that the possible effects of climate change are being exaggerated. This polll indicates that for the first time, there are now more people who do not believe in man made climate change than those who do believe in it.

This poll is very bad news for governments and climate scientists who have been vigorously trying to spread their environmental message. “The fact that there has been a very significant drop in the number of people that believe that we humans are changing the Earth’s climate is serious”, said Professor Bob Watson the leading government advisor on climate change, “We need the public to understand that climate change is serious so they’ll change their habits and help us move towards a low carbon economy.”

With scepticism on the rise, and further questions being asked about climate change research across the globe, these are difficult times for those who would protect the globe’s environment from the ravages of man. If you are interested in reading about an industry who are battling the carbon footprint of large companies, then check out this Enigin employee blog!