Following up on the recent polls, there's a good piece on the Climate
Sock blog:
http://www.climatesock.com/2011/01/what-do-we-do-when-two-good-polls-say-opposite-things/
<snip>
I’ve been saying for a while that the decrease in people saying they’re
absolutely convinced that the climate is changing/that global warming is
a very big problem may be a factor of the way the ‘debate’ between
climate warriors and deniers is being conducted. It’s become so
vitriolic that many people are heading for the middle ground, on the
assumption that both sides are partly right (or because they’re just
sick of it).
So a question like ONS’s, whose answer choices are “very
convinced/fairly convinced/not very convinced/not at all convinced/don’t
know” would tend to lose people from the extremes of the scale to the
middle (as happens to an extent: 45% in ’06 to 41% now).
In contrast, the Guardian’s question was on a discrete scale and didn’t
present the contrast between firm opinion vs middle ground (climate
change already a threat / will be a threat in the future / not a threat
/ don’t know). Maybe as a result, there’s less of an effect from the way
the debate is being conducted and reported.
<snip>
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