I think the Pew study reveals an interesting trend that need to be pointed out. The unaffiliated (non-religious?) have the best command of the issue (human activity contributes heavily to global warming). All denominational affiliations seem to negatively affect our ability to respect what science is telling us. Shouldn’t we be alarmed by this ‘inconvenient truth?’ At least the evangelical right is worse off than we are in this regard, although some will respect this as a sign of their superior fidelity to their beliefs.
Personally I have heard many homilies hostile to science on the topics of evolution, anthropology/history of indigenous peoples (historical white washing), population demography and stem cell research. I have yet to hear a homily that sought to defend the scientific method. I have on rare occasions heard homilies critical of historical analysis of the bible and archeology of the near east as well. Consider the condom issue also, a complete disregard for science goes all the way to the top (check out the CDC and NIH websites for views contrary to Church doctrine).
Perhaps we Catholics are faring a little better on global warming because it does not clash with dogma or history, but we are enemies of science on the whole.

What this shows is that people think this is a vote… People want to be on the “winning” side. Elitists are stuck on stupid. The only thing that matters is physics and measurement. And our problem is understanding the complex physics and inability to measure it.

There is no overwhelming concensus among the worlds most eminent scientists that human activity is a significant contributory factor to global warming. The planet has undergone cyclical warming and coolling variations throughout it’s entire history. But this continues to be a conveniently neglected factor in the speclative mix.

I wonder why anyone would do a survey in the manner of the above one…why not break it down to women and children, Muslims, etc. too..? How about breaking it down into groups like Liberals, Conservatives? Maybe red headed people and blond haired and dark haired people too…
The real facts are that if we all give in to this hype that our country is the loser and so are our citizens…..and China the Russians, the Muslims etc. may be the winners… What about a survey on that..! By the way I joined the Catholic church a few years ago…. Just for your info..

The world’s most eminent scientists overwhelmingly concur that global warming is happening and that human-derived increases in CO2 are responsible for this phenomenon. Any remarks to the contrary are simply inaccurate. Its good to be skeptical about any issue, but not to the point of obstinancy. It is a good and moral thing to want to reduce our carbon footprint. I happen to agree with the Church leadership for a change here on this issue.

What we think is of no significance. What counts is that anthropogenic global warming is nothing more than an unsubstantiated hypotheses. History (more than 2,000 years)demonstrates that Earth’s climate is doing nothing unusual. There’s absolutely no scientific evidence that human activity is doing more to temperature than a bit of local warming in cities.
The computer models are based on positive feedback dominating negative feedback (the natural climate stability mechanism). So far, these computer models failed to predict the current cooling cycle.

no

Funny, I never see your the “yes” folks condemning NASA for twice publishing phony data to support the global warming hoax.

How about a comment in your blog that global warming is being treated as a religion and that any skepticism is treated as heresy – I know quite a number of people who would be willing to serve on the Inquisition, sounds like you might too. Science is based on collecting data and analyzing it – the fact that too many want to close that door in itself makes me skeptical.

That is a simple answer, yes, I believe in global warming.

I live in Wisconsin. I hope that global warming is real and I will do anything that I can to make it happen faster!

From the AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science):
“The scientific evidence is clear: global climate change caused by human activities is occurring now, and it is a growing threat to society….The pace of change and the evidence of harm have increased markedly over the last five years. The time to control greenhouse gas emissions is now.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change

DML, please don’t use Wikipedia as your source of scientific information!
More and more scientists and thinking people all over the world are realizing that man-made global warming is a hoax that threatens our future and the future of our children. More than 700 international scientists dissent over man-made global warming claims. They are now more than 13 times the number of UN scientists (52) who authored the media-hyped IPCC 2007 Summary for Policymakers. http://www.climatechangefraud.com/content/view/3562/218/
Additionally, 32,000 American scientists have signed onto a petition that states, “There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate…” http://www.petitionproject.org/index.html

By the way, Pope Benedict is too intelligent and too well informed to believe global warming hoax. Catholics should know that Pope Benedict said that “fears over man-made emissions melting the ice caps and causing a wave of unprecedented disasters were nothing more than scare-mongering.” http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-33707133_ITM

We must fight the global warming scam. Politicians pushing environmental dogmas have already done more damage to the environment and to humanity than many terrorist groups, and they want to do even more! That is why Czech president Vaclav Klaus says, “environmentalism is the new communism and climate change is a dangerous myth.” And Lord Christopher Monckton says, “The environmental movement has to be outlawed, because their policies have murdered 40 million people, mainly children, with the ban on DDT… They have caused mass starvation and food riots with their nonsensical drive for bio-fuels. The forces of darkness in the environmental movement want create a new dark age in which humanity is pushed back to the Stone Age and without the right to light a fire.” http://www.larouchepub.com/pr/2009/090310climate_warming_conf.html

YN: 3:34 PM:
And you think Benny 16 knows more than scientists? Is that one of the things that happens when he fills the chair of Peter, he has “all knowledge”. Sure. Whatever floats the boat.

Why can’t I cite Wikipedia? Check the link, it drives my point home and how. These other web sites proffered by others on this blog are so ‘fringe.’

There is overwhelming scientific evidence. I don’t *believe* in global warming: I *know* that, almost surely, global warming due to human activities is occurring.
If I flip a coin ten times, and it comes up heads ten times, I don’t *believe* it’s biased: I *know* that it is almost surely biased.
See links to basic information on the website realclimate.org

Global warming is the greatest hoax ever forced upon the world…proponents of this farce are obviously unacquainted with the earths Organizer….God, our Eternal Father! They don’t know the organization of the earth was designed to fulfill a purpose, and when that purpose has been accomplished the earth will demise….but not because of “green house gases” or “global warming”……it will be because man has rejected its Organizer, His teachings, and refuse to learn their purpose for being on this earth. Our purpose is not to see how rich materially we can become; how powerful we can become; how selfish and self willed we can be; rather it is to learn the principals of perfection; overcoming the carnal man or the natural man, and becoming like our Father who organized this world for our growth and experience to achieve that ultimate quality of being! Ours is to learn the attributes of Diety, overcoming the world and seeking for the highest that is within us! Global warming is a distraction! Global warming is designed to bankrupt all nations. Global warming philosophers are anti-God….who have neglected giving God credit for knowing what He is doing; the plans He has for His children!!!!

YN at 11:09AM 26 April.
“Global warming is the greatest hoax ever forced upon the world…proponents of this farce are obviously unacquainted with the earth’s Organizer….God, our Eternal Father!”
Well, YN that certainly is one theory…but I think I’ll stick with the scientific evidence…and many of those scientists are just as religious as it sounds like you are. The religious scientists are certainly in tune with the same divine being that you seem to be. So I tend to doubt your theory holds much water.

Your name 2 – so there’s overwhelming evidence is there? Name just one piece of evidence that proves that increased CO2 will cause significant global warming.

R James: you may start at
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/05/start-here/
For example, the first link on their list (NCAR), if you choose “How does Climate Change?” in their menu, takes you to the page
http://www.eo.ucar.edu/basics/cc_1.html
where you can read:
“Heat exits the Earth system as the Earth’s surface, warmed by solar energy, radiates heat away. However, certain gases in our atmosphere, called greenhouse gases, allow the lower atmosphere to absorb the heat radiated from the Earth’s surface, trapping heat within the Earth system. Greenhouse gases, such as water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, are an important part of our atmosphere because they keep Earth from becoming an icy sphere with surface temperatures of about 0°F. However, over the past century or so the amounts of greenhouse gases within our atmosphere have been increasing rapidly, mainly due to the burning of fossil fuels, which releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Consequently, in the past one hundred years global temperatures have been increasing more rapidly than the historic record shows. Scientists believe this accelerated heating of the atmosphere is because increasing amounts of these greenhouse gases trap more and more heat.”
But you can also check out the links to NASA, or to the National Academy of Science, or any of the many other links, depending on the level of technicality that you are looking for.

your name 2 – you’ll have to do better than that. Assuming that greenhouse gasses help control the temperature, their effect is inversely logarithmic. If you paint a window black, no light gets through. If you paint it again, it makes no difference. It is generally acknowledged that present CO2 gas level contributes about 70% of its potential greenhouse effect. Doubling the concentration will have minimal effect.
The computer models acknowledge this. However, they assume that a small temperature increase due to CO2 will result in increased water vapour, which is the strongest greenhouse gas. This will result in further warming. However, climate realists point out that increased water vapour means more clouds, which are the dominant force that prevents warming (negative feedback). Therefore the system is self regulating. Historical data supports this. Very high concentrations of CO2 in the past didn’t result in a thermal runaway.
Few people deny greenhouse theory (although new evidence is suggesting that it has some problems). It’s the influence of increased CO2 that’s in question.

your name 2 – one more comment “However, over the past century or so the amounts of greenhouse gases within our atmosphere have been increasing rapidly than the historic record shows”. No they haven’t. You’re probably just looking at the past 150 years. Try looking at the past 2,000 years or longer. There’s nothing unusual going on. http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2008/02/11/a-2000-year-global-temperature-record/

R James, for more details on your first comment, see
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/FAQ/wg1_faq-1.3.html
“The water vapour feedback may be strong enough to approximately double the increase in the greenhouse effect due to the added CO2 alone.”
As to the effect of clouds:
“A change in almost any aspect of clouds, such as their type, location, water content, cloud altitude, particle size and shape, or lifetimes, affects the degree to which clouds warm or cool the Earth. Some changes amplify warming while others diminish it.”
No, the system is not automatically self-regulating, and there is much to worry about!

For an impressive graph on temperatures of the past 2000 years or so showing the very rapid recent increase, see the first figure in
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/09/progress-in-millennial-reconstructions/

your name 2 – yes, interesting graph. That short term red line needs to be put into perspective. This is well covered in this report http://www.john-daly.com/ges/surftmp/surftemp.htm. It’s dangerous to look at short term data from one measuring method, over long term data from another method.
There is a big discrepancy between surface measurements, and troposphere measurements. The latter doesn’t suffer from the “heat island effect”.

Catholics and Christians in general were manipulated into voting for a pro-abortion candidate and now they are being manipulated into supporting Obama’s evil plans. Obama and his accomplices are trying to manipulate us so we support their Orwellian Cap-and-Trade scheme, based on their global warming scam.
Cap-and-Trade “would be the equivalent of an atomic bomb directed at the U.S. economy—all without any scientific justification,” says internationally famed climatologist Dr. S. Fred Singer. Cap-and-Trade will increase taxes; increase the cost of energy; force many companies to close; and multiply unemployment, poverty and despair.

More and more scientists and thinking people all over the world are realizing that man-made global warming is a hoax that threatens our future and the future of our children. More than 700 international scientists dissent over man-made global warming claims. They are now more than 13 times the number of UN scientists (52) who authored the media-hyped IPCC 2007 Summary for Policymakers. http://www.climatechangefraud.com/content/view/3562/218/
Additionally, 32,000 American scientists have signed onto a petition that states, “There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate…” http://www.petitionproject.org/index.html
“Progressive” (communist) politicians like Obama seem determined to force us to swallow the man-made global warming scam. We need to defend ourselves from the United Nations and these politicians, who threaten our future and the future of our children. Based on a lie, they have already wasted billions and plan to increase taxes and increase the cost of energy, which will limit development, destroy our economy and enslave us.
If not stopped, the global warming scam will enrich the scammers (Gore and Obama’s Wall Street friends), increase the power of the United Nations and communists like Obama, and multiply poverty and servitude for the rest of us.