A new poll released today shows that the warm winter hasn’t really changed any minds about global warming.
Gallup reports that 52 percent of Americans believe that we’re already seeing the effects of global warming, down from a high of 61 percent in 2008 and slightly up from 49 percent last year.
Fifteen percent said global warming will never wreak havoc on the Earth, a higher trend from when Gallup began tracking these questions in 1998.
Out of the 29 percent who responded that global warming’s effects will be felt at a future time, four percent said that will start to happen within a few years, 10 percent said sometime in their lifetime, and 15 percent opted for even further down the road.
Forty-two percent said the media exaggerate the seriousness of global warming, while 31 percent said news coverage underestimates it.
Out of those who answered “exaggerated,” 67 percent identified as Republicans, 42 percent as independents and 20 percent as Democrats.
As far as the cause of global warming, 41 percent deemed it a natural phenomenon while 53 percent attributed it to pollution generated by humans.
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