Examiner.com article on another U-M climate change survey

Here's another examination of risk, this time about climate change.  At least in this case, the news about acceptance is good.

Hurricane Sandy increased the number of people who cited weather changes and severe weather as reasons to accept global warming.
CREDIT: NASA/Getty Images

U-M study: Two-thirds of Americans accept global warming is real

Two-thirds (67%) of all Americans now accept the evidence that global warming is real, according to a study by the University of Michigan released March 4th.  This is the most positive response since Fall 2008, when 72 percent of all Americans surveyed thought that climate change was real, and fifteen percent higher than Spring 2010, when only 52 percent gave a positive response.

Much of the rise came from increasing acceptance among Republicans, 51 percent of whom agreed with the statement that there is "solid evidence that the average temperature of the Earth has been getting warming over the past four decades."  This is the highest level of agreement with that statement among Republicans since Fall 2008, when 53 percent said yes to the survey question, and eighteen percent higher than Spring 2010, when only 33 percent agreed while 55 percent said no.  In contrast, 79 percent of Democrats and 71 percent of independents agreed with the same statement.

In a press release, University of Michigan Professor Barry Rabe, director of the Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy at the Ford School of Government said, "The only individual characteristic that reveals stark differences among Americans regarding the existence of global warming continues to be partisan standing."

This study came on the heels of one released last December showing that a majority of Americans surveyed favored government action to reduce greenhouse gases.  Both reports used information gathered as part of the Fall 2012 climate change survey, one of the National Surveys on Energy and Environment (NSEE).

Click on the link in the headline for more details.

I blogged about the study referenced in the fourth paragraph in Examiner.com article on U-M climate change survey.  As I wrote then, this is good news.  I'm not going to drop Professor Farnsworth on you.  Instead, I'll give you a real life professor, Barry Rabe of the University of Michigan's Ford School of Government, who discusses survey results showing two-thirds of Americans now accept global warming, including a majority of Republicans.  As I wrote, good news!