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How Weather Influences Global Warming Opinions

Posted by samzenpus on from the cold-is-the-new-hot dept.

An anonymous reader writes in with this story about how people's belief in climate change shifts with the temperature. "Last week's polar vortex weather event wasn't only hard on fingers, toes and heating bills. It also overpowered the ability of most people to make sound judgments about climate change, in the same way that heat waves do, according to a new study published in the Jan. 11 issue of the journal Nature Climate Change. Researchers have known for some time that the acceptance of climate change depends on the day most people are asked. During unusually hot weather, people tend to accept global warming, and they swing against it during cold events."

2 of 517 comments (clear)

  1. Global vs. local effects by ghack · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Global warming is exactly that- a global trend, not a local one. Locally, the effects have been most pronounced near the north pole, which is not exactly a place where many people live.

    Global climate change seems to have resulted recently in a "warming" trend, but as we know from Al Gore's movie, if the North Atlantic current gets shut off we are in for a polar vortex on a much longer time scale.

    I am not sure who coined the phrase "global warming"; is it a PR failure by the scientists involved or a reporting failure by the news media? To quote a well known meme: "why not both?"

  2. Re:Egocentrism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "I don't live in a totalitarian police state because I've never been detained without charge or sentenced without trial or deprived of property without warrant."