For all the coverage given to global warming it is often assumed that a sizable section of the public doesn’t believe it is actually happening. So it is nice to see some actual research on the subject. It is even nicer to see that most people believe global warming is happening and carbon dioxide emissions are the cause.

In a new paper Matthew Nisbet and Teresa Myers review 20 years of public opinion polls on the subject (abstract). In Nisbet’s words (from his blog), “… although a strong majority of Americans say that they believe that global warming is real, that temperatures are rising, and that the release of carbon dioxide is a cause, the public remains relatively uncertain about whether the majority of scientists agree on the matter [his italics].” Which seems to mean that the average member of the public thinks that she knows what’s what, but isn’t sure that the scientists do.

Over on the Prometheus blog climate scientist Kevin Vranes from the University of Colorado in Boulder seems happy:

“The science community has been freaking out for years about trying to answer the ‘we’re screaming at them about this problem, why aren’t they doing anything about it???’ question. The stock answer from climate scientists is either about skeptics sowing doubt, or the problem is too complicated, or something like that, but it usually comes down to, ‘the public just isn’t convinced that it’s a problem.’ Matt’s paper shows that clearly the public is aware of global warming and does think it is a problem.”

Unfortunately, commenting on Vranes’s post, Nisbet says: “A word of caution on the interpretation of our study: On global warming, to paraphrase Kevin, the public isn’t there and that remains both a major communication problem and a major policy problem. … On questions measuring actual knowledge about either the science or the policy involved, the public scores very low.”

It seems we’re not quite there yet.