At the end of last month we highlighted a new paper showing that the public really do believe in global warming. That study wasn’t good enough for the BBC though – they wanted their own research (story, followed up by Reuters, PA). Over 22,000 people were surveyed for the BBC in 21 countries to coincide with the UN summit on climate change (coverage of that is over on Nature News). Of this sample of the world’s population, eight out of 10 think “human activity, including industry and transportation, is a significant cause of climate change” (pdf).

Strangely 9 out of 10 of those surveyed think action is necessary to combat global warming, which would seem to imply that at least 600 million people (one in ten of the world’s population) believe we should be actively attempting to change our climate against natural processes. Leaving that aside, the public view seems to be in line with scientists: global warming is real. Now if only they could be convinced on homeopathy and astrology.

As an interesting aside BBC Head of News Peter Horrocks said recently he thought the weight of scientific opinion behind climate change being caused by man was “not overwhelming”.

Image: The Andes Mountains / NASA