Why are climate scientists losing the American public?

Even as predictions about the possible effects of climate change get more troubling by the day, Americans are increasingly skeptical of the science. The latest evidence is this concerning Gallup poll:

A majority of Americans still agree that global warming is real, as 53% say the effects of the problem have already begun or will do so in a few years. That percentage is dwindling, however. The average American is now less convinced than at any time since 1997 that global warming's effects have already begun or will begin shortly.

Meanwhile, 35% say that the effects of global warming either will never happen (19%) or will not happen in their lifetimes (16%).

The 19% figure is more than double the number who held this view in 1997.

Depressing news for environmentalists, who have spent years building the public case for concern.

Environmental groups often explain why they are losing the public relations war by, among other things, citing George Will’s “campaign” against global warming and other such efforts, arguing that they have made the science seem less settled than it is. Americans are having trouble telling the difference between relatively small criticisms of the science or scientists -- minor mistakes in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2007 report or the release of overheated private exchanges among a few climate scientists, for example -- and the solid case for the bottom-line on global warming: that it’s extremely likely it’s happening, it’s extremely likely that it’s at least partially our fault, and, if unabated, it’s extremely likely to have some rather unpleasant consequences.

But a big factor is also that the issue became more partisan as the Democratic Congress got serious about legislating.

Global warming denial has shot up on the right. Even many of those in the GOP who say they want to do something on clean energy -- such as Sarah Palin -- have put themselves on the wrong side of the policy, some of them pretty clearly out of political calculation. Supposedly free-market Republicans favor supporting a few select energy sources instead of simply pricing carbon. Anyone with a few days of basic economics training will tell you the latter is far more efficient, relying on private actors to determine where investment in clean energy should go, rather than Congress deciding who wins and who loses.

But pricing carbon is also the policy that President Obama favors. So, in conservative rhetoric, that has become another way the president is trying to build a command-and-control economy. In fact, trying to deal with global warming without pricing carbon is the command-and-control approach, the approach many GOP leaders appear to favor, if they really favor doing anything at all. House Democrats, meanwhile, decided that the only way they could pass a bill was to use it to pay off lots of constituencies that might conceivably complain, dulling the efficiency of the included carbon price and aiding the GOP in its attacks.

Fears about the far-reaching policy and about the Democrats’ motives have no doubt convinced some Americans to see what they want to see in the science, rather than what a reasonable reading would suggest.