Opinion

Climate Change Surveys Still Useless

Public opinion polls are regularly cited by politicians and activists to support government action on climate change. Yet these surveys rarely make meaningful contributions to the public policy debate.
Climate Change Surveys Still Useless
People attend a candle light vigil at the Vilnius Cathedral as it stands unlit during Earth Hour in Vilnius on March 19, 2016. Lights went off in thousands of cities and towns across the world for the annual Earth Hour campaign, aiming to call for action on climate change. Petras Malukas/AFP/Getty Images
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Public opinion polls are regularly cited by politicians and activists to support government action on climate change. Yet these surveys rarely make meaningful contributions to the public policy debate since they ask about issues that do not matter, while ignoring issues that do matter.

Happily, most polling companies have matured to the point that they no longer ask respondents whether they think ‘climate change is real’ or whether they believe there is a scientific debate about the causes of climate change. Public understanding of the inevitability of climate change on a dynamic planet and the massive uncertainty about future climate states has rendered such questions pointless.

Yet pollsters still have a long way to go before their climate change surveys should be taken seriously.

Gallup’s annual environmental poll, the results of which were released throughout March, is a case in point.

Tom Harris
Tom Harris
Author
Tom Harris is executive director of the non-partisan Ottawa, Canada-based International Climate Science Coalition.
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