This represented a drop from 23% a year earlier. And what happened between the two polls?
Union of Concerned Scientists:
After assessing decades of climate data recorded everywhere from the depths of the oceans to tens of miles above Earth's surface, leading scientists from around the world have reported major advances in our understanding of climate change. Released in February 2007 - six years after the prior assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - the IPCC Fourth Assessment Reports Working Group I Summary for Policymakers synthesizes current scientific understanding of global warming and projects future climate change using the most comprehensive set of well-established global climate models.
The IPCC report is widely considered the final word on climate change. In June of 2006, the National Academy of Sciences released a report stating:
In particular, the numerous indications that recent warmth is unprecedented for at least the last 400 years and potentially the last several millennia, in combination with estimates of external climate forcing variations over the same period, supports the conclusion that human activities are responsible for much of the recent warming.
And, in response to this new evidence from the scientific community, belief in human caused warming dropped 10%. There's a reason why the GOP is the creationist's party of choice. These are people who think that reality requires their consent. That not only do you get to choose what you'll believe, but that you get to choose what's true.
I came across an op-ed in the L.A. Times by Jonathan Chait that sums this up beautifully:
Your typical conservative has little interest in the issue. Of course, neither does the average nonconservative. But we nonconservatives tend to defer to mainstream scientific wisdom. Conservatives defer to a tiny handful of renegade scientists who reject the overwhelming professional consensus.
National Review magazine, with its popular website, is a perfect example. It has a blog dedicated to casting doubt on global warming, or solutions to global warming, or anybody who advocates a solution. Its title is "Planet Gore." The psychology at work here is pretty clear: Your average conservative may not know anything about climate science, but conservatives do know they hate Al Gore. So, hold up Gore as a hate figure and conservatives will let that dictate their thinking on the issue.
It's not reason, it's not logic, it's a deliberate contrariness best suited to a three year old...
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