A new research conducted by the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire, indicates that most of the Americans are not aware of the real reasons for the climate changes. The research explains that though they concur with the happenings of the climate change most of them believe on the causes explained by the political parties and not on scientific reasons.
According to Lawrence Hamilton, UNH Carsey Institute’s senior fellow and professor of sociology, though there are discussions and opinion disputes over the facts about the rate and consequences of climate change among the scientist community all of them agree on a single point that human activities are the basic cause for the climate change. He explained that the univocal scientific conformity on the human activity factor is often conflicted and varied in various surveys conducted by the institute between 2010 and early part of 2011 questioning around 9,500 participants located in seven regions of the USA. Most of the participants have collected details on climate change through political activists, friends, media and other sources unrelated to science. A large number of them voiced the views of the opinion leaders or political parties followed by them and were selective to choose news sources that matched their opinion.
Some of the important findings of the surveys include that most of them are aware of the climate change or global warming from a moderate level to large level, majority of them agreed on the climate change happenings but differed on the causes, the degree of understanding on the change varied in each region, Republicans attributed natural causes for climate change while democrats pointed to human activities for the change, political polarization played a role in the opinion of Republicans and Democrats who claimed to know the issue fully well and among those who are uncertain about climate change issue also appears to be less isolated in their views, and some of those who are not confident about their views are prone to change their views latter.
Lawrence Hamilton has stated that the following decades will witness more proof on climate change and the melting of Arctic Sea ice foretells the imminent earthly changes. IPCC in its 2007 report estimated that Arctic sea ice will completely melt ahead of the 21st century end, but the current evidence proves that most of the ice will disappear by 2030 or even before. He concluded saying that the Arctic Ocean and other ocean environments provide indisputable physical facts on climate change, which may soon become a debatable subject, but before that public belief on climate change will continue to have a political character.