posted on Feb, 17 2009 @ 08:20 PM
Sorry, but the Gallop poll you cite is disinformation.
First of all, there's not even such a thing as the "American Geophysical Society," which is the first tip-off the data is dubious. It's actually
called the "American Geophysical UNION."
The second tip-off is that there's no year given when the poll was done, and no link or reference to any supporting evidence.
Years ago, someone forwarded this same blurb about the 17% Gallop poll number, and I researched it out to find the source of the information.
It was hard to track it down, as those who started this rumor saw to it that the facts would always get scrambled up a bit to make it very hard to do
any fact-checking. For example, they
would sometimes quote the poll being from 1990, and sometimes say it was from 1992 (the real poll was in 1991). The quotes don't even always say 17%,
but will sometimes say it was 19% and 20% of scientists (the real number was 66%!) And, as we've seen, they screw up the names of the organizations
-- all to make it harder to Google your way to the truth. If they throw out the wrong year here and a slightly wrong percentage number there, and say
"Society" instead of "Union," it makes it much harder to search out the actual Gallop poll, thus harder to catch their LIE. It's very
deliberately used to keep people confused and misinformed. Very calculated.
So wherever you get your information, I suggest you take a very hard look at what else they tell you because this 17% poll thing is pure
lie/propaganda. These are NOT people you should be trusting, no matter WHAT they tell you.
Of course, lots of people like you are innocently quoting the bogus poll data, believing it's true -- and being totally taken advantage of.
The 17% number has been floating around for almost two decades now, seemingly gaining credibility simply by virtue of being repeated so many times, by
folks like Limbaugh and Easterbrook. But it all dates back to a totally baldfaced lie made by George Will in his 9/3/1992 column.
In that column, he refers to an actual Gallop poll, and writes that the poll showed only 17% of climate scientists thinking humans are causing global
warming. BUT THE ACTUAL FINDING WAS NOT 17% OF THEM BELIEVING THAT. IT WAS 66%!! Unless you can convince me that George Will is THAT stupid or
absent-minded to honestly mistake 66% for 17%, then this was a DELIBERATE LIE.
And now, George Will was just recently caught again creating a bogus climate factoid when he wrote that some major University has concluded the polar
ice caps are just as big as they were in 1979 -- another totally made-up lie. This guy needs to be kicked off the airwaves and stripped of his
column.
But that 17% poll quote is still even CIRCULATING after all these years is a wonder of modern propaganda! It also really makes one wonder how
confident the climate change deniers are with whatever ACTUAL facts they might have on their side that they would have to resort to FAKE poll results
from ALMOST 20 YEARS AGO.
The plain fact is that both the American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union (the climate science organizations whose membership
Gallop polled in 1991) have official statements on climate change, statements that their members have endorsed and that you can easily find on their
websites, that clearly state that they, the expert climate scientists, believe that human-induced global climate change is real, and that if we don't
change our energy habits very quickly, the future will likely be very very unpleasant. THE SCIENTISTS ARE ON RECORD. THEY ARE ON AL GORE'S SIDE. JUST
ACCEPT THE FACTS AND LET'S GET BUSY DEALING WITH OUR RIDICULOUS PETROLEUM ADDICTION ONCE AND FOR ALL!
Of course, if you don't believe any of what I've said here, feel free to track it all down yourself. But below are some source materials to help you
confirm what I've said.