Eloise Gibson of the NZ Herald writes about Dr Klaus Bosselmann, director of the New Zealand Centre for Environmental Law at Auckland University, and his view that it is time to stop watching opinion polls, and begin doing something about climate change.
His comments were made in a response to a Nielsen poll which surveyed 2296 people about their views on climate change. In it, more than half of New Zealand’s population were unconvinced about climate change, and the article covers some possible reasons why.
An excerpt: (read in full here)
“Dr Bosselmann, who has been involved in climate change politics for 20 years and was a German government delegate at 1992 climate talks, said the poll was consistent with a worldwide trend of declining belief in global warming in 2008 and 2009.
“He believed that if the same poll had been taken 20 years ago it would have shown higher levels of belief – although the science supporting man-made global warming was stronger today.
“The apparent decline in public certainty about climate change has prompted soul-searching among scientists, some of whom blamed media reports for giving undue emphasis to climate-change doubters.”