Poll: Opinions on Global Warming

Pew Research has a new opinion study on the subject. It's kinda depressing that public opinion on the topic could be so vastly out of sync with expert opinion, particularly among Republicans. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that FOX News and the Drudge Report consistently misrepresent the facts on this topic whenever it comes up. To pick out just one of the endless supply of examples, FOX News recently pushed a bit of misinformation from James Inhofe (R-OK), claiming that "400 prominent scientists" dispute global warming. This, despite the fact that one didn't have to be a scientist at all, and didn't even have to dispute the idea of anthropogenic warming, in order to make it onto Inhofe's dishonestly compiled list. Many scientists, upon learning of their inclusion, have requested that their names be removed. To take just another example, FOX regularly relies on former Exxon lobbyist Steven Milloy to spout numerous lies, which I've covered here, here, and here (and elsewhere). This is not journalism - and it apparently has an effect on public opinion. The only word that seems to fit here is "propaganda" (or possibly "ignorance").

UPDATE: For more information on the interaction between warming temperatures and hurricanes, as well as the actual scientific debate between William Gray and Kerry Emanuel, I highly recommend reading Storm World.

UPDATE II: With regard to the original post, it's perhaps best to just take a look at the temperatures themselves, via NASA: