Despite political denial and media distortion, majorities in Australia and the United States accept climate change is real, human-caused and demands action.

Climate change may be nonsense, a giant conspiracy, a fraud and other things to people like Donald Trump and Tony Abbott – but it’s not to the American public – nor the Australian one.

Recently the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University published a major report – Climate Change in the American Mind: Beliefs & Attitudes.

The report found that Americans who think global warming is happening outnumber those who think it is not by a ratio of more than 5 to 1 (72 per cent versus 13 per cent). However, 85 per cent of Americans either underestimate how many Americans are worried or don’t know enough to say.

This is hardly surprising giving the barrage of misinformation coming from the White House and fossil fuel lobbyists. They don’t get much help from the media either, as only 17 per cent of Americans say they hear about global warming in the media ‘at least once a week’. This is the lowest percentage since the........

© Pearls and Irritations