Beliefs About Climate Change Hold Steady
Poll Shows Most
Americans Doubt Hurricanes Are Linked to Global Warming
By Richard Morin, Washington Post Staff Writer
A majority of Americans
believe Earth’s atmosphere is heating up, but they doubt that global warming is to blame for the deadly storms that have struck the
United States this hurricane season, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.
The survey found that 56 percent believed that
global warming is occurring, whereas 40 percent said they were not convinced. That is unchanged from a poll conducted in April, before
the hurricane season, which suggests that hurricanes Katrina and Rita did not substantially alter the public’s view on climate change.
…
The new poll found that relatively few Americans saw the recent storms as God’s work, and only a fraction of those said the
storms were divine punishment.
About one in four Americans — 23 percent — viewed the storms as “deliberate acts of God.” Among
those who saw a divine hand at work this hurricane season, only 8 percent believed that God sent the storms to punish sinners. About half
said the storms were intended as a “warning,” but one in seven viewed them as tests of faith. Evangelical Christians were only slightly
more likely than the general public to see hurricanes as acts of God or to view them as a divine punishment.
A total of 1,019
randomly selected adults were interviewed by telephone Sept. 23 to 27. The margin of sampling error for the overall results is plus or
minus three percentage points.
The Deluge – Complete Coverage of
Hurricane Katrina — Beliefnet.com [mjh: a less scientific poll of “believers”]
But he PROMISED. Oh,
wait, I’ve just read Genesis, Chapter 9 in its entirety. These folks may have something here after all. If any of you happen to also
read my blog, http://www.walkingraven.com, you know about God’s forgetfulness when it comes to the earth and rain. See my September 9, 2005
entry “Of Rosemary [for rememberance] and Flies to Wanton Boys.” Chapter 9 is where God makes his covenant with Noah to never again
destroy the earth by flood. As a sign of this promise, he set his bow in the sky. Well, it turns out the rainbow isn’t so much a sign
as the equivalent of a string around his finger — one that would, of course, befit a deity of his stature. At least that’s what he
indicates to Noah in verses 14 -15 when he explains, “When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will
remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood
to destroy all flesh.” And then, as is often the case with the elderly, he repeats himself in verse 16, “When the bow is in the clouds,
I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” (I might
also be a little worried about his tendency to disassociate.) In any event, I guess hurricanes become category 5’s when God’s being
particulary absent-minded. And now you know the rest of the story.