41% Now Say Global Warming is Caused By Human Activity, More Say Planetary Trends

Most U.S. voters continue to be concerned about global warming but still are more inclined to think it's caused by planetary trends rather than human activity.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters finds that 41% think global warming is caused primarily by human activity, while 47% say long-term planetary trends are to blame. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

This is consistent with findings for nearly two years. A higher percentage of voters have consistently blamed global warming on planetary trends rather than human activity since early February 2009 despite the insistence of President Obama, the United Nations and a large part of the world scientific community that humans are the bigger culprits.

Regardless of what’s to blame, voters take global warming seriously. Fifty-nine percent (59%) say it is at least a somewhat serious problem, including 32% who see it as Very Serious. But this concern has fallen since last November when the so-called ‘Climategate’ scandal broke, raising questions about the reliability of pro-global warming research. Thirty-eight percent (38%) now do not see global warming as a serious problem, including 16% who say it's Not At All Serious.

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The survey of 1,000 U.S. Likely Voters was conducted on December 7-8, 2010 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted byPulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

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