Not scary enough: more Americans believe in haunted houses than human caused global warming

Watts Up With That?
Tuesday, Oct 27th, 2009

We’ve seen that man-made global warming has taken some hits in the opinion polls lately, and that its 10 minutes of fame may be over, but sharp eyed blogger Dave R. at Care2 spotted this zinger. I’ve posted the graphs and tables from the polls with highlights below.

Dave R writes: 

In the United States, more people believe that houses can be haunted by the dead than believe that the living can cause climate change. Is this simply a scary Halloween tale or our frightening future?

The latest Pew poll on global warming shows a large drop in the percentage of Americans who say there is solid evidence that global temperatures are rising, from 71% down to only 57% in the last 18 months. And global warming due to human activity? The overall numbers have declined from 47% to 36%. To put this in perspective, a Gallup poll found that 37% of Americans believe that houses can be haunted.

Here’s the Pew poll graphics:

And the Gallup Poll says:

Of course the margins of error for each poll is probably greater than the 1% difference noted, but it is still darn funny.

Perhaps next, to prop up the numbers, the two issues will get fused.

On the Care2 website, DaveR has a poll of his own that asks:

“Does global warming frighten you more than ghosts?”

So far, the Yes votes far outnumber the Noes.

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