Worrying trends in public perception of climate change data

The data below comes from a BBC poll into the public perception of the causes of climate change. This was published on the 5th of February and has had reasonably extensive coverage, but what is extremely troubling is that it similar to a trend seen in Australia.

The BBC data shows a huge increase in the amount of confusion about the cause of climate change and this probably has a lot to do with the mess the IPCC seems to find itself in and the debacle of the leaked climate change emails.

This is a quote from Dennis Shanahan in the Australian Newspaper today, which shows that there is some scepticism occuring quickly in Australia also;

There has also been a fall in the percentage of people who believe in climate change. In July 2008, 84 per cent of those surveyed believed climate change was happening and only 12 per cent did not believe it existed at all. Last weekend, the number who believed climate change existed had dropped to 73 per cent, down 11 points, and those who did not believe in it rose 10 points to 22 per cent.

This is overall pretty worrying. Two nations who need to lower its carbon emissions will soon have governments running very low on political capital on the issue.

New polling says it really is game on

There was some buoyant activists today in the Tooting Labour Party after the exciting news in today’s Observer regarding Labour’s improved showing in the latest opinion polls. The Conservative lead has dropped to just 6 points according to the latest Ipsos MORI poll. While 6 points is still a loss, it equals a hung parliament, which is obviously a better scenario than a complete Labour wipeout. But it could also be just the start of a fight back.

While I don’t think I can add that much more to the analysis of the result by Andrew Rawnsley and the UK Polling Report’s digestion, I can say that this is certainly going to lift the mood of the Labour faithful. This is going to lead to a more hopeful, and therefore more engaged Labour base.  Having people on the street, knocking on doors is vital and the more that come back to the fold because defeat is no longer inevitable, the better.

Hopefully, it will also lead to a more focused leadership, less rumours of a putsch and a more determined party overall.

 

Kevin Rudd improves in the polls

The Australian has released the latest polling figures for Kevin Rudd. They look good for the ALP and show that, for the time being anyway, the asylum seeker issue has run its course. This is also impressive considering that the polls were taken in 6 QLD marginals, if I’m reading my blogs correctly.  Let’s be honest, the Queensland ALP are slightly on the nose at the moment, so that means that the QLD public aren’t letting their issues with Bligh override their opinion of Rudd.

But lets face it, Rudd is currently very poll driven and his news drive after the negative figures came out last time could have made all the difference. Apologies separate, he has a mandate for change and it might be a stronger mandate come the election, so he really needs to use it to his advantage and push some high profile issues through.

It will be interesting to see how the results improve after the internationally positive coverage Rudd has received for trying to get the Climate Change talks back on track.

I’ll have a look at the Pollytics results this evening.

Here is the Australian article;

KEVIN Rudd is back in landslide territory if an election was held according to the latest Newspoll but the trend confirms a fall in two-party preferred support.

Malcolm Turnbull is also rebuilding trust with voters after the Utegate affair, recording the best result since his support crashed after he relied on a fake email to target the Prime Minister.

Newspoll, published exclusively in The Australian today has found two-party-preferred support for Labor is 56 per cent and support for the Coalition is 44 per cent.

That compares with a 52.7 per cent result for Labor at the last election.

The Prime Minister is still riding high with 63 per cent support on the question of who would make the better PM, unchanged from the previous Newspoll.

But Malcolm Turnbull has clawed back support from uncommitted voters, rising from 19 per cent to 22 per cent on the better PM question.

In the previous Newspoll primary vote support for Labor plunged by 7 percentage points, a result that appeared to spook the Prime Minister, who immediately undertook a saturation campaign defending the government’s border control policies on talkback radio.

Newspoll’s Martin O’Shannessy said the poll confirmed the trend picked up in the previous poll of a fall in two-party-preferred support for Labor since September.

“The interesting thing about Malcolm is he is rebuilding back to the levels before UteGate,” he said.

“But the Prime Minister’s support as the better prime minister has remained high in 11 consecutive Newspolls.”

Australian political polls – October

By Nick Osborne

I love political polling and electoral math, they make me happy, I don’t know why, especially when I hate normal math with a passion. Anyway.

I was on Pollytics this morning, which is an Australian blog that looks into polling and I thought I’d share some stats.

According to the media, Australian PM Kevin Rudd has allegedly taken a battering because of Australia’s reaction to the Asylum Seeker issue. But as you can see from the poll, little has changed and if there was an election, the Coaltion would be in severe trouble.

As Michelle Gratten states in her article, it only seems to be Rudd’s preferred leader numbers that have been hit and the ALP is only down 1 point in the two-partied preferred stats.

Essentially, people are saying, Rudd is being a bit soft, but Turnbull and the Coalition are nowhere to be seen, plus they were the party of Howard’s immigration policy

Love to know your thoughts on any of the other numbers.