People believe in thing they have never heard of

For the first time, we have found less than 50 per cent of Australians think climate change is real.

For the first time! Ever! It is indeed interesting that in the 1970s and '60s, before the term 'climate change' had been invented, high percentages of people nevertheless managed to believe in the phenomenon. But I just don't think that's enough. With a little hard work, and some targeted and imaginative public awareness campaigns, and the spirited participation of the media, perhaps we can get even more people in the past to believe in climate change before those people in the past reach the future, which is the present, and it's too late (or possibly too late to be too early). We might, of course, be tempted to ask ourselves, 'how is it that even less people believe in climate change now, long after the concept has been invented, than then, when nobody had heard in it, but kept on believing in it anyway?' We might, indeed, be tempted to see this as failure of our current approach towards publicising matters relating to climate change. But such temptations should be resisted!

Sadly, however, polling of people of previous generations in relation to the existence of Justin Bieber shows that few people in the past know who he is, and even fewer care. People of the past! Strive to be more like us, right now, which I suppose means then, or whenever it was that you are able to make it!

... Since we began polling climate change in 2008, this is the first time we have seen acceptance of climate change slip under 50 per cent.

Oh. Two years? Hmmm...

(Via Tim)