Many Americans reject evolution, deny climate change and find GM food unsafe, survey finds. This study points to worrying gulf between the opinions held by scientists:  Many Americans reject evolution, deny climate change and find GM food unsafe, survey finds.

The report by the Pew Research Center in Washington DC was conducted with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and sought to compare the opinions of a cross-section of the US public with those held by the AAAS’s scientific members.

Published in the journal Science, the survey found that 31% of the US public believed that humans had existed in their present form since the beginning, with a further 24% stating that humans had evolved under the guiding hand of a supreme being. In contrast, only 2% of AAAS scientists said humans had not evolved in their time on Earth.

The proportion of the public who believed evolution had happened through natural processes, as described by Charles Darwin more than 150 years ago, was only slightly greater than a third at 35%. The survey drew on phone interviews with 2,002 US adults chosen to be representative of the nation, and online questions of 3,748 US-based members of the AAAS.

In some cases, a poor science education was at the heart of the differences in opinion, Leshner said. “Sometimes it’s simply a lack of understanding, sometimes it’s an economic or a politicial issue, and sometimes it’s a conflict between, say, core religious belief, or core values, and what science is showing,” he said. “In all of these cases, science is being trumped by these other factors and scientists need to do something to turn that around.”

“It’s not about whether the public is dumb or not. It’s partly a function of the American educational system that does a terrible job … at educating young people in science, math and technology,” he added.

Update: Article in today’s NYT shows majority backing for action on Climate Change.

See some personal advice from an expert: How to Survive a Disaster.

Re a recent speech by Fugate in FL, see: FEMA head: Rebuild wisely after disasters. Excerpts from the article follow:

The hundreds of billions Florida would have to spend dealing with a massive hurricane on the scale of 1992’s Hurricane Andrew would dwarf the costs linked to Hurricane Katrina and Superstorm Sandy, the nation’s top emergency management official told House lawmakers Tuesday.

Craig Fugate, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, told a House subcommittee that’s why it’s important to rebuild coastal areas ravaged by storms in a way that makes them less vulnerable to future catastrophes.

“There’s a certain amount of risk out there right now,” Fugate told the House Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee on emergency management. “We’ve modeled some of these disasters (and) they’re actually bigger than Sandy. We have to make sure that, as we go in after a disaster, we’re not (going) to come back and repeat it over and over again.”

Climate Change Is Making Blizzards Like The One Hitting New England Much Worse, Scientists Say.

Another epic blizzard is bearing down on New England. There is a “big part” played by “human-induced climate change,” especially warming-fueled ocean temperatures according to Dr. Kevin Trenberth, former head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. ***  He explained:

The number 1 cause of this is that it is winter. In winter it is cold over the continent. But it is warm over the oceans and the contrast between the cold continent and the warm Gulf Stream and surrounding waters is increasing. At present sea surface temperatures are more the 2F above normal over huge expanses (1000 miles) off the east coast and water vapor in the atmosphere is about 10% higher as a result. About half of this can be attributed to climate change.

Thanks to Pierre Picard for this citation.

In the latest issue of the Hazards Observer, there is an article titled Rebuild by Design; Lessons learned from the evaluation of HUD’s post-Sandy resilience design competition, by Carlos Marti (go to pages 6-13). Carlos Martín, PhD, is a Senior Research Associate in the Urban Institute’s Metropolitan Policy Center.

For those of you who share my interest in the innovative efforts made after H. Sandy, this assessment of the Rebuild by Design effort is of special note. But, I am not clear what the reviewer thinks of the effort – one the one hand it was highly original, but difficult to implement, and on the other hand it was duplicative and tiring for the participants. Plus, this effort was in addition to the usual recovery planning efforts.

I would be interested in what the readers of this blog think about the experiment.
As you may know, the Rockefeller Foundation is continuing its efforts to achieve resilience during recovery. So, it is important that the results of the Rebuild by Design effort be known and perhaps replicated.

I recently got this announcement: A draft programme for the Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction to be held from 14 to 18 March 2015 in Sendai City, Miyagi, Japan is now available.