Climate change barely bothers wealthy, polluting nations: study

The bigger a nation's wealth and carbon footprint, the less its residents care about global warming. That's according to an online survey of 46 countries on every continent by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

The prosperous Dutch appeared the least worried about the prospect of future rising oceans and wild card weather, even though half of the Netherlands lies one meter below sea level. The next least concerned were people in Russia, the United States, Latvia, and Estonia.

"If you take global warming to heart, you understand that you have to sacrifice something," study author Hanno Sandvik said in a statement. "And the richer you are, the less willing you are to sacrifice. It's far more pleasant to decide that you actually don't quite believe in the climate threat."

The report ranked nations with the highest levels of greenhouse gas emissions as the United Arab Emirates, the United States, Canada, Australia, and Estonia. The least concerned nations with the most carbon pollution as well as wealth were Norway, the United States, Ireland, Denmark, and Canada.

However, Americans are the world's least "green" consumers, according to a report released last week by National Geographic and GlobeScan.

The journal Climatic Change, edited at Stanford University, is publishing the Norwegian study.

[Leria]

A better thing to link this to would be that most people in wealthy countries are smarter than those in other countries, have seen and heard of the melting of the polar icecaps on MARS that has speeded up recently, and have realized that the real issue is not carbon emissions by the people on this planet, but more energy being put out by the sun..... something that we absolutely CANNOT control or mitigate in ANY fashion.

[Renegade Knight]

You could be right about the natural cycle. Science agrees with the assessment that the natural cycle could be a part of the issue. You would be wrong to think it can't be mitigated at some level.

[ebeamsales]

Leria, well said. Even though it doesn't conform with the Liberal mindset.

[keaggy220]

I agree with the first comment. I have a stronger belief in the tooth fairy than ego-centric man-made global warming. One other thing to chew on is that developing nations realize that the most likely scenario for a corrective global environmental plan will include a redistribution of wealth which translates into $$$ for them at the expense of wealthy nations.

[Renegade Knight]

Given that redistribution of weath is an economic concept and not a scientific fix to global warming I'm not sure that you have read up on many potential solutions.

[suyts]

I really doubt the veracity of this study. It is hard to believe that the poor people of a 3rd world nation really give a whit about some fairy tale carbon story. After reading the story, I find 3 lists of nations. Only one nation is listed on all 3. While I believe the point of the story was an attempt to paint the U.S. in a bad light, it only encourages me in regards to the apparent free THINKING and free will of our citizenry Fact is, the earth hasn't warmed since 1998 and isn't expected to for at least another decade.<br /><a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.dailytech.com/Temperature+Monitors+Report+Worldwide+Global+Cooling/article10866.htm" target="_newWindow">http://www.dailytech.com/Temperature+Monitors+Report+Worldwide+Global+Cooling/article10866.htm</a><br /><a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&#38;sid=aU.evtnk6DPo&#38;refer=worldwide" target="_newWindow">http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&#38;sid=aU.evtnk6DPo&#38;refer=worldwide</a><br />Look for the warming whack jobs to become more shrill as they realize their house is a house of cards and a cooling wind is about to blow.

[Leria]

You hit the nail on the head. The global warming Nazi's are going to become more shrill as more data comes out and more people realize that the planet has actually COOLED a little since 1990. Just a 1/2 degree, but it has still cooled.<br /><br />As to the polar ice caps..... those have disappeared almost TOTALLY many times throughout the history of this planet or disappeared totally! We cannot do ANYTHING to prevent that in reality.<br />Even if all humanity were to DIE OFF TOMORROW, the polar ice caps would STILL be melting 200 years from now, because the SUN is the only thing that regulates whether they expand or disappear.

[Renegade Knight]

Fair point. I also have a hard time believing that the 3rd world cars more about global warming than western nations. Did anyone poll the Sudan?

[david__B]

Here comes the backlash against the Media that are COMPLETELY Liberal and have bought in to this "man made global warming" fantasy created by scientists and politicians looking for 1 thing, MONEY.<br /><br />And people wonder why Fox News in 3 years started beating CNN.<br /><br />Please learn to be a little more OBJECTIVE in your reporting Cnet.

[henryhayne]

The fact that there is global warming seems undeniable. Humans seem to be contributing to it by increasing animal herds(methane), land use, and Carbon Dioxide production. The last having the least effect, and maybe none. Global warming will stress a number of species, but it is actually no threat at all to people. It will increase the amount of arable land for food production. Coastlines may change some, some islands will be lost, but overall, humanity will adapt to a newer, more fecund world.<br /> Secondly, what does the world know of the attitudes of most of the worlds tyrannies. It is that of what the government wants or else. In any case I doubt that the study can know what the people of the third world think about what most of them do not understand at all, other that they have been told it is bad.<br /> I did notice that most of the countries listed had good educations for most of their populace. They must realize that poverty kills much faster and much more efficiently than climate change, and that energy, nuclear, coal, oil, etc. is the source of most of the worlds wealth.

[garyc.lewis]

I keep hearing about wealth redistribution. Someone needs to explain this to me because it makes no sense. If we are going to start moving away from an oil based economy will this not open up new opportunities in alternative energy? Will not building nuclear plants, large scale solar and wind farms, even ocean current turbines create entire industries? With oil at $125 a barrel and gas at $4 a gallon and going up, and wage being stagnant we are going to need to move away from a completely oil based economy because as expensive as things are now wait until gas reaches $8 a gallon.

[algistd]

If you don't beleive in Global warming then watch these 2 documentaries and you will see that many have been conned.<br /><br />The Denial Machine<br /><a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/denialmachine/video.html" target="_newWindow">http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/denialmachine/video.html</a><br /><a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/video_player.html?denial" target="_newWindow">http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/video_player.html?denial</a><br /><br />The American Denial of Global Warming<br /><a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.uctv.tv/search-details.asp?showID=13459" target="_newWindow">http://www.uctv.tv/search-details.asp?showID=13459</a><br /><br />State of the planet and humanity<br />A collection of news articles, documetaries and videos from across the net<br />www.aroadmap2extinction.com

[suyts]

Okay, I watched that tripe. Now read the links I provided above. If you believe that the earth has warmed since 1998 then you have been blindly following some real whack jobs. Check the numbers for yourself. See where the original hockey stick was in error. See for yourself how it couldn't possibly been accidental. No one told me to NOT believe in this man-caused carbon BS. I checked the numbers myself. I did the math myself. I encourage you to do the same. If you do, you'll find that is indeed a fraud being perpetrated on yourself and the rest of the people on earth.<br />"Blind acceptance is a sign, of stupid fools who stand in line." John Lydon.

[jemiller0]

You are just in denial because you want to continue driving your oil wasting Hummer. Regardless of whether global warming is real or not, the fact is that oil is going to run out sooner or later. Why **** it away? It could be put to better use making things like plastic. Do you actually like depending on the middle east for oil? Do you like filling the pockets of dictators and screwing up the environment? What about air pollution? Do you actually like breathing car exhaust? People like you are why this country is as screwed up as it is.

[suyts]

I'm not sure who you are replying to but I'd like to say that regardless of which side of the GW fence anyone is on, no one is against cutting the ties to mideast oil, or for breathing car exhaust, or making small dictators rich. The path to these goals is where many disagree. The fact of the matter is, one can't bicycle goods and produce to a store near you. Nor, can one bicycle electric transmission lines up. If we can have a viable alternative to fossil fuels, I'm all for it. Until then, we should pump the oil we have underneath us.....+10 billion barrels not allowed in Alaska....4.3 billion in the Dakota's yet untapped,(those 2 locations alone would make up the oil the U.S. imports for 2 years) we have coal in abundance mine it, fuel our power plants, and let other technologies mature. End result, cheap energy, easy transition to alternative power sources.