I happened to read this article from the Center for American Progress about the different groups found in polls about global warming. and was immediatley taken with the numbers. Here is the relevant figure I wish to discuss.
I've read a lot about how new ideas and innovations work their way through a population (here are some handy examples). What struck me was the these percentages are actually almost exactly the numbers one would expect to see for any innovation or idea moving its way through a society. Read the whole report . Seldom does a survey's report find people falling into similar 'types' seen that full scale research efforts also identified.
Look at the numbers - 18%, 33%, 19%, 12%, 11% and 7%. I've mentioned several times before the
From the work of Beal, Rogers and Bohlen (and the Wikipedia page), the distribution of each of these types in a population follows a bell curve,
Now look at the numbers from the global warming survey.They fit pretty well into these categories. Just another item to demonstrate how acceptance of a novel idea or innovation breaks down.
