In a poll for the London Times, "Only 41 percent accept as an established scientific fact that global warming is taking place and is largely man-made. Thirty two percent, believe that the link is not yet proved; eight percent say it is environmentalist propaganda to blame man and 15 percent believe the world is not warming. Only slightly more than a quarter (28 percent) think climate change is the most serious problem that the world faces." (see here)
Climate change is the greatest counter-intuitive philosophical problem of all time. The science is so complicated, the vested interests so powerful, the climate lag so long, the amount of change required to produce critical impacts is so unexpectedly small – and the ability of society and our leaders to understand sophisticated science so limited – it is a wonder that there is as much comprehension as there is.
Right now, major ecosystems around the world are failing, some catastrophically, yet the public is grossly unaware. Caribou herds are collapsing, there is pine beetle pandemic 20 times larger than ever recorded before and it will likely not stop until it encompasses all of North America and primary productivity in the Great Southern Ocean has begun a decline that will likely see the extinction of a major component of primary productivity on earth. (here, here and here)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6916648.ece