83% of Brits Believe Global Warming is an Imminent Threat

England has been hit by unusually cold winters for the last two years -- the cold seasons of both 2009 and 2010 were more frigid than usual. And then there were those hacked climate emails -- which were actually leaked from a famous research center right there in England -- that breathless skeptics were eager to claim revealed that the whole global warming thing was a hoax. But wouldn't you know it; those two favorite skeptic talking points haven't gained much traction. The people of England still believe climate change poses as much of a threat now as they did two years ago.

Asked if climate change was a current or imminent threat, 83% of Britons agreed, with just 14% saying global warming poses no threat. Compared with August 2009, when the same question was asked, opinion remained steady despite a series of events in the intervening 18 months that might have made people less certain about the perils of climate change. Emails between climate researchers that were released online in November 2009 had led to unfounded suggestions that the scientific basis for global warming was flawed. World leaders also failed to agree to a global deal to combat warming and a mistake over the melting of Himalayan glaciers was handled badly by the UN's science panel.

Source:TreeHugger