Pew finds partisan split on climate change

WASHINGTON, Nov. 17 (UPI) -- Most respondents describing themselves as Republicans in the United States told pollsters they didn't believe in global warming, a Pew survey indicated.

As a whole, the American public is divided evenly over whether they think the scientific community has agreed that average global temperatures are rising because of human activity. In 2006, however, 56 percent of the respondents said they thought scientists were backing the claim.

Along party lines, the Pew Research Forum said that 79 percent of respondents describing themselves as Democrats told pollsters there was solid scientific evidence that global temperatures were rising. Slightly more than half, 53 percent of the total respondents, told pollsters the rise was because of human activity.

For those who described themselves as Republicans, 53 percent said there was no evidence that global temperatures were increasing. Only 16 percent of Republican respondents said that if there was global warming, humans were to blame.

Respondents who said they were members of the Tea Party overwhelmingly, 70 percent, said there was no evidence the Earth was warming.

Pew in its survey conducted by telephone from Oct. 13-18 found there was a general sentiment among Americans that the country needed to improve fuel efficiency and spend more on wind, solar and other green energy projects.

Pew interviewed 2,251 adults for the poll, which had a margin of error of no less than 2.5 percentage points.