The Great Global Warming Disconnect

Fifty percent of Americans are now "concerned believers" in global warming. That's the finding of a new Gallup "cluster analysis" of responses to a poll conducted earlier this month. It's also a record -- although the percentage was actually pretty similar (49 percent) back in 2001, when the data series began. The analysis currently places 31 percent of U.S. adults in the "mixed middle" on climate change, and classifies 19 percent as "cool skeptics."

If you prefer your polling data raw rather than analyzed in clusters and given nicknames, here's how Americans have responded to Gallup's questions since 1989 about their level of concern about global warming (Gallup didn't ask the question every year; the dotted lines in the chart represent years with no data):1490644107328