Those "Highly Concerned" were most supportive of government policies but also the least likely to report personal efforts to improve conditions

A few days ago I had a post headed by a quote from Gelnn Reynolds, I'll believe it's a crisis when the people who keep telling me it's a crisis start acting like it's a crisis.

I am in the awkward position of being both an invested environmentalist/conservationist and a anthropogenic global warming skeptic. I spend plenty of time and money on environmental causes, leading a couple of local groups in old forest conservation and greenspace restoration. At the same time I am deeply skeptical of the AGW advocacy for two reasons. The first has to do with the science of it. The systems are complex, our knowledge trivial, our data minuscule and our models deplorably inaccurate. The second reason has to do with the money and the sociology. The vested economic interests are transparent and "climategate" and its subsequent revelations reveal that there is a manufactured effort to push an idea and manipulate information for reasons other than the science.

Other than being irritated at the easy manipulation of the press by vested interest advocacy groups, there is not much I can do until the foolishness passes.

This might be one more crack in the facade. From Believing in climate change, but not behaving sustainably: Evidence from a one-year longitudinal study by Michael P. Halla, Neil A. Lewis, Jr., and Phoebe C. Ellsworth. From the Abstract:

We conducted a one-year longitudinal study in which 600 American adults regularly reported their climate change beliefs, pro-environmental behavior, and other climate-change related measures. Using latent class analyses, we uncovered three clusters of Americans with distinct climate belief trajectories: (1) the “Skeptical,” who believed least in climate change; (2) the “Cautiously Worried,” who had moderate beliefs in climate change; and (3) the “Highly Concerned,” who had the strongest beliefs and concern about climate change. Cluster membership predicted different outcomes: the “Highly Concerned” were most supportive of government climate policies, but least likely to report individual-level actions, whereas the “Skeptical” opposed policy solutions but were most likely to report engaging in individual-level pro-environmental behaviors. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

So those most concerned about AGW and most desirous of having the government impose costs on everyone else for no real gain, are also those least willing to do anything about the environment or climate change themselves. Meantime, those most skeptical of the AGW political charade are the ones most involved in conducting real environmental conservation. I am not surprised; that accords with my experience.