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Not as much as they might like. At least in the USA, according to a recently published survey from the Harvard Institute of Politics.
This was a survey of people 18 to 29 years old - in other words those who have spent their entire lives under the shadow of the CO2 Frenzy, and during almost all of whose lives, the overall global warming trend has been around a distinctly un-alarming 1 deg C per century, and sometimes with no rising trend at all for many years at a time.
The summarised responses to each question can be found here: http://iop.harvard.edu/sites/default/files_new/IOPSpring15%20PollTopline.pdf
Four of them mention climate change, and these results are reproduced below:
20-24 Now thinking specifically about Barack Obama, do you approve or disapprove of the way he is handling:
20. Climate change.
Approve........................................................... 50%
Disapprove ..................................................... 48%
Decline to answer............................................. 2%
85. Government should do more to curb climate change, even at the expense of economic growth.
Strongly agree ................................................. 12%
Somewhat agree .............................................. 20%
Neither agree nor disagree .............................. 44%
Somewhat disagree ......................................... 12%
Strongly disagree ............................................. 11%
Decline to answer............................................... 1%
96. Hydraulic fracturing or ‘fracking’ is a process used to more easily extract natural gas and oil by injecting a highly pressurized mixture of water, sand and chemicals into the ground. Supporters say that using this technique on American natural gas deposits can boost the country’s energy independence, can lower energy costs and create jobs. Opponents say that the technique can contaminate drinking water and air, can cause small earthquakes and contribute to climate change. Based on what you know at this time, do you support or oppose the use of fracking in America?
Strongly support............................................. 9%
Somewhat support........................................ 31%
Somewhat oppose ....................................... 35%
Strongly oppose ........................................... 23%
Decline to answer........................................... 2%
97. Which of the following statements comes closer to your point of view?
The United States should take action to address climate change, regardless of whether or not other nations have agreed to it....... 67%
The United States should only take action to address climate change if most other nations agree to take action as well............ 31%
Decline to answer............................. 2%
What are we to make of this? Well, once again 'climate change' in the survey is not adequately defined, and this may well be deliberate. The term is, after all, a neutral one when taken at face value. But we know that CO2 Alarm campaigners do not use it that way - they use it as short-hand for catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (cagw). How different might the responses have been if this had been used instead, especially if preceded by 'the conjecture of'?
So we must take the results with a large pinch of salt since they will depend on just how the ostensibly neutral and un-alarming phrase 'climate change' was interpreted.
But what is clear, is that opinion (about something called 'climate change') is very divided indeed. Some 48% don't approve of President Obama's approach (and he bigs it up big-time as a planetary crisis). Some 57% fail to even just 'somewhat agree' that 'government should do more to curb climate change', whatever it was taken to be. 40% support or strongly support fracking, an activity widely detested by CO2 Alarmers. These alarmers might well be pleased, however, that about two-thirds of the survey respondents think that the United States should 'take action' to address whatever it is. But since that could include wanting the government to encourage more fossil-fuel power stations to help citizens cope with climate variation, it is not by any means conclusive!
The full-time Alarm campaigners will be pleased that there is still work for them to do, still a need to jet around the world to exotic places for glamorous conferences, still plenty need to make portentous speeches about the end of the world, still a need to raise funds for their chosen way of life. But others may be pleased that the brainwashing does not seem to have overwhelmed young people, and that this is encouraging.
Now to help develop a scientifically appropriate view on all of this, I commend the following words from Richard Lindzen, whom I regard as the world's most distinguished climate scientist:
'The implausibility or even outright silliness through which global warming became global warming catastrophism is so extensive that one hardly knows where to begin. It is crucial to emphasise catastrophism because the situation is made even more incoherent by the intentional conflation of simple basic results that are widely agreed upon, but which have no catastrophic implications, with catastrophism itself. Currently, there really is quite a lot of basic agreement within the climate science world:
• climate change exists
• there has been warming since the Little Ice Age ended around the beginning of the 19th century (well before emissions are regarded as contributing significantly)
• human emissions can contribute to climate change
• levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have been increasing.
None of this is controversial and none of this actually implies alarm.'
This is from a lecture given in 2015. The text is here, and well worth reading in full: http://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2016/03/Lindzen.pdf
In fact, why not print it out and give copies to any 18 to 29 year-olds of your acquaintance?
