UN meets to discuss climate change, but do people care?

Today saw representatives from nearly 100 nations meeting at the UN to discuss climate change. The intent of the one day summit was to reintegrate the importance of tackling the problem along with discovering what nation's were serious about doing something about global warming. This event was also the first time President Obama spoke to the UN. Though he talked about the importance and dire need of action, he gave no specifics of what the US will do to help curb pollutants linked to global warming. China and Australia also rallied for action. This summit is also an important lead in to the major Copenhagen summit which will occur at the end of the year. However, are people listening or do they even care?

Last week I wrote an article on my examiner site about Gallup polls regarding people's opinion of climate change. Interestingly, figures compiled in March of this year indicate that the vast majority of the public in both the US and UK believe the "doom & gloom" scenario depicted in the media is exaggerated. In other words, people agree there is a problem, but believe it is not as bad as what is shown on the TV. In fact, it appears that the only ones really getting scared about global warming and climate change are the politicians.

Personally, I believe there is a major problem that should be examined closely. I also believe that climate change is due to a combination of man made causes and nature. The politicians are correct in wanting to curb pollutants produced by their individual countries. Each nation should be held accountable but no one nation should be held accountable more than any other. However, the gloom and doom model is not working and as the Gallup polls show, people are not overly concerned. What do you think?