the general public education in sciences is very poor, add to that the right wing FOX news and you have a lot of ignorance. Millions of Americans believe the entire universe was created in 6 days about 6000 years ago.

"The World Economic Forum ranks the United States 52nd in the quality of mathematics and science education, and 5th (and declining) in overall global competitiveness" (First link)

That being said, they have some of the finest universities and research labs in the world. NASA and Dr Hansen are Americans.

The Kyoto treaty fell apart. Countries learned that they were being scammed. Any "consensus" is a figment of doomsday-lovers' imagination (see the discredited website "skeptical science" which is neither skeptical nor scientific). Actual science shows that manmade effect on the current natural warming variation in temperature is about .01 of a degree C. If you depend entirely on wiki for your information, you get your information slanted toward the wiki managers' opinion, which is decidedly catastrophic anti-human. Sorry.

I think the crux of the issue is social in nature. America, like most democracies, is a country in which great emphasis is placed on individuality. In such societies, non-conformity is seen as a positive trait. In other countries, such as Japan, the society is very different and conformity is prized. And I think there is a definite section of the population in the US and other nations who will take the contrary view to the 'established' one because that is partially how one defines your individuality.

There is also something rather attractive about taking the contrary view to that of the 'establishment'. You might call it the 'Lone Gunman' phenomenon, after the nerds in the X-Files. Nations like the US have a long history of journalists and others digging away for the truth, exposing fraud, scandal, or criminal activity, and bringing people to account. It is these people we praise in democratic societies, and taking the contrary view places people into this mould. It isn't simply that you've taken the contrary view, it's that you and a small band of people like you are striving to expose the truth against insurmountable odds. There is, in other words, a form of self-glorification.

Now add to that the fact that most people are quite conservative. When the 'established' view upsets that conservative view then you have problems. People don't like bad news, particularly if that news involves you having to change aspects of your lives. It's in some ways easier to believe it's a lie, and hence you can glorify your position as a Lone Gunman, rather than accept that you might have to change behaviour. People still smoke despite knowing it causes cancer, despite all the efforts to 'change behaviour' because that's the one thing that takes a long time to do.

Now you add into the mix that the US has become increasingly xenophobic. It isn't just that climate change is happening, or that US scientists and others are lying to the public and need to be exposed by the small band of crusaders fighting against 'the Man' for 'the truth', it's also that foreign, non-US organisations are trying to 'meddle' in US affairs. We've seen already people here referring wrongly to Spain's economy (it wasn't green energy but the collapse of their construction industry, like in Ireland, that pushed them over the edge as a result of bad loans by banks) and to pushing the US into a 'third-world' economy. Anything foreign is bad. Anything American is good. And sections of the population see anything being handed to the US from organisations such as the UN as a loss of power and a loss of sovereignty.

Finally, there is the uncomfortable reality for Americans that they are the bad guys. They are the biggest polluters and the biggest problem. It's easier to argue 'if we change it, we'll harm our big economy' and therefore shirk responsibility rather than 'how do maintain our economy and also change it'.

Most of the rejection of AGW has nothing to do with science and everything to do with individualism and conservatism.

The US does not have a very solid science education for all. Some schools and universities do it well, but large numbers are disenfranchised when it comes to basic science, mathematics, logic and free thought. You just need to look at some of the answers by the deniers to see the result.

So it is easy for the vested interests to manipulate the uneducated masses. That is the way the 0.1% of ultra wealthy like it and so that is the way it is going to stay.

When you have a LOT of money and power climate change is not really a problem for you personally. With enough money you can always find a comfortable place to live. The lives of others do not concern them.

You can see by some of the answers not just to this question but others also how totally fanatically indoctrinated the followers of the denier cult are. No evidence, no logic will sway them. A bit like the Headless Monks from Dr Who, By removal of the head they were impervious to being swayed by reason or logic.

"i've checked the included sources and they seem very legitimate."

[79] and [200] are from the US NAS and the UK RS. The Royal Society used to have the principle that they never got involved in anything political. Someone has leant on both of them to get involved and issue a statement. Neither body asked their membership for input so those documents will not necessarily be representative of their membership. In fact, I do not know of any scientific organisation that has polled its membership before issuing a statement. So all the so-called corroborative evidence could have come from the two volunteer activists that opted to join the Climate Change Committee of their institution.

[201] is the Cook et al paper. They do not include much of the data in the paper and Professor Richard Tol at Sussex University in the UK is trying to get access to the raw data to replicate the results. The authors have not made it freely available and the last I heard about half of it was still to be released.

If you look at the categories they used in the survey one was for the abstracts of papers that thought most of the warming (over 50%) was caused by humans. It turns out that only 0.3% of the abstracts fell into this category. So the data collected for that paper shows that 99.7% of abstracts say that man is not the major contributor to climate change.

They managed to spin that into a 97% vote for AGW! I am sorry, but that does not sound legitimate to me. How much more peer-reviewed climate science is in the same category?

The other problems are: it has been warmer before, we have had much more CO2 in the atmosphere before and temperature changes cause CO2 increases - not the other way round.

"Why are Americans (and Canadians) so out of the loop? " Perhaps they are the sensible ones?