Flat Earth news

Thanks to Paul Colgan (@colgo on Twitter) for highlighting this: according to the latest Newspoll, only 5 per cent of Australians think climate change is not at all caused by human activity. Ninety-four per cent of us think human activity is involved to some degree or other. Now I know weight of numbers doesn't necessarily make a thing right, but why does the media - especially the opinion pages of some newspapers and most talkback radio jocks - give such credence to opinions held by such a small minority, especially when the overwhelming evidence of science is that we are at least partly responsible for climate change?