on environmental issues. HANK C. JENKINS-SMITH: If you ask people in general, "What do most scientists believe?" majorities get it right. On the other hand, it doesn't take much to upset it. One or two cogent arguments about the problems with the science associated with climate change is enough to create substantial skepticism. FOCUS GROUP PARTICIPANT: There's so much range in the natural fluctuations of all of the attributes of the Earth that I don't think they can get a computer model to handle all of it. FOCUS GROUP PARTICIPANT: You know, you can't predict what's going to happen, you know, with the climate. Nobody can. That's my opinion. It's like, they say one thing one day, and the next day something else happens. FOCUS GROUP PARTICIPANT: The Iraq war, with the oil wells burning out of control- they were telling us we're going to have a nuclear winter because of all of this soot. HANK C. JENKINS-SMITH: It appears that it's going to take some convincing to get people to believe that this is a serious issue to which they should devote some attention, let alone resources. FOCUS GROUP PARTICIPANT: What, are you kidding? FOCUS GROUP LEADER : Suppose that you were able to vote on a national referendum to impose a tax on- just to keep it simple, let's put it on gasoline - which would put money into a fund to study this question. Would any of you vote for that kind of a referendum? FOCUS GROUP