Robert Bryce :
Worried about global warming?
Worried About Global Warming? Then You Are in the Minority
Last week, Gallup released the findings of a survey which found that just 28% of Americans worry “a great deal” about global warming. In fact, global warming ranked eighth among environmental concerns, behind other worries like drinking water pollution, pollution of rivers and lakes, toxic waste, air pollution, and loss of tropical rain forests.
According to Gallup, “Americans are now less worried about a series of environmental problems than at any time in the past 20 years. That could be due in part to Americans' belief that environmental conditions in the U.S. are improving. It also may reflect greater public concern about economic issues which is usually associated with a drop in environmental concern.”
Indeed, the survey on environmental issues came out just four days after Gallup released a survey which said that unemployment is the single most important problem now facing the US.
Worry About Environmental Problems
Source: Gallup
And while the souring of the US economy is important with regard to environmental issues, it’s interesting to see that global warming is not – pardon the pun here – a burning issue for the vast majority of Americans. Further, Gallup reports that over the last year, the number of Americans who worry “a great deal” about global warming has fallen from 33% to 28%.
This poll should be of concern to Democratic leaders in Congress, who are coming off of a major win with their passage of the healthcare reform package on Sunday. The findings of the Gallup poll reflect the long-term slide that environmental issues have in the minds of American voters. For instance, since 1989, the percentage of people who worry a great deal about pollution of rivers and lakes has declined from 72% to 46%.
Now, parsing poll numbers and trends, and discerning what is driving the changes in the poll numbers is always perilous, but it’s worth noting that global warming has never been a top issue among voters. The percentage of people who worry a great deal about global warming peaked at 41% in 2007, the year after Al Gore’s hit documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, was released. Further, the Gallup numbers show that global warming has never been a top environmental concern among voters.
Worry About Global Warming
Source: Gallup
In April of last year, President Barack Obama gave a speech to the National Academy of Sciences during which he said that he has “set a goal for our nation that we will reduce our carbon pollution by more than 80% by 2050.”
That may be the president’s goal. And top Democratic leaders in Congress may want to push for major reductions in carbon dioxide emissions as well. But making the political case for carbon reductions will be difficult. With healthcare, they tackled a populist issue that had plenty of appeal, particularly for working-class voters who lacked health insurance. And the Democrats succeeded in narrowly passing the healthcare package even though they faced a bruising battle with the Republicans.
Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts and other Democratic leaders are promising to bring a new energy/global warming bill to Congress over the next few weeks. They may do just that. But given that only about one-fourth of Americans are truly concerned about global warming, as well as the ragged state of the economy, the tattered reputation of the IPCC, and the recent cold winter that hammered much of the US, the opposition to any climate change legislation will be formidable. Indeed, opponents to such legislation must already be working on their talking points, the first of which may well be: “who really cares?”
Robert Bryce is managing editor of Energy Tribune. He is the author of Cronies: Oil, the Bushes, and the Rise of Texas, America's Superstate. His his third book, Petroleum Soldiers, will be published this fall. He can be reached at: robert@robertbryce.com. Petroleumworld does not necessarily share these views.
Editor's Note: This article was originally published by Energy Tribune on March 23, 2010. Petroleumworld reprint this article in the interest of our readers.
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