One of the first things you’d want to know about climate change is how US public opinion corresponds with public opinion in other countries and with the opinions of scientists.
First, the bad news:
Americans assign a lower priority to climate change than people of any other country, according to a World Public Opinion poll.
Asked how high a priority their government should place on addressing climate change, most want a high priority–on average 7.33 on a 0-10 scale. The highest mean levels are found in Mexico (9.09), China (8.86), Turkey (8.34), and France (8.03). Only three nations had means below 6. The lowest was the United States (4.71).
The good news? Majorities in 15 of 19 nations surveyed think their government should put a higher priority on addressing climate change than it does now. This includes the largest greenhouse gas emitters: China (62% want more action), the US (52%), and Russia (56%). Germany has a 47% rating, but with the middle position (about right), public opinion there is about like the US.
Polling Report is one place to keep track of polling on environmental issues. One of the most telling recent polls was a CNN survey of Americans in April 2009. According to that poll:
54% think the government can slow or stop climate change
27% think the government cant do anything about it
17% say its not happening at all.
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(** It’s interesting that this number, 17%, comes up in other public opinion polls. A Sept. 2008 poll for the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition also found that 17 percent of West Virginia residents said global warming is “not a problem.” )
Now the really bad news: Americans are losing their appreciation for science. In a Pew Center poll released in July, fewer Americans volunteer scientific advances as one of the country’s most important achievements than did so a decade ago (27% today, 47% in May 1999).
This is one of many indicators that Americans are headed down the road that Carl Sagan warned about in his 1995 book, the Demon-Haunted World:
“I have a foreboding of … a (future) service and information economy … when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority … The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media ..”